Ademco 20P Occasional False Alarms

Occasionaly when I'm away and have the alarm set for AWAY mode, I'll receive a false alarm from one of the motion sensors. This is a self monitored system, with no outside siren, so any noise to the neighbors is minimal, so I'm not too concerned about it. These false alarms have occurred different times of the day, both morning and night, rainy or clear. The motions are not near any HVAC vent, so I am assuming that it's an insect possibly walking across the sensor. Anyway, my question is this. Up to now I've been ignoring these as false alarms, and do not contact the local PD. What I am assuming is that if it was a real alarm, I would be getting multiple pages from the alarm from different sensors, motion or door/window. Is this a valid assumption? I have not tested this yet, by plan to. When the alarm gets a tripped sensor, will it send out multiple alerts for every sensor that gets tripped, or only the first one?

Thank you in advance.

 

Once it's in alarm, it dials out, once. It will not dial out again unless the siren times out and a new alarm is tripped.

That's the advantage of actual monitoring, they actually get the individual zone signals.

 

Thanks for the prompt reply. Is there anyway, short of a monitoring company that I can get all of the alerts, voice dialer, some other hardware device,changing the alarm reset value to a smaller time?

Thanks again

 

No, it's the nature of the beast. The primary communication abilities are designed around central station connections. All of the other stuff is supplementary.

Really, if your priority is getting a full range of signals, you need to go with one of the services that cater to the DIY market, like nextalarm or something similar.

 

I know you didn't ask about this, Keno, but are you interested in getting the falsing to _stop_?

You didn't make it clear whether one, two, or all of your motions participated in this "occasional" raucous activity. If it's only one, it might be relatively easy to fix. If it's more, it gets more complicated, but it still might be fixable.

How "occasional" is this falsing? Sad to say, statistically most burglaries are committed by kids in or near the victim's neighborhood; or by "semi-pros", workers in the neighborhood who "moonlight" (often in broad daylight) if they see an easy target. Most kids and workers are decent, honest folk, but it's naive to treat your security as if they _all_ were.

The interior siren may not be at a level that bothers your neighbors, but it's a fair bet that any of them near your house can tell it's sounding. If it sounds too often, it may become like a car alarm in a public parking lot--who even glances anymore?

If you're interested in getting some support to go after the falsing problem, there are people on this forum who will work with you. It may take awhile to diagnose and fix the problem, or it may be quick. We won't know until we start; if we start.


It could be, but not necessarily. Have you looked inside your sensor(s) to see if insects or arachnids have set up housekeeping? Are all openings, including the hole for the wire, sealed with caulk or putty? (I've been known to use a dab of chewed-out gum when I found an unsealed PIR housing. And yes, it _does_ work. Gum with the flavoring chewed out is just latex.)

Moths are another possibility if they fly close enough. Depending on where you are, geckos can be a problem. Sometimes an air gust can move curtains, draped clothes or plants in a room enough to trigger it.

There are a host of possibilities and the way to approach it is not to try to list all the possibilies (in other words, compile a book) but to try to narrow it down--starting with whether it's one, or more, and whether it's hardwired or wireless can be relevant to any solution.

If you're interested in solving the falsing problem, let us know by answering the questions and you'll get tech support here.