Wiring For House Alarm - Cable...

[GavinK]

Hi, I'm having someone wire for an alarm in a house in the UK. Plan to have the alarm fitted later. Regarding the actual wiring, is there anything I should request/check to ensure that when I do fit an alarm I'll have cabling that will allow me to install a decent system ? I've already identified the number and location of sensor points, but just wondering if there's a certain number or quality of cables that should be laid to the control panel points to allow max flexibility in the future. Thanks.

[bankruatsteve]

So, this is a Thai based forum, yah? Anyway, wireLESS seems to be the way to do alarm systems these days so suggest you contact your security agent sooner than later as to what you might need to prepare.

[mrbojangles]

I'm still wary of wireless alarms as the batteries can drain down but you don't know when. I think I will always use a fully wired system.

OP. In my experience, if you put 3 pair (6 core) cable to all of your points that you need PIR's etc this will give you full flexibility for the future if you want to add things. And always leave some slack in the cable in the roof space or under floor boards

[dave111223]

On our wired alarm system has 2 sensors per spot (vibration + open/closed) and they ran 1 phone cable (with 4 wires inside) to each spot.

If you wanted to spend more you could run CAT5 lan cable instead, that has 8 wires inside so would allow up to 4 sensors per cable. LAN cable would also allow you much options in the future for more advanced stuff (such as video intercoms etc...)

Make sure they wire the zones properly, our alarm box has 8 or 9 zones, but when I asked the installers about it they had planned on wiring it only for 2 zones. Obviously you want to utilize as many zones as your alarm box will handle.