Deactivate Optima Plus alarm....

sunnyshiney

Hello,

We moved into our house 2 years ago. It has an old active alarm system which we have never used (lights on main box alight as well as those on the room sensors). We are renovating the house and will be needing to cut wires and remove the system. Obviously just removing is not an option as they have tamper alarms, but just wondering if anyone knows if this is something we can do ourselves or if we'd have to get the experts in (costing ££££).

It's a Optima Plus system.

Thanks for reading!

Undervalued

Well, you certainly can do it yourself. Worst case is it makes a lot of noise for twenty minutes!

Do you know the engineer code for the panel? In engineer mode most tampers will be disabled. There will be a default for your panel which you could no doubt find online. However that may well have been changed to a number favoured by the company that installed or maintained it.

Both the control panel and outside sounder / bell box will have backup batteries. The outside box needs to get a signal from the panel to "hold it off" from sounding. If it loses that, either because the wire is cut or both the mains and battery supply to the control panel are disconnected it will sound but should cut off after 20 mins.

More modern sounders can be disabled from the control panel when in engineer mode or by doing something like earthing one of the wires three times in quick succession. When successfully done the winking lights on the sounder normally flash in a different way. That gives you something like 10 to 30 mins in which you can remove the sounder cover without setting it off.

The Security Installer forum has a DIY section which can be a useful source of advice.....

https://www.thesecurityinstaller.co.uk/community/

Hope that helps - best of luck!

chrisw

Don't forget to turn the mains power off first.

It might be worth leaving any concealed wiring in place in case you or someone want to install an alarm system in the future.

phill99

Turn mains power off. Get a ladder and go up to the alarm ringer box outside. Hit it as many times as is necessary with a great big hammer until it stops ringing.


It wont ring again after that.

getmore4less

How old is the system?
Ours is so old the backup batteries are shot

if you don't have the manual they are available on line and there are videos about

sunnyshiney

Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond. I hadn't thought that the backup batteries may be dead. With my previous house, then they were running low, it notified with annoying beeps. This one looks quite ancient.

Undervalued - thank you for the comprehensive info. I'll definitely give all ideas a try - like you say, 20 mins of alarm at the most if all goes wrong, in which case, I'll get the hammer out!

Thanks again ��