Alarm upgrade/erroneous alarms

plantgirl · Jan 27, 2018

Hello all, I have been in present house for 15 years. Alarm was there when I moved in and fitted it seems around 1998. It is na Optima compact. It is a small house, 2 up 2 down and there are two sensors only, on the ground floor. There is panic button in bedroom upstairs. It is hard wired. I am happy with this and don't feel the need to add to the sensors etc.

I have two smallish issues with it. Occasionally for no reason at all it seems, the alarm goes off in the night. It is not set at night so I assume, in my ignorance..... that there is some sort of current dip which makes the alarm go off - but hey - what do I know.....???? Unfortunately the mad scramble to turn it off has to be done more than once, as once it goes off, it seems to happen around 3 times in the same night and then, won't do it again for some months.

Secondly, it has, on occasion gone off falsely whilst set, for instance when I am away. Understanding neighbours have keys and have turned it off for me. I would however, prefer to be able to trust it and nearly got into terrible pickle with city council over it going off for a long period and them nearly breaking in.

I don't anticipate being in the house longer than a further 2 years = don't want to spend much.

Firstly, is it worth calling someone out to have a look at the two issues or am I wasting ££ and really need some sort of upgrade. Can I have an upgrade using current sensors and basically just have the control panel changed? How much am I looking at?

I don't want to get people in and be blinded by pressure and techie info hence posting here first. Thank you for your help.

Andy™ · Jan 27, 2018

probably been neglected and not had any maintenance like replacing batteries. happens all the time, people just ignore stuff like that and hope it will never fail

you can replace the panel, but at that age id replace the sensors too or you will probably end up with other problems from them

Richard-the-Ninth · Jan 27, 2018

I would say Andy is spot on with regard to the battery. Your panel can have either a 12v 1.2 Ah battery or a 12v 2.1 Ah battery, I would opt for the 2.1.

They are easy to change, open the panel, the internal sounder will activate, enter your code, change the battery, close the panel carry out your panel reset procedure.

Detectors do degrade over time (depends on their environment) but a good gentle clean with a soft cloth will do no harm and remove any cob webs. (Don't poke the "window" of the detector it may already be fragile)

Your system is old, so if you call anyone out, chances are they will want to sell you a new one just because yours is old, and they will still have to change the battery, and charge for the privilege.

Lots of place sell the batteries on line, less hassle is to buy the same size (capacity) as what is already there, but the bigger one will be better.

binky · Jan 27, 2018

if you don't really need the alarm you can always disable the sirens with a simple snip of a few wires - most of the benefit of an alarm is having a bell box screwed to your outside wall, burgulars have no idea if it's woking or not.

Richard-the-Ninth · Jan 27, 2018

binky said:
if you don't really need the alarm you can always disable the sirens with a simple snip of a few wires - most of the benefit of an alarm is having a bell box screwed to your outside wall, burgulars have no idea if it's woking or not.

The "problem" with that is most alarms have a "Self activating sounder" which in short means there is a battery in the external sounder so you down power the internal parts and the external ones starts, ok it is supposed to stop after 20 minutes, but I have known them to not start for several hours after you leave and they go on and on and on.

The thing being if you are going to down power the alarm, make sure you can access the external sounder before you start.