Overheard a guy at the supply house say panel tamper switches are a waste of money

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?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sarah18d agoMost Upvoted

Last summer I did a service call on a new build where the homeowner bypassed the tamper switch with a paperclip because it kept going off randomly. The inspector caught it during a rough-in and made them fix it. It took us two hours to track down the wiring mess he created. Those false alarms are annoying for sure, but skipping them just creates bigger headaches later. I use them every time now, even on cheap resi work.

murray.cole18d ago

Yeah I've been that homeowner with the paperclip trick before. Thought I was MacGyver until the inspector walked in and I had to sheepishly explain why there was office supplies in my fire system. Turns out my brilliant hack just created a 2 hour scavenger hunt for the guy who had to fix it.