Alarm settings for night time

[Egbert]

HI

I am looking at getting a wirefree alarm which we can set up ourselves. From reading this site it seems the Powermax Plus is a great option - however I have some questions if anyone can give me some advice -

DOes the POwermax have separate day time/ night time settings?

My main concern is protecting the house at night - I am concerned about burglary but am more concerned about protecting my kids from intruders/fire etc.

I have some problems with what type of contacts/PIRs are best to use at night? I dont want to put big white plastic contacts on my oak front/side doors - is there an option that is aesthetically pleasant as well?

It seems the only option in the hall way, which has a front door, porch double door and stairs in it, is a PIR. However the chances of one of my family walking through it at night is quite high. So what other options would there be?

Also, if I was to have a window contact on every window upstairs and downstairs, I would need around 20 - we have old fashioned windows with 2 or 3 openings in every frame. This would work out every expensive - but what other sensor is there?

Thanks

[Egbert]

Sorry - another question. Can the Powermax be connected to external PIR as well - and configured so that 2 or 3 contacts must be broken before the alarm sounds - so it isnt set off by wildlife wandering by?

[splat1]

Hey Egbert,
I have been looking at a situation like yours for my house, slight diffrence we cant screw anythign into the frames of door's/windows.

The door and window units have connections for a wired loop to be connected so you could use these and in door (read hidden in the door frame) reed contacts from maplins.

For my house I'm going to use one per window/door frame down stairs and wire all the extra openings this way.

The alarm can be set to arm just a few zones (ie just doors and windows) in "home" mode if I have understood the manual correctly.

We intend to have all window and door contacts on this and reserve the PIR's for when we are away from the house.

MTC-100 http://www.visonic.com/visonichomepa...1?OpenDocument

Is a 2 zone transmitter if you want to hide the units out of sight but still want to use wired loops (to my knowing there is no limit on the number of sensors on these loops as long as the run is not overly long).

[toscal]

Yes you can part arm the system. So you need to set up certain zones as perimeter type zones. Such as doors and windows. Then you can move freely about the house at night with out going #@€$ forgot to disarm the alarm.
From memory the Visonic smoke sensors are on the 24Hr circuit so even if the alarm isn't armed they will still set it off. Also the alarm will sound different when they go off.
Out door sensors are possible. Here in Spain it is quite a common add on. normally you use a door sensor set to external trigger and then wire the outdoor sensor to the external contact on the door sensor. We have done this a couple of times on various installs and it works very well. The other method is to hard wire the outdoor sensor to the wired inputs on the Visonic. Personally the door sensor method works better, and in my opinion is easier to set up.
You can get pet friendly PIR outdoor sensors we have a client who uses 4 of these and he is happy with them, or something else we have done is to use beam break sensors. The ones we use are of the 4 beam type (they look like black vertical poles) and can be set up so either 1 beam or 2 beams need to be broken simultaneously to trigger an alarm. They use a lithium battery and should last 3 to 5 years before changing. They are not cheap but work very well.( around the 230 pounds and upwards mark depending on type, they come in different lengths). And are fairly pet friendly for small pets, think Jack Russel type size for dogs and cats.
Forgot to mention that the beam break sensors are wired into a Visonic door sensor.

[Egbert]

Thanks for your replies.

I am not very technically minded, so could someone please explain the difference between PIRs for me-

Next K985 DDMCW - Wireless Pet Tolerant PIR
Next DD MCW - Wireless PIR
Clip T MCW - Wireless PIR

From what I can see they all produce a kind of flat 90 degree curtain of cover so any one would work as well in covering a large window opening? I understand that the pet sensor is designed to ignore movements of light animals but cannot see the difference between the area of cover from this and the Clip MCW which is twice the price?

[toscal]

Ok Here goes
Next K985 DDMCW - Wireless Pet Tolerant PIR
As you rightly said this detects pets. They work very well. And all the clients we have who have pets haven't had a false alarm. Well except one but then the cat did try and jump straight towards the PIR from about 30cm away. The client had put in a cupboard very near to the sensor that wasn't there when we did the initial install.

Next DD MCW - Wireless PIR
Same as above but is not pet friendly.

The Next sensors are designed of whole room protection.

Clip T MCW - Wireless PIR
These are often called curtain detectors. As they produce a thin beam designed to protect doors or windows or ceilings (if you mount it horizontally rather than vertically) rather than whole rooms. The price of these is very similar to the others, may be a couple of pounds in it, so I don't know where you saw the price.

[Egbert]

Thanks for your responses Toscal - you have been very helpful.

I think I am going to have to get some experts in to give me some quotes, and at the same time pick their brains on what layout of detectors they would use as when I calculate it seems very expensive, considering IM trying to install it myself to save funds.

Basically I have 4 rooms and a hallway downstairs and 3 rooms, bath and hall upstairs. I want to be able to part arm the system at night but still be able to move about the house, so I assume upstairs I am best to get contacts or curtains detectors on the windows. This means covering 9 windows, each of which has 2 openings.

I also have a problem in that my windows are metal now wood, so i cant screw a contact into the frame. I may have to glue this into place.

Does every window in every bed room need to be covered, or would I assume someone breaking i at night, while we are in the house, is unlikely to use an inhabited bedroom as a point of entry?

[toscal]

How thick are your metal frames. I have used self tapping screws on metal door frames before. Also Something we use on uPVC windows is double sided sticky tape. Though the type we use is the same as they use for sticking dashboards etc in cars. Once its stuck its very hard to remove.
Normally I would use PIR motion detectors. To protect the whole room. For door and window sensors the Visonic door / window sensors have the ability to connect a normal wired door / window contact to them as well. So if you have 2 windows next to each other then one can be a wired contact and this gets connected to the wireless contact on the other window.
Any chance of a plan of the house that way we can possibly give you more advice on where to put sensors.
I don't think its really necessary to put sensors in every room.