Hi, Trying to build a low tech alarm. Bought a Home Depot Motion Sensor 180 degree Heath / Zenith for floodlight. Open the case, modify the connection of the internal 24 V DC relay. Now, it is normally open and the contacts are not connected to any of
120v line. Stable, as long as 120V power remains on. Good for driving
12 V siren (will add relay if necessary).
PROBLEM: Powering up always energizes the relay for about 1 minute (warming up??). So after power blackout, will get false alarm, the siren will go off for 1 minute.
$75 worth of new professional alarm parts would accomplish your goal much more easily. $40 worth of used (panel & keypad) & new (motion, siren, & backup battery) parts would also do it.
Since you have modified the unit you have violated the UL listing and using this unit puts you at very high liabilty if the unit would fail and be pinpointed as causing a fire etc. your insurnce carrier would drop you if they knew you were playing with such things scrap it and get a cheap alarm.
First, there's not much likelihood of his motion detector starting a fire (unless he throws the battery in a dumster:)). Second, insurance carriers don't drop coverage for using a jerry-rigged alarm system unless the policy specifically required a UL-listed alarm system. All but a tiny fraction of a percent of residential policies do NOT require any alarm system at all.
BTW, this is similar to a commonly held misconception about alarms in general which has occsionally been voiced here. Some paid alarm installers seem to believe that if an alarm system fails the insurer will refuse to pay. That is patently wrong. Otherwise, if any electrical component failed and there was a fire the insurers would also refuse to pay.
Might I remind you Robert I get hired by insurance carriers to determine cause and origin of electrical fires they do in fact base insurance payouts in some states like mine on comparative negligence and I have seen them refuse to pay and or greatly reduce payment based on how policys are written. Modification of appliances is a big no no
I have to apear in court thursday becuse i took pictures of a fire I was involved in putting out and helping a local FM investigate which caused $500,000.00 they belive started from a improperly installed fire place chimmney spark arrester that supposedly sent a spark the oposite way the wind was blowing 400 feet that caught woods on fire and destroyed a large home and several cars.in
2001
Please do not tell me what insurance companys will or will not do. To pay or not pay a claim since 9-11 the whole insurance industry has completley changed . The days they just pay and do nothing about who or how it started are over if blame can be assisgned and collection is possible they will pursue it. I see it every day. look at all the Katrina claims they did not pay on comming up with every excuse they could and now state DA's are going after them. Any one in the alarm industry who thinks there contracts protect them or the claim is so small they wont try anything against me is badly mistaken. look at the loop hole they found in the ADT case in NJ that has NBFAA in a tizzie. If some one gets hurt or dies because of something it gets even stickier and who said batteries do not cause fires especailly now that something has been modified and violates the UL manufactuers lable. when a manufactuer makes a device and tests it and affixs a lable there stating the device as manufactuered is safe and any modification violates the label and manufactuers claims and warranty. just like when a switch goes bad on a lamp or garden prunner etc and some one drills a hole and adds a different typeof switch .to bypass the bad switch. The days of the old tinker are very much discouraged in todays litigise world.
Show me a policy that says they will decline payment if an alarm is modified, other than where an alarm system is a requirement to get the policy in the first place please.
Nah, they're still a bunch of crooks just as they always were.
If you lie on your insurance policy application (you tell them you have a monitored alarm system when you really don't just to get the discount), you've violated a central condtion of the policy and the Insurer has the right to cancel that policy "ab initio" (at inception). That puts the policy holder in the same "category" as someone _without_ a policy. They don't have to "deny" coverage at all. Take it a step further. If your insurer requires a _monitored alarm system_ and you decide to cancel the monitoring after the policy is issued, that is also considered a violation of the policy conditions.
If you lease a car/van/truck and the lease stipulates you have to maintain collision coverage on the vehicle for the term of the lease and you decide to reduce the coverage to only include third party liability and "specified perils" (fire and theft), then the leasing company can legally terminate their contract and you would be "out" your car.
You can quote "law" all you want, Bass (it's obvious to me that you know enought to have skirted it for years). You cannot, however, speak for what an insurance company will do if faced with a substantial claim. If you're naive enough to believe that a simple limitation clause in your contract is enough to protect you from any claims, then I hope you have most of your assets in your wife's name.
modified, other than where an alarm system is a requirement to
That's a totally different situation. If you do that most insurers will charge you back the amount of the discount which you received. OTOH, if the system was *required* to obtain a policy, and there was no system at all you'd be out of luck and rightly so.
And you can?
Again you're changing the subject. This is the exact thing Olson does when faced with an argument he can't win -- refer to something else entirely and pretend that proves his original, pointless point. Come to think of it, you post anonymously and routinely back up Olson. Hmmmm.
Wrong Bass My wifes church had there policy cancelled because the alarm has not been installed and they still had to pay back the discount and now there having a hell of hard time getting new insurance. Insurance companys talk to each other .
The carrier didn't refuse to pay a claim though. If they had you'd have said so right off the bat so please don't stoop to olsonic modification of the story.
Everyone is having a hard time getting insurance. I never had a claim but I couldn't get coverage from most carriers just because of the value of my home. Church's usually cost more than private houses. I had a choice between Lloyds and one other carrier. I took the other. :^)
You're talking about a totally different situation. At any rate, none of this is relevant to the OP. He never said anything about a required system, insurance discounts or much of anything else. He wanted advice on modifying a motion activated light for a jerry-rigged alarm. Disregarding the question of whether that would be useful or not, most of the posts to this thread (including yours and mine) did nothing to answer his question. What he got was a lot of nonsense about losing his insurance policy even though none of us knows what his policy is, who the carrier is or what their policies may be.
You have managed to accomplish one thing though, Nick. You took umbrage at my disagreeing with you and responded with personal insults. I thought that was beneath you.
The difference between sane and insane is that the sane know they're nuts.
I wouldn't know. I take it off for CT scans though. The most recent one was excellent -- no cancer. If it stays that way for another five years I'll be out of the woods. Besides, I'm going to survive just to annoy Jiminex. :^)
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