I believe the gentleman said it was professionally installed. If so, the odds are it was programmed correctly. It's possible someone screwed up but then the problems would have shown up right away, don't you think?
Ahhhh! ..... Now there's a whole new avenue to explore.
When you say the "entire system was in stalled " do you know if the new alarm company actually *replaced* ***ALL*** the contacts and/or components? What DIDN'T they change .... if anything?
What you are experiencing would be the sort of problem that could arise from a component that had received a lightning hit.
You're quite far out on the Island. Only a couple of good alarm companies out that way.
Jim inspired greatness with:
I'm still wondering which GB he has. It sounds like a Shatter Pro
5820.
Yes, that is the GB. We are located in East Hampton, CT. (Just drop a couple zeros from the East Hampton, NY property values.) Although the original system was installed years ago, only the fire alarm and sensors were connected. The installer never returned to finish the job, so all of the hard wired sensors in doors and windows were not connected to the central box when the power surge came through. The Napco box and boards looked pretty good....just completely dead. The new installer tested and connected all of the sensors; only one window sensor was not functioning.
My concern was that if I arm the system while I sleep to discover the bad zone and it falses, the alarm will sound. Is there a way around that?
Ieeeeeee donoooo about that. I'd have to say that if it were me, coming into a job that I didn't install, and finding out that it had a light ning hit, I'd have put a lot of pressure on you to change out all the switches and components in the system. If I was going to be your alarm company, I certainly wouldn't want to "buy" into a system that could possibly give me troubleshooting headaches that could arise from, not changing out possibly damaged components. I'd sooner walk away from a job than take on the responsibility of having to coming back over the next few years changing components one by one. Or at least, if you didn't want to change them up front, I'd ask you to sign a waiver. When light ning hit's alarm switches, it can pit the contacts so that they will either stick and not open, stick and not open intermittantly or not make good contact and cause the type of problem that you're having. Some installers think after a hit, and contacts stick, if they just give them a couple of taps to "loosen them up" that they've cured any problems. Not so! If they were stuck they're bad. Also, just because a contact doesn't give an indication that it was hit, doesn't mean that you don't have to change the contact anyway. There's no sure way to really tell if it's good bad or going to be intermittant.
And, if there was one "bad" contact and the wires weren't attached to panel, how'd THAT happen? I'd have changed them all.
Regardless, you'll still have to do some process of elimination to find what is causing your immediate problem. At this point, I'm guessing an intermittant contact.
All you'd have to do is remove one of the wires going to the siren, or siren module that is likely located in the main box. Or, just arm it while you're out of the house. The zone that tripped will be indicated at the keypad, when you return. Notify central to take you off line while you're testing. If you have outside sirens, and close neighbors, you may want to pull the siren wire anyway.
...again, and that would surprise you?
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