That talk with a retired fire chief made me rethink how I wire zones

He told me he's seen three different homes where the homeowner died because the alarm panel was in a utility room with no cellular backup during a power outage. Now I'm adding a battery backup and communicator check to every install, anyone else do that as standard?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_foster529d ago

Rowan's car story is a good example but it's actually not quite the same thing. A loose belt makes noise because something is already going wrong. A missing backup communicator is silent right up until the moment it fails. The fire chief's point was about hidden risks that don't warn you before they kill someone. That belt gave your buddy weeks of warning, which is actually the opposite of a silent killer. Still a good lesson about ignoring signs, but different kind of danger entirely.

alex_coleman9d ago

Funny how the stuff we overlook is usually what gets us.

rowan6669d ago

Buddy of mine ignored a weird noise in his car for weeks. Turned out to be a loose belt that snapped on the highway, cost him triple to fix. Realized later that small sound was the cheapest warning he ever got.