Worst install of an Alarm Control Panel |

Wiring Nightmare

Well it’s finally Friday and I hope you’re excited about the weekend like me! This is a Lakers “Gold” weekend so I better not see green anything.

Through the years of being in the security industry, with over 51,000 experience, I have seen it all from systems easily defeated in a burglary, systems that cause false alarms, to poorly designed systems where you would have more protection sitting in a diesel truck filled with explosives ramming into a nitro-glycerin factory.

How do I know about these systems? Simple, we are the “A” Team and our job is to go into your home and business and clean up this junk and provide a safe and secure environment that lasts for decades! Plus, most of our referrals are from clients who thought the experts really were experts. Well, enough about the A Team let’s talk about the worst install of an control panel:

As seen and witnessed from Electronic Eye:

1. Control panel installed at floor height. Great height to service a panel if you have a 6 inch installer!

2. Control Panel installed inside a unprotected garage (courtesy of a national alarm company known by 3 letters). So convenient for a burglar to easily defeat a system without ever having to break in. I also like the stickers on the panel that easily direct you to the brain of the system.

3. Control panel installed at back door with keypad attached (courtesy of the national alarm company that sells $99.00 systems). Again, I always love it when an alarm company makes its system easily available for a burglar to defeat without using tools and a ladder. It always nice for the entry alert on the keypad to lead you directly to brain of the system. Our window stickers provide better security than these poorly designed systems.

4. Control Panel installed in a home with over 80 openings, with all the wires ran directly back to the control panel. This would have been OK back in the Jurassic era of alarm systems, but in the 80′s they invented a device called a “zone expander”. This makes wiring a home easy by running wires to expanders that run back to the control panel. Nice and neat and extremely easy to troubleshoot. But this type of system requires intelligent design.

5. Control panel with masking tape slices inside. Back in 1994 we bought an alarm company where the standard for everything was using masking tape. Now don’t get me wrong I like masking tape, especially when I paint. But masking tape splices in alarm installations is like electing Jerry “moonbeam” Brown to balance the California budget. It won’t work and only creates a bigger gob of mess!

Coming next week, “worst installation location of an Infrared”.