Walked into a house with all wired contacts on the same zone as the smoke detectors

Job in Phoenix last month. Old system, whoever did it originally tied every door and window contact into the same alarm zone as the hardwired smokes. Customer kept getting false alarms at 2am from a loose kitchen window. Spent 45 minutes tracing wires before I figured out what was going on. Ended up splitting the smokes off onto their own zone and rerunning one wire. Customer watched me the whole time and asked if I could just tape the window shut. Anyone else run into this kind of lazy install where they just cram everything into one zone?

2 comments

2 Comments

leebrown20d ago

Isn't that just how people cut corners with everything these days?

grace92620d ago

Catch yourself looking at any renovation or repair job these days and you'll see it, @leebrown. Everything's about speed over quality now. People want it done yesterday and don't care if it falls apart in a year. I see it in new construction houses with shoddy wiring, cheap materials that look good for a photo but won't last a season. It's like we traded the idea of something built to last for something built to sell.