My first House

[Guest]

Basically, it's a different kettle of fish.

In both trades there are various levels of skill, qualifications and workmanship.

With such diversity, it is unfair to generalise these qualities within the trades to compare them.

How can you compare a timed served electrical engineer, responsible for all the associated requirements of maintaining some power plant or other huge industrial site with an alarm engineer that's been doing the game a while but never touched anything bigger than a premier or touched anything outside intruder?

or

A competent, qualified security engineer trained and conversant in all aspects of safety and security, with a sparky who only ever rewires houses and has forgotten most of what he was taught to get his qualification?

Each to their own and they all have their elite. We can't all be the best at everything.

40255[/snapback]

well said Brian.

Alarms however are more electronics than electricity devices. I don't know of what sparky's education consists there but here you can quite easily teach a sparky to do simple installations but when it comes to tougher fault find diagnostics in alarm transmission or some unobvious faults i have noticed that pal's with three year education in electronics/computers do better. These guys thou usually can't do cabling too well..

It is more likely personal abilities/interest/knowhow/experience than only education/profession.

But if you do not have experience with alarms your education doesn't matter. Alarms are MUCH more than cabling and proper wiring.

[Guest]

Electricians may be able to fit alarms.

The vast majority of these so called systems that ive seen fitted by sparks have many faults, and bring the security industry a bad name.

Recent examples include multiple PIR,s on the same cable run on the same zone, all internal doors of a house on the same zone.

A pir in a conservatory when It should have been a DT, the wrong PIR when it should have been a QD, PIRs in the wrong place, tampers wired in parallel to the same terminal!!, wires cliped along and up the side of door frames the full length to a PIR, wires cliped all around skirting boards.

Recently I got called to a system that was installed by a spark who went back to move a PIR - The pun ter said since it was moved the bell box strobe has been flashing and the system wont set!?

Went there and hed blown the 12v feed from the control panel so none of the PIRs had power and the system was in a tamper condition - hed left the system like that and couldnt fix it.

There is no-way that all sparks or any other unqualified person knows where and what device to fit properly or confirmed alarms on to seperate zones from two seperate detectors or prox setting etc etc.

Just like I dont confess to know all the regs and ins and outs of being a spark!

Two completly seperate jobs - both requiring very specialised skills - and they shouldnt be compared to one another - and I do think anyone not qualified should not be able to ponce around with intruder alarm installations - its giving us all a bad name, some may get it right - but there few and far between.