Re: Your Favorite Install Tool?

["Crash Gordon" <webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

too many words!
see inline.....


"Sylvain Robitaille" <syl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:slrndlu1gm.51kq.syl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| petem wrote:
|
| > stop giving this much information ..you will make it look like rocket
| > science  ;-)
|
| On the one hand, nothing will replace the experience that someone who's
| been doing this for years already has.  On the other hand, if said
| experience can be helpful in keeping a determined do-it-yourselfer from
| making the rookie mistakes, I'll take as much as I can get.
|
| > Switching to French mode........
|
| (oh ... man ... you don't want to be subjected to my written French ...)
|
| > Sylvain si tu veut plus d'info demande moi!!
| > je travaille pour la plus grosse compagnie quebecoise en alarme...
|
| To be honest, the things I need the most help with are the types of
| things that we've been discussing here.  I appreciate your offer, but
| I'm always a lot more comfortable getting this type of information in a
| discussion forum such as this one than in a one-on-one conversation, and
| I'm certainly not looking for someone to do the work for me.
|
| On the one hand, with a one-on-one conversation, the discussion can be
| more streamlined to my specific installation in my specific house, but on
| the other hand, in a more general discussion I'm able to get different
| angles and benefit from the different experiences offered by all who
| partake, and I'll be able to apply these to my own situation.  As I've
| mentioned already, I'll even be able to apply some of what's been
| discussed here to other projects that aren't related to my alarm
| installation, but that will have me running wires through walls and in
| the attic.
|
| I'll remember to keep the alarm panel to under 12 feet from the floor,
| and to keep the cut-off labelled ends from the service loops at all
| my sensors.  ;-)
|
| Incidentally, there is something that I still haven't asked, and have
| been trying to puzzle out.  I'm sure that I can get several different
| answers, each with benefits in certain cases, if I ask it right ...
|
| Where exactly should the sensors go?  I know that with motion sensors, I
| want to cover the traffic areas between livable rooms as well as
| possible, for example.  I'm not (currently) planning any glass-break
| sensors (if anyone breaks these windows without drawing attention, the
| alarm won't draw attention either), or smoke/heat sensors (we already
| use battery-powered smoke detectors, and plug-in CO detectors).

Read the installation instructions for the model detector you have purchased
and for the application you will use it for. Typically PIRS are at 8' fff. I
always position them looking into the house to avoid point at hot window
curtains that may move when airconditioning comes on...particularaaarllary
vertical blinds (!). Glassbreaks are great, I always install a mix of PIRS
and GBs.



| What I don't know is where to put the magnetic switches for doors and
| windows.  Hinge side?  Strike side?  Top?  Bottom?  Middle?  Things to
| be aware of and to look out for?

Mostly dictated by building construction and where you can get a wire TO. My
order of preference for doors:
Leading Edge a foot above or below lock (easy to service not likely to false
do to door warping)
Top Middle or towards hinge
Hinge side (not like to false but a pain in the butt to get the magnet
distance correct so the switch will open when the door opens)
BOTTOM? not on a door :-)

Windows:
Bottom or leading edge (bottom on sliders if you want to vent the window)
Top only when necessary
windows vary.

I prefer small surface mount contacts on windows in most cases...due to
lightning and other service reasons. In residences I don't like recessed
window contacts.

|
| I'm assuming that I will have the round "concealed" switches in a front
| and back door, and I may want to use the same for a patio door, and that
| I'll use the rectangular surface-mount switches (these have gotten quite
| small, at least) for windows (no sliding windows -- all openable windows
| swing open from a manual crank at the base of each window).
|
| Should I consider the concealed sensors for the windows as well, or
| are there reasons (such as "don't risk breaking seals in your windows")
| not to do that?
|
| I do know (well, "believe"; it has happened to a friend's system) that
| with the concealed sensors in doors, if they're improperly installed,
| false alarms can result from the house shifting, causing the sensor to
| become misaligned (or someone knocking hard?).  I'd like to avoid that
| if I can, and I don't doubt that you guys each have methods which do,
| so I'm hoping you can advise me accordingly.
|
| Are there any photographs online that show how (and how not) to install
| these sensors?
|
| Basement windows have been bolted shut with aluminum bars in the tracks
| (screwed into the tracks), but perhaps for these I should be considering
| impact sensors in case anyone attempts to break them.  Are impact sensors
| (not) as good as, better than, etc. glass-break sensors?
|
| This may be too many questions, I know, but I think I've gotten the
| information I needed about how to run the wiring (I'll know for sure
| when I actually try one, of course), but now I need to think about
| _where_ to run the wiring.
|
| I'm intending to run it all back to a single point where the alarm
| panel will be (at a reasonable height!).  There I'll install a number
| of terminal strips and use wiring between these and the alarm panel
| itself to configure sensors into each zone.  This will give me the most
| flexibility with regard to upgrading the panel in the future, as I'll
| be able to rewire the sensors then in whatever way is appropriate for
| whatever the upgrade panel will be.



|
| By the time an intruder will have gotten to the panel location to
| attempt to disable it, if they haven't triggered a minimum of two
| sensors (at least one of which with immediate response) to get there,
| there will likely have been enough going wrong that whether the intruder
| finds the alarm panel or not will have been rather irrelevant.

Protect your phone line. By the time an intruder finds your alarm panel the
alarm signal will already have been sent to your CS...even if he happens to
find the panel hidden under the green tarp 15 feet in the air :-)


|
| --
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Sylvain Robitaille                              syl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
| Systems and Network analyst                       Concordia University
| Instructional & Information Technology        Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------