OT: Contractors and Burglary Alarm System

Slightly off-topic.

Recently bought a new home, the company that installed network and burglary alarm seems to have cut every corner imaginable:

We paid for 5 extra CAT6 drops. They forgot, and came back to install, in the wrong location. They moved them, I checked the cable, not CAT6. They came back and replaced. Now the other end of the cables were in the wrong location. Etc. etc. I think they have been back 10 times to fix their ****.

Had to move an outlet the other day and noticed they used Cat5 keystones. So they will be back again.

But.. My reason for posting this, I recently replaced an keypad for our alarm system and managed to mess up the programming and had to reset and reprogram the panel. By doing that, I figured out they did not use EOL resistors in all but one zone. For that one zone they added it in the alarm panel.

So my question, obviously one should use EOL resistors. But is there any (US) code requiring it (at the remote end....)?

I've seen this so many times, the panel produces an error so the installer just puts it in the panel to make the error go away.

Put is this way, it's called an end of line resistor for a reason, if it isn't there isn't monitoring the integrity of the zone wiring, law or not

I do agree, and I will make sure they are added. I am just trying not to have to pay for it.. lol

I'm not sure they have an argument against you - without the EOL the zone isn't supervised. Granted most thieves don't go around bypassing alarm systems but the panel has that feature for a reason.

I'm sure it's a requirement on fire systems that are installed on the last device

One would think. When I caught them installing CAT5 instead of CAT6, they replaced everything with new cable, still CAT5, but a different color. There is no common sense, I will have to find something that says its required, or they'll just install a bunch of them in the cabinet, lol.

Smoke/CO detection is stand-alone system.

UL requires that all installations follow the manufacture instructions. If the manufacture calls for end of line resistors to be installed and they are not, then the system is not compliant with its UL rating. NEC requires that low voltage systems be UL rated. It's a round about way of looking at it, but I have seen more than one inspector use it as the reason for not passing an inspection.


Bubba.

Thanks! I'll try that and see what they do

With their track record, I might be better of doing it myself tho... Decisions...