Here’s a list of strategies when trying to sort out alarm system failure or when troubleshooting repeated false alarms.
First check the battery – it could be low on power, or dead. Look at battery terminals and AC terminals and check everywhere for wire whiskers that could be shorting. All terminations need to be clean. Don’t take it for granted that the installer who put the system in and maintained it had the high standards you’re maintaining.
When checking cable runs look for broken or cut wires – it’s an awful job but proper measurements taken at both panel and sensor should mean you only need to check 1 cable run, not all of them. Make sure wires aren’t grounded and check for simple things like doors or windows jammed open.
Next, check for corroded, burned out or broken door switches. Check reed magnets. Sure, they last forever, but you might have got the one that didn’t. It’s also possible for particles of iron to get caught in the armature gaps of relays so the relays won’t jam when they should. Again, it’s rare, but it happens.
Now look for potential on the system that shouldn’t be there and search carefully for shoddy soldering or for shrink tubing that doesn’t quite cover a connection in a busy and hard to reach corner of the panel. Other trouble spots will be found in damp places where moisture causes current leakage.
Don’t be slack about your maintenance and repairs. It’s easy enough to blame a manufacturer and just pull a sensor off a wall and replace it, but in most cases modern sensors installed where and how they should be installed, are bulletproof.
Solve problems in their entirety, and if a system is impossible to resuscitate, outline the problem to your customer and suggest re-installation.
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