Burglar Alarm Problems

full-time-mum

Our burglar alarm keeps tripping the tamper alarm, even when not set.

Is it likely to be anything we can fix or am I going to have to get an electrician in?

ukwoody

It depends on *which* tamper alarm is being triggered. If it is in the bell/siren box housing, this could be due to insects, or the cover come a bit loose, or the switch itself loose. If it is relating to the control or access panels, then you are almost certainly looking for an engineer callout - and I would suggest In this instance it really should be an alrm engineer as opposed to a sparky.

woody

full-time-mum

ukwoody wrote: »

It depends on *which* tamper alarm is being triggered.

Erm, how do you tell? Alarm rings inside but not out and the light labelled 'tamper' comes on.

ukwoody

Although I do carry out work for an alarm company I dont know that much more I'm afraid. *usually* I believe it signifies the bell cover, but you need an engineer or similar to answer it, and it might well depend on the make/model of system you actually own. I have a horrible feeling it's call-out time. Who installed it? If it's a local company they will be far cheaper than a national one. In fact if you do not pay any monthly/yearly charges i would get a local alarm company to look at it for you - even if it was installed by a national company.

Woody

burnsguitarman

We had the same problem, last year and, my OH who is an electronics engineer (and originally installed the alarm), eventually by means of elimination traced the problem back to the external bell box, which he subsequently changed and have had no further problems. Hope this helps!

bookduck

if you know someone with savvy, basic electronic/electrical experience including knowing how to use a multimeter (even car electrics is V. good), it may be a good time to become their best friend.

I personally would short or open the wires to make the circuit act as 'normal' and if it still goes off then it is certainly not the switch

securityman

If you fill safe doing it, you can open the control box and link out the tampers one at the time till you find the problem. You might have a tamper for each zone or one global tamper, keypad tamper, bell tamper and control box tamper for when you close the lid on the box.
If you have a meter, you could use it to test the continuity.
If not a little bit of alarm wire or a metal staple will do for a link.
If you don't have a meter and are using a link wire, remove the 2 wires from the tamper one at the time. All ways close the lid before you try to reset the panel.
If your tamper fault is not on all the time, theres a good chance it's the SAB out side bell.
What you can do is link out the sab bell in the panel and leave it for a week to see if the tamper fault does not come back.
Good luck.