Alarm Concept - Comments Please?

[OImALumberjack]

Hi folks,

We're in the process of renovating an older home in Germany. Because the house is quite isolated, we would like to install an alarm system. I had a couple of installers in to give quotes - they are prohibitively expensive (several thousand Euros for even a basic system).

The house is situated just outside of a small village - the nearest neighbor to the East is around 200 metres away. To the North and West is a large meadow going down into the valley (a kilometre or so of meadow). To the South is a garden about 200 metres long with many trees and shrubs. The street, (more of a path, really) that is to the North, is not lighted and we are the only house on this "street".

An idyllic place to live, and quite likely - to break in to.

Problematic is that the house has 34 windows / exterior doors. On the ground floor there is a main entrance on the East side plus 7 windows in the living room and dining area that are "floor length" and can be used as doors. Also problematic is that we have two large Bernese mountain dogs that live inside of the house - limiting the use of motion detectors when they are around. (Although they are large, they are friendly and can easily be bribed, with sausages, for example.)

So I was thinking to protect windows and doors with surface contacts, and those that are floor-length (that I think are the most likely candidates to be kicked / smashed in) with vibration detectors. Nights when the dogs are inside we would arm a partition including the surface contacts and vibration sensors (these vibration sensors mainly to provide my wife "peace of mind" when I am out of town). When the dogs are not in the house and we are away, we would arm surface contacts and motion detectors, and would have the option to skip the vibration sensors (false alarms due to thunderstorms, bird strikes, knocking etc.)

Smoke detectors would also be a part of the system. So, many detectors and many locations means many zones. For economy I would like to keep the total number of zones under 48, but this would mean putting more than one detector per zone - a cardinal sin, I know.

Anyways, for what it's worth I made some sketches of my "concept" and would invite you to have a look, and to comment. Is this a total mess? Is it complete overkill? Can it be simplified? Improved?

The sketches can be seen here, I hope that the labelling is easy enough to follow:

Ground floor

1st floor

Basement

Attic

Comments / critique / suggestions are most greatly appreciated.

OImALumberjack

(and I'm OK..)

[Gopher]

Looking at the linked floor plans, I'd say you've got everything covered. As you say you've had to put multiple sensors on some zones but the way you've done it, at least you'll know which room / area has gone off if not necessarily what sensor. As for is it overkill, i don't think so for there is a valid reason for each sensor being where it is <PM'd the thinking / logic behind>. Hmm looking at it you could move a Z8's middle VB to other the piller and lose the bottom one, also on Z9 the 2 that are close together could possibly be made a single although without a survey of the property itself I wouldn't say for definate. Improvements without physcially seeing the house I couldn't honestly say if any improvements could be made on this well thought out plan.

I'd think carefully about how your going to wire this monster up and plan all the cable runs carefully investigating which way the cables would need to run and trying to keep cabling to a minimum - you'll probably need additional power points to drive all this so make sure you can safely add spurs to accomadate this, on that note I would suggest you go for a panel that can support RIO's / Nodes (or whatever they like to call them - basically multizone normally 4 or 8 zones in a box with a remote data connection back to the panel) that will make life easier and simplify the whole thing alot.

Hope that helps.

[Guest]

galaxy would be his best bet wouldnt it??

He would have to be careful with the wiring on the galaxy, some floors have more than 8 powered zones. Probably would need an extra smart rio mid way to supplement them. Not looked too hard at it mind, just got in.

But the Galaxy would be a good plan. Thats that old hot potato off again then i bet!

PS looks well thought out.

[Guest Peter James]

galaxy would be his best bet wouldnt it??

Galaxy is not diy though is it, so it would have to be a Premier or similar

[bellman]

Agreed,

Premier would be much more suitable for this installation.

Regards

Bellman

[Guest]

Galaxy is not diy though is it, so it would have to be a Premier or similar

Depends, whats the rules like in Germany?

[Guest]

I was thinking more along the lines of hows he gonna get one? some installers have a hard time purchasing the big G let alone a DIYer then theres the manual, it dont come with the panel.

And not being funny but if you new nothing about alarm systems would you really want to have to program one of most complex panels on the market?

Well he seems to have an idea of design,( so has a synopsis of how things are done).

As i stated I do not know the regs in Germany so he may well be able to purchase said panel. For the programming, any panel he has access to will require a lot of thinking about for group,ward,partition settings.

As for manuals, I tend to play and then if get really stuck use one. Pedantic perhaps, but you sure learn how to do things correctly.

I sence a debate here now.

Always play with a new toy, that way you know its limitations.............! (Disclaimer, its not a new toy but it was when I came across it yrs ago)

Note to self, stop explaining actions.......

Double

[OImALumberjack]

Hi guys,

Thanks very much for the input. I'm glad that there doesn't seem to be major flaws in the plan.

The house is completely "stripped down" at the moment. It was built in the 50's and electrical, water and heating are being replaced. As such the walls are open at the moment and will be plastered when all is done. I'm doing the electrical wiring and structured network A/V cabling myself and will swing the alarm cabling along with this.

One possibility that I'm considering is on doing the runs to the "multiple detector zones" to small 16-terminal junction boxes that are located at the door / windows behind the curtains, for example to the three living room doors (2 zones, 1 SC zone and 1 V zone) would be 2 x 8 core to a junction box at the top door, then 2 x 8 core to a JB at the middle door, then the same to the bottom one. From the JBs to detectors. This means running 2 cables from the zones to the panel instead of 6 and is less messy at the panel end plus much shorter loop lengths. What do you think? PIRs and smokes are off the ceiling (that will be suspended).

I've been lurking about this forum long enough to know that everbody prefers his or her particular "flavor" of panel I was tending towards Premier 48 with a 2 amp PSU and remote expanders. I tended towards this as the Premier has a rep for being somewhat more "DIY friendly" than some others, and after looking through an install manual and trying out WinTex I think that I can handle the programming. Galaxy - I really don't know, I don't have the info. Unless I've overlooked something, I think that the Premier 48 should work

The panel will be located on the 1st floor, I've reserved 1 metre of space for network, A/V and alarm in the large closet that runs the length of the hallway North - South (where Z29 is, the brown "wall" is a big closet). So it's central and runs are not that long, except to the basement. I would locate the basement expander in the basement, the rest would be in the closet with the panel / PSU.

PIRs I was thinking Prestige Quad, vibrations Impaq Plus and smokes Exodus OH4W. Speech dialler and TCP/IP module so that I can program from downstairs in the study. Sounder and a decoy on the East street side.

Thanks again very very much for the input!

Hmm... the wife is out with the girls, the kid is asleep. Time for daddy to crack open a cold Licher Pils (a very fine beer), lay down some vinyl and listen to some tunes.

:

OImALumberjack

(and I'm OK..)

[OImALumberjack]

Ooops...

There seems to have been some activity while I was putting the kid to bed.....

The rules in Germany.

Residential intruder alarms are almost nonexistant. They are incredibly expensive to have installed, there are few installers and as such little competition. I had a quote for this home for contacts and those "window bug" things you stick on the windows, 4 PIRS and 8 smoke detectors. The panel was a GE (I would have to look up the model) expanded to 48 zones. They wanted 14000 Euros PLUS CABLING!!!! They wanted 832 Euros for the panel - minus expanders - ridiculous.

Online prices for DIY (for example the Texacom International Series 832) sells for around 200 Euros (twice the price of the Premier 48). Prices for detectors are also around double. The installers apparently double up on this online price.

DIY is really the only affordable option. I would order the stuff out of Great Britain, of course. I want to have the manuals in English, anyways - I'm a lumberjack, remember? I'm Canadian who's moved here 7 years ago.

Allright. Having said that, I am going to return to my Licher.

OImALumberjack

(and I'm OK..)

[Guest]

M1000 would suffice, ease on the cable runs as well.

Another debate rising, i can tell !