Door contacts or PIR's

[breff]

Pete asks because it makes the rooms above the living room more vulnerable.

[Guest Chewie]

Ah right.

OK concerning the PIR and the door contact in the hall.

If I have a door contact set as the main entry zone with a delay to enable me to dissarm the alarm when entering the house I can then have the PIR in the hall set to trigger an alarm immediately.

What about when coming down the stairs in the morning though ?, this would trigger an alarm before I could dissable it. So should I have another RKP on the landing upstairs which allows me to arm and disarm the alarm when going to bed at night and getting up in the morning.

[amateurandy]

You'll need to have a separate program for night time and set the alarm appropriately.

Full set - door is timed for entry/exit, hall PIR time inhibited

Night - hall PIR is timed. Door maybe timed if you have people out who come home late after alarm is set (e.g. teenagers!)

Your ADE engineering manual explains how to do it and gives some examples.

If you have a landing PIR as well that will need to be omitted in the night program.

The full alarm set you can probably do with the default program if the front door is zone 1 and the hall PIR zone 2.

Then you've got to think about the garage and protecting that maybe if the house is occupied?

[antinode]

What about a panic button or two? Most systems I've seen have at least a bedroom PA, and maybe one in the hall. It's not a requirement, but it's a useful addition if you can accomodate one. It sounds like you need a slightly bigger panel to me. Maybe take a look at some of the Menvier panels? You can buy "Nodes" which give you another 8 zones. Most manufacturers have expandable panels except ADE (I think?)

EDIT: Maybe an upstairs RKP for night setting? Just a suggestion...

[amateurandy]

The panel he's using has a dedicated PA connection in addition to the 8 zones, so it can be added easily.

And the kepad (like most others I suspect) has a PA function too.

[Guest Chewie]

Problem is I have already bought the optima panel and modified it so I can use my housesafe smoke alarms to trigger the fire alarm input on the panel. I have also fitted the keypad in the hall to go with the optima and bought the informa speech dialler.

I suppose I could return the speech dialler as it is still in the box but I could not return the panel or keypad.

Do the PA's require their own zone. I would not want to fit one in the bedroom now because it is all nicely decorated, but I could put one in the hall and one on the landing just outside the bedroom door.

[Guest Chewie]

Ah you answered my question andy so I could use the PAs without taking up another zone. I assume thet can be wired in series like the door contacts.

[Guest Chewie]

EDIT: Maybe an upstairs RKP for night setting? Just a suggestion...

38669[/snapback]

Is this a standard recognized practice, because I have thought of this, see my earlier post. But did not know if it could compromise the security with no sensor watching the upstairs RKP.

[antinode]

Is this a standard recognized practice, because I have thought of this, see my earlier post.  But did not know if it could compromise the security with no sensor watching the upstairs RKP.

38674[/snapback]

Most panels (including the Optima) tamper if a few unsucessful attempts to guess the code are made, which generates a full alarm (internal and external sounders and your dialer) if that alarm is set. If you have it in the master bedroom or on the landing with a Landing PIR, you should be fine. You'll probably need some kind of upstairs protection anyway because of the sloped roof on your extension.

[Guest]

Well, you know I think this job's a bit big for you but......

If there's access to the rooms above the living room these need protection.

I'd also add a PIR and RKP to the landing.

Move the extension speaker from the living room to the landing, the one in the hall will be adequately loud for downstairs, (and probably upstairs too).

Add the contacts to the front and rear garage doors, and contact the back door while you're at it.

Use a bigger panel, the Optima's no good for a job of this size, there's too much doubling up going on.

I notice all (most) the PIR's are facing windows, I'd move them into position that they're not.