What's The Difference Between An Area And A Zone?

[Toon86]

Hi,

I''m thinking about installing a Texecom Premier Alarm system and I cannot decide between the Premier 24 and 48.

I live in a fairly standard 3 bedroom semi. As far as I can see the 24 does everything the 48 does (although obviously to a lesser extent) and has enough capacity for everything I require. The only thing that I am unsure about is the number of Areas. The 24 only has one whereas the 48 has four. What is the difference between a zone and an area? Will I need more than one area?

Secondly I plan to fit an Odessy 1/E bellbox. Can I fit two of these (one back and one front) to the same control panel? DO I just fit them on the same terminal points (i.e. in parallel) ? The cost seems negligible between a full box and a dummy box.

Thanks

Peter

[truesecurity]

Hi,

I''m thinking about installing a Texecom Premier Alarm system and I cannot decide between the Premier 24 and 48.

I live in a fairly standard 3 bedroom semi. As far as I can see the 24 does everything the 48 does (although obviously to a lesser extent) and has enough capacity for everything I require. The only thing that I am unsure about is the number of Areas. The 24 only has one whereas the 48 has four. What is the difference between a zone and an area? Will I need more than one area?

Secondly I plan to fit an Odessy 1/E bellbox. Can I fit two of these (one back and one front) to the same control panel? DO I just fit them on the same terminal points (i.e. in parallel) ? The cost seems negligible between a full box and a dummy box.

Thanks

Peter

Hi,

An area is made up of several zones.

Usually a zone is one detector/contact, but can be up to 10 (not recommended due to problems identifying the cause of false alarms or tamper faults)

If you had say a garage that was deteched from the house, with a motion sensor in the corner and a contact on the door, you would have two zones in the garage. It would make sense to program these as an area so the garage could be armed while the house is not armed.

You could also have perimeter protection on all external doors and windows, each device on a seperate zone, but program these as an area. This will allow the doors and windows to be armed, while the motion sensors inside the house (programmed as another area) are disarmed. Allowing you to be inside the house while the system is armed.

If you are thinking of just having the ground floor armed while asleep upstairs, you can use the part set facility, this does not require different areas.

If this system is for your house, a Premier 24 would normally suffice.

Hope this helps.

Sorry,

Forgot the question about the sounders. You can have two but they do not wire up in parallel. If you have purchased the sounders then the wiring instructions will be enclosed.

)

[Toon86]

Thanks for the reply. It was very helpful and areas/zones makes sense now.

I do have an external garage and with a bit of foresight I got the builders to install 2 x 8-core alarm cables from the house to the garage. I could, as you suggest, set this up as a different area to the house. In that case I presume that I would need the Texecom 48 because the 24 only has 1 Area and the 48 has 4.

I haven't bought any kit yet.

[Alarm Protection]

Hi Toon

1 Area is fine as you can habe both zones armed.

[truesecurity]

Thanks for the reply. It was very helpful and areas/zones makes sense now.

I do have an external garage and with a bit of foresight I got the builders to install 2 x 8-core alarm cables from the house to the garage. I could, as you suggest, set this up as a different area to the house. In that case I presume that I would need the Texecom 48 because the 24 only has 1 Area and the 48 has 4.

I haven't bought any kit yet.

Correct !

You could put an additional keypad in the garage, This would allow you to arm/disarm any part of the system from that keypad. The Texecom keypads also have 2 zones on board which may be useful to you. You could use one 8 core for the keypad, and use the other one to power a live external sounder on the garage.

[InspectorGadget]

Correct !

You could put an additional keypad in the garage, This would allow you to arm/disarm any part of the system from that keypad. The Texecom keypads also have 2 zones on board which may be useful to you. You could use one 8 core for the keypad, and use the other one to power a live external sounder on the garage.

Just my 2 cents worth, I fitted a premier 48 pannel. I was looking at the 24 but the supplier said that the 24 was a cut down version of the 48 and tbh was no where near as good feature wise for the money. As for the cost difference it was about

[NitroN]

Each zone is normally individually indicated by an LED/LCD message on a keypad. While our regional alarm terminology sometimes differs from that used in the UK, I presume an AREA is what we call a "partition". A partition can consist of several zones, but often needs a separate keypad, or at least a "global" keypad to indicate zone activations. It is also essential that each zone consists of the same type of detector. Local standards in SA generally restrict area detectors (PIR's, etc) to one per zone and magnetic contacts to five per zone. This is provided that the zone types are not mixed. Tampers (if not DEOL) are restricted to 10 detectors tampers per zone.

I think that "part arming" would probably be a better solution for you, as this lets you have several arming levels in the same partition, but all of these are indicated on the same keypad. I do not know if the Texecom panel has this feature, but I am sure it will have.

One of the features of a well designed alarm system is that it is easy to use and is designed to accomodate the occupants lifestyle, reducing potential false alarms. Designing an effective alarm system often includes more than just simple protection, this is where a security professional may benefit you.

With regard to dummy bell-boxes, why would anyone use these? Get two working ones, they will both work.

Regards

NitroN