Servicing Procedure

[Guest Pace Electrical]

Hi all, Could anyone explain, what is involved in servicing a basic domestic system ? And what would be the ideal frequency ?

, Paul.

[Guest dale]

We service once a year, we send out a letter a few weeks before to tell them they are due for a service and to call us to arrange an appointment, if they havent called us, we call them.

In an average service we:

Check battery status - and if more than 4 years old replace, even if it working!,

Do walk test, bell test, comms test, load test, user test (make sure they still know how to use it!), check resistance & tamper loops, read alarm log, fill in customer log, drink tea.

[breff]

You forgot Read Newspaper Dale

[Service Engineer]

Dont forget the Full Breakfast on the 1st call, dinner at the 3rd call and supper at the last call.

[Guest Pace Electrical]

Thanks for the inf guys, What do you do regarding pcb mounted cells in external sounders, do they have a replacement life? do you replace the whole pcb or the whole sounder unit? how do you test efficiency (I guess you have to opperate the unit with mains and panel batteries disconected)

[Guest dale]

Replace the sounder!

Sounders dont cost a great deal and customers like nice new boxes (god knows why). They tend to last a good few years though.

What do u mean efficiency?

[Guest Pace Electrical]

Thanks for the advice Dale. By efficiency I just mean is the cell still holding a charge. Is there any way of testing this ? for fire alarms and s/c emergency lighting units we generaly try to replace batteries every five years, However I have come accross batteries still giving service after 10 and even 15 years ! Its got to be a bit of a pain to replace a perfectly good sounder just on the assumption that the battery might be no good ?

[Guest dale]

I only tend to replace bell boxes when they either get water ingress or look a bit shabby. I dont tend to check the bell box battery as the Texecom boxes are fairly reliable. Also bell box batterys dont tend to get as much use as the internal battery, so they tend to last ages. Many systems I replace that have very old bell boxes still have working batteries.

Dale

[Service Engineer]

I cant always do it, but i like to disconnect hold offs to the bellbox for 5 minutes or so, usually if the batteries on its last legs then the siren fades away before the 1st minute.

[Guest Pace Electrical]

Thanks for the advice guys. That sounds like a good tip Dave, when we test s/c emergency light units you can normaly tell after a few minutes if the battery is going to last the full three hours.