Veritas alarm question.

[Mystified]

Hello.

Wondering if someone could give me some advice on my Veritas alarm.

I recently had an extended power cut, when the power was restored, the alarm still worked. A week later, I had another power cut lasting about two hours. When power was restored, the alarm came on, though I noticed it was much quieter than it used to be - it used to be audible from outside, now I could just barely hear it from the room next to the alarm.

The next day, the alarm just seemed to go completely dead, the keypad wasn't lit up, the chime didn't sound when I opened any doors. I called Texecom, they thought it might be the battery due to the power cuts. I have no electrical knowledge, so called out an SSAIB engineer to take a look. The Engineer checked the battery, and confirmed that the battery was completely dead, and replaced the battery. Keypad lit up, door chime sounded again. The engineering code for the alarm is unknown - the alarm was already here when I moved in, but after the engineer called Texecom, it was confirmed that this wouldn't stop the alarm working.

A few hours after the engineer left, the alarm went off again - as before, much quieter than it had been in the past. Due to the codes having been changed from the default, I couldn't stop the alarm, though it stopped of it's own accord later (and it was so quiet, it was easy to ignore).

The alarm is now dead again, despite the new battery. I've called the SSAIB company, and am waiting for a call back.

I've searched Google, but didn't manage to find anything about the alarm being so quiet - I'm wondering if I should just ask the engineer to recheck the alarm for any other issues, or if I should be looking at a replacement alarm. How long is it likely to take to replace the existing alarm with a new Veritas alarm?

Thanks for any help.

 

[LukeD]

I always tell people who buy a property with a alarm that either the full engineer code etc must be provided or the alarm is fully turned off /removed etc .And get the lawyers to make sure this happens .Its never worth taking on a old system and not having a full set of codes

 

[buzzlightyear]

I just sold a property and reset back to factory set conditions and left how to put in their code in a pressto.

 

[buzzlightyear]

A few hours after the engineer left, the alarm went off again - as before, much quieter than it had been in the past. Due to the codes having been changed from the default, I couldn't stop the alarm, though it stopped of it's own accord later (and it was so quiet, it was easy to ignore

either he's not reset wrong or there is a problem with the system

 

[Mystified]

Thanks.

To break it down, these are the issues I have with the alarm:

1 - Codes are unknown - the engineer did think there was a way around that, but it would have meant some additional work.
2 - The alarm is completely unresponsive despite a new battery being fitted.
3 - When the alarm does sound, it's very quiet.

There are two options, I think:

1 - Have the engineer do a deep dive investigation into the existing alarm, since it looks like there's a deeper issue here.
2 - Replace the alarm - this should(?) eliminate any need to investigate the above issues (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I have no idea how long a replacement would take to install, plus there's the cost of the replacement alarm on top.

Any suggestions on the best course of action?

 

[buzzlightyear]

Have the engineer do a deep dive investigation into the existing alarm, since it looks like there's a deeper issue here.
2 - Replace the alarm - this should(?) eliminate any need to investigate the above issues (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I have no idea how long a replacement would take to install, plus there's the cost of the replacement alarm on top.

Any suggestions on the best course of action?

Me scrap it a new system in, there is very little thing go wrong with veratas.
Has long has they are serviced.

 

[brianmoooore]

Battery went dead. New, charged battery fitted. That went dead.
It seems very likely that the battery isn't being charged. First thing to do is to confirm that 230V is reaching the alarm panel, and if it is, check fuses. If all are OK, it's likely the panel is faulty.
Any idea what the cause of the power cut was? If it was lightning or a neutral fault on a 3 phase line, then that could be relevant.

 

[Mystified]

Battery went dead. New, charged battery fitted. That went dead.
It seems very likely that the battery isn't being charged. First thing to do is to confirm that 230V is reaching the alarm panel, and if it is, check fuses. If all are OK, it's likely the panel is faulty.
Any idea what the cause of the power cut was? If it was lightning or a neutral fault on a 3 phase line, then that could be relevant.

The first power cut followed Storm Arwen; unfortunately, I don't know what the exact cause was. The second, brief outage was due to the power cable to my property being damaged.