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In article ,
says...
In message , John
wrote

"Chris Wilson" wrote in message
t...
As of the last few days our house alarm outside bell (siren really) box
sounds if the mains goes down. It never used to, the only reason I first
noticed was an RCD tripping fault on a mains ring circuit tripped the
fuse box RCD, and the alarm sounded, although the control panel was in
"Daytime" mode, and no panel lights showed. Restoring mains stops the
alarm, but resetting the alarm panel has no effect. Any clues what's up
with the damned thing? Otherwise the system appears to function normally.
We get not infrequent power outages here, so this could be a damned
nuisance ;-) Thanks.

Battery in the alarm box. Test to see if there is an output

I had _identical_ symptoms a few years ago and the cure was a new 12V
rechargeable battery inside the alarm control panel. The old battery was
still giving 12V (nominal) at the output terminals but it appeared not
to supply enough current at the point where the mains failed and the
alarm latched on.

In my control panel the battery is connected with two spade terminals
and was very easy to replace. The control panel will probably have a
tamper switch which will set off the alarm as you remove the cover. If
you remove the mains power AND the battery make sure that you still
have the instructions (and understand them) about configuring alarm from
scratch. The instructions that came with my alarm were in that classic
Far East to English translation - with only half the information needed
to program the box in the user guide and the other half in a separate
installation guide))

Suitable batteries can be obtained from CPC, Maplin and many other
places.

Thanks everyone, despite me buying a new battery 2 years ago (Yuasa) it
has died, so have temporarily fitted a much bigger one on fly leads,
until I can pick up another correctly sized one.

With regard to whether alarms are worth it, we live in the sticks, and
our neighbour always has a look around if it goes off, and releases our
dogs if anything looks suspicious. Being in the sticks people tend to
investigate their alarm at the same time as coming back (coincidentally)
from trying to shoot a fox :-)

In the town, where I lived before, a sounding alarm brought nothing in
the way of interest or response, and I agree, they are pretty useless
save as a sop to the insurance policy.

--
Best Regards,
Chris.