On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 12:00:57 AM UTC-4, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 4 Jul 2018 13:54:43 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Wednesday, July 4, 2018 at 9:54:40 AM UTC-4, micky wrote:
How do I get my home's smoke alarm to not send a signal to the
monitoring company right away?

Even though the system is grounded through a 6' copper rod, there was a
lightning strike that set off the smoke alarm which called the
monitoring company.

A week later, I was broiling something and I left the oven on in case I
needed to put the food in for more time, and though I didn't smell
anything, the smoke alarm went off and it started dialing the monitoring
company within about 2 minutes. I called them and cancelled, but now
I'm afraid to cook anything except by boiling.

What key words should I look for to buy something new?

Modern alarm system panels are highly programmable and the delay for various trips before it sends an alarm can be set. Find the installation manual for your. If you bought it from an alarm monitoring company you won't have the install code ti change it though. But they can change it, probably for the cost of a trip, even though modern ones can be reconfigured remotely.

I have the install code but it seems the delay is not adjustable. Lots
of other things are, but not that. My friend who owns the alarm company
uses newer boards now but I don't want to bother him.

I was hoping there were smoke detectors that themselves had the delay,

I've never seen one that had any delay.




that squealed locally at the first notice of smoke, but didn't alert the
monitoring company until some later time.


Seems to me if you had all kinds of alarm inputs that had their own delay, it
would make the whole system more complex and confusing. Having the alarm
panel control how long a delay there is and for what types of trips is the
more logical approach.



30 seconds just isn't
enough.


Are you sure you're looking at the right settings? If you're looking
at the alarm panel settings specific to fire alarms, that may be the
wrong place. There may be a general setting that changes the delay time
before *all* alarms are reported to the monitoring company. Generally
these home monitored alarm systems are more trouble than they are worth.
Police don't give them much priority because 99% are false alarms, so
they may take quite awhile to arrive. Many places also start fining
people after a couple false alarms. IMO, an alarm with a good siren
that can be heard is good enough, unless you have the Hope diamond
in your house. Any burglar is going to hear the siren go off, they
don't know if it's monitored or not, and they will almost certainly
beat it. Put a sign in the window that says "Monitored Alarm System"
and stop paying monthly monitoring fees, that's my advice. That saves
you money and solves the problem.