I was all about hardwired everything for years, but last month I had to wire a retrofit into a 1920s building with plaster walls... took me 4 hours just to run one zone. Now I grab those Honeywell 5800s for old houses and save half the day.
I keep seeing these installs where guys run wires exposed along the wall and call it a day. But I've had 3 homeowners in Denver last month complain about the look and want me to redo everything behind the sheetrock. On the other hand, surface mount is way faster and easier to service later. What do you all think is the better approach for residential jobs?
Last Tuesday I got a call from a customer in Arlington whose alarm went off for a low battery chime at 2 in the morning. Turned out the door sensor on their back slider had been installed 4 years ago and the CR123 just gave up silently. Anyone else run into a bunch of these failing at the same time or was this just bad luck?
Honestly I've been using the same cheap $15 crimper from Amazon for like 3 years now. Last week I borrowed a buddy's Klein Tools crimper at a job site in Portland and man what a difference. The connections felt solid the first time every time no more fiddling with loose pins or re-crimping. I probably wasted hundreds of hours over the years fighting with that old tool. The insulation cut was clean and the contact pressure felt way more consistent. Now I'm kicking myself for not upgrading sooner. Anybody else waited way too long to swap out their basic tools for something better?
The owner wanted all wireless to keep it clean, but the plaster walls were so thick the signal kept dropping on my first test sensor. I ended up running wires to the main zones and using wireless only for the windows, which made the install take 7 hours instead of 4. Anyone else deal with old walls messing up their wireless range on a job?
I was doing a routine firmware update on a new Vista 21iP last Tuesday and got curious about the actual data stream. So I hooked up a Wireshark session between the panel and the cellular communicator just to see what was going across. Turns out the panel ID, zone descriptions, even the customer name came through as plain text. No encryption at all. I called the tech support line for the monitoring company and the guy basically said 'yeah that's standard for most systems under 200 zones.' I've been installing for 7 years and never thought to check this. Now I'm wondering about liability if a customer data breach traces back to a system I put in. Has anyone else actually verified what their panels are sending on the backend?
I was at a job last month at a middle school in Nashville helping with a retrofit. Another crew was working the gym and I saw them just ziptie everything to the conduit and use a 12V drill to punch through drop ceiling tiles. No pull string, no fish tape, just brute force and speed. Made me think, why am I spending 30 minutes per run trying to be neat when the panel doesn't care how the wire gets there. Has anyone else dropped the fancy tools for a simpler approach?
I was wiring up a new elementary school in Portland last Tuesday and saw a crew using nothing but Honeywell 5800 series wireless sensors. I always thought wired was the only way for commercial, but watching them knock out a whole wing in two days without running a single wire made me reconsider. Has anyone else tried going mostly wireless on a big job?
I was getting called back to this one house in the boonies near Topeka like every 2 weeks because their glass break detector kept tripping at 3am. Never could figure out what was setting it off. Turns out it was the low-frequency rumble from their well pump kicking on in the basement. I moved the sensor 6 feet farther from the utility room and it's been silent for 3 months now. Anyone else run into weird interference stuff from appliances or pumps?
I see a lot of guys pushing wireless now because it's faster to install. But last month on a warehouse job in Phoenix I had 3 Honeywell 5800 sensors fail to report during the final test. Wired PIRs from Bosch have never given me that problem. I'd rather spend an extra 2 hours running cable than deal with callbacks. Anyone else still sticking with hardwired on larger sites?
I keep seeing guys push these all-in-one wireless systems for residential jobs. Easy install they say. No wires they say. Well I had a customer 3 months ago who wanted a full wireless setup. Paid extra for the top of the line Honeywell stuff. Fast forward to last Saturday, their neighbor got a new ham radio setup and it kept tripping the motion sensors randomly. Had to spend 6 hours troubleshooting and finally hardwire everything anyway. Now I only offer wired for anything that's not a rental. Has anyone else had interference issues with wireless gear?
He was complaining about false alarms and said he never bothers with them on residential installs. Made me wonder how often you guys actually use them or just skip them too?
I crossed 500 alarm panels installed last Tuesday on a commercial job over in Mill Creek. I started counting about 6 years ago just out of curiosity, not for any real reason. What surprised me was that over 80 of those were service calls for the exact same wiring mistake I used to make myself back when I started. It made me wonder how many of us are out there fixing problems we caused years ago and just don't realize it. Has anyone else gone back and found their own old work?
We had a system in a warehouse outside Denver that was still running a panel from 2008, and it took 45 seconds to report a door breach. After putting in a new Honeywell unit, that dropped to under 5 seconds. Has anyone else seen this kind of lag from aging boards that could put a client at risk?
I've been installing alarms in Dallas for 9 years and I never carry keys on my belt because it's just a magnet for snagging on door frames and scratching up brushed metal panels, so who started this trend that we all have to jingle like janitors?
Last week I was finishing up a panel swap in a basement in Lincoln and the system kept showing a ground fault on zone 2. I checked every single device on that loop, re-terminated everything, swapped the panel, even ran a new home run. After like 4 hours of chasing my tail I finally looked at the actual wire in the wall where a staple had nicked the jacket just enough to touch a metal stud. It was the very first device after the panel too. Has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on something that dumb and simple?
I had a customer last year who insisted we swap his landline dialer for a cellular one because he was worried about storms taking out phone lines. Cost about $200 installed, and six months later a tree took down the whole neighborhood's phone lines for two days. His system stayed online and sent a test signal fine. But I got another job where the cellular unit just stopped working after a year with no warning. So is this extra cost actually worth it for most homes, or are we just upselling people on something they don't need? What's your experience been with these things lasting?
First house had a DSC PC1550 with a dead keypad, second was a Radionics D6112 that someone had wired backwards, and the third was a Vista 10SE with a blown transformer, and I spent more time digging out old manuals than actually fixing anything.
I keep seeing guys push Honeywell wireless panels for warehouses and office buildings, but I'm not buying it. Did a 12,000 sq ft office last month and ran all cat6 to every door and motion sensor. Took an extra day of fishing cable but the signal was rock solid and I didn't have to change a single battery. Anyone else think wireless is getting overhyped for big commercial spaces?
Guy has been wiring alarms since the 80s. He told me he never uses those plastic panel tamper brackets because they break off after a few years. Said he just drills a small hole and uses a short screw with a nut on the backside. Never thought about doing it that way but it makes sense for a solid mechanical connection. Anyone else run into bad tamper bracket designs on newer panels?
Simple mistake. I was at a job in Portland last Tuesday, brand new DSC system. Keypad kept beeping at me and wouldn't go into programming mode. Checked the wiring twice. Called tech support. They had me reset the panel. Nothing worked. Finally realized I was punching in 5555 instead of 5656. Felt like a complete idiot. Has anyone else wasted time on something that dumb?
Wired contacts took me 45 minutes per door in winter weather, wireless ones cut that to 12 minutes and I haven't had a single false alarm call in 6 months.
I installed a Qolsys panel in a lady's kitchen in Denver about 6 months ago. Put it right by the back door like I always do. She called me back last week to say it was in the worst spot because her coffee maker blocked the view from the living room. I never even thought about line of sight from where someone sits most of the day. Has anyone else had to move a panel because of appliance placement?
I’ve been doing more retrofit jobs lately and I’m torn. Punching holes and fishing wire looks cleaner but takes twice as long, while surface mounting is faster but customers sometimes complain about the exposed conduit. What’s your rule of thumb for when to go one way or the other on a standard single-family home install?
At first I thought this guy was nuts. I'd been using electrical tape to secure loose wires inside the panel for years. He told me to switch to zip ties and adhesive mounts. After 6 months I went back to a job I'd used tape on and it was all peeling off in the heat. Now I don't touch tape at all inside any panel. Anyone else had a similar old school tip that actually worked out?