Re: pir false alarms

[Nomen Nescio <nobody@xxxxxxxxx>]

Matt Ion said:

>My take is, the installer who's billing him has failed to correctly
>diagnose the problem and has merely treated the symptoms, and should not
>be paid for an
>incomplete job.

The installer's job is to make the false alarms stop, not to determine the
precise cause of those false alarms.  In other words, replacing relatively
low-cost equipment like PIRs is often cheaper than making multiple service
visits to try and nail down the exact reason the substandard PIR went off.

If the customer is in a city that charges for false alarms, it's even more
important to get the problem fixed immediately.  In this case, replacing
the sensors made the false alarms stop.  Now, if he had installed three new
dual-tecs and the false alarms continued, I would expect the tech to make a
healthy adjustment in the bill, and spend more time figuring out what was
really going on.

The cost of the parts vs. the cost of troubleshooting labor is what counts.
I gather you work mostly on more expensive video components, where it makes
good economic sense to spend more time troubleshooting.  With a PIR, weigh
the cost of the part against one additional service call, and it just makes
more sense to change the damn thing.

- badednov