please can you help me how to deal with this, can i get a refund or do anything.

alarm was making noise showing no power


that tends to happen only if alarm battery is depleted and needs changing


but i now realise it would also happen if my electricity has been tripped and isnt giving power to the alarm battery or unit


i called alarm guy to change battery saying i'm being woken with the noise alarm gives out when the battery is not getting power.


i clearly told the alarm guy that its unusual to need the battery changed so soon


i've had alarm for 21 years so i should know that its not usual


he didnt take seriously what i said he just immediately rebutted what i was saying, and he said that the batteries DO need changing every year or 2

despite that i was saying and i knew that mine have always needed changing much less often maybe every 4 or 6 years.


he changed the battery

he probably didnt even check that the battery needed changing


he tried to talk me into buying a new alarm system saying they are very affordable and saying mine wont last long because it was never installed properly which is a separate frustration


the battery alarm was still giving a noise out that it gives when it doesnt have power


i clearly said that its not normal for the alarm to still give out a noise after the battery is changes showing it still doesnt have power

he didn’t listen to me and he immediately rebutted this saying that new battery needs to charge up and so it does make noise andto let him know if after 4 hours it still is making noise


this did not work for me because I wasn’t going to be home for the next 4 hours and then the weekend I’d have to suffer the entire weekend.


noone thought to check if the battery needed changing or if the electriticy had been tripped and if that was the real problem despite all that I was saying

a friend of mine was there and kept the old battery and checked it and its fine it did not need changing.


so now i'm left out of pocket for a battery that didnt need changing and i'm very low on funds currently after a year of family crisis



as a separe query , is it usual for an alarm man to come with 2 other people to change a battery or check an issue as I found that quite overwhelming and distracting also. He came with a guy who actually did the work and with his girlfriend. is that usual.


and i'm still left with the noise because the real problem is that something is tripping my electricity and i dont know if its the alarm thats aged and faulty that is tripping the alarm or if its another appliance is tripping the alarm.


what i can say to the alarm man,

can i get a refund,

should he have checked the battery,

should he have heardthe 2 things I was saying and questioned and checked ifi t was in fact the battery or if the electricity had tripped.


i had said that the battery it never needs changing so soon

and that it never makes noise still after the battery had been changed.


( a separate frustration is that when I originally paid for this alarm, it was was placed completely out of sight and very hard to access in my roof of a house with 14feet ceilings and a tiny manhole.


Once installed and with the battery lasting some 5 years, it took some years till I found out that

it was installed really badly, by a major alarm and intercom company , with shoddy wiring everywhere and just plonked on the floor in my roof where possums and rats can run on it and pee on it.)


I wish I could do something about it because this alarm man is now saying it wont last longer than 6 months because of deteriorating wiring etc because of how it was installed. If it was installed properly it would last much longer.

 

Sounds like you need a new alarm

 

For your own personal safety, you should change the smoke detector batteries each year. That is why there is an ad on tv/radio that repeatedly says, around the changeover of daylight savings, "Change your clock, change your smoke detector batteries."

If you have had the alarm for 21 years there is a possibility that it does indeed need replacing.

 

Good point... I now suspect the thread is about a security alarm, because smoke detector batteries are not overly expensive. I presume security alarm batteries must be, thus the OP's stress.

 

Security alarm

I wish this forum allowed us to edit posts ongoingly . It seems to only give a short window of time

 

20 years is a good run for anything, if you know it wasnt done well in the first place.

 

ADT call out & new battery $72.27,Call out fee $145.91,15 minutes labour $41...................TOTAL $285 Incl.

 

So how long after you called him did they come for the service?

 

i am not talking in this post about a fire alarm
i am talking only about a house security system alarm

my question is
shoujld i be able to get a refund back from house security alarm guy ?
before he even came out i told him that it is not normal forthe battery to need changing so soon so he could have then and there heard what i was saying and told me to check the electricity box and i wouldnt have been charged for a house ecall or battery change

should he have checked if it was a flat battery problem especially since i was sayingt hings both before and after the battery waschanged which pointed towards it being a different problem and not being a flat battery problem.?
should he at any point have checked the battery if it was flat

or if the electricity had been tripped, either of which would have caused the alarm to have no power .

i was clearly saying thati have had this alarm for 21 years and it is unusual to need battery changing so soon
and i was clearly saying that it is unusual for the alarm to still make sounds of no power even after the battery has been changed

he didnt listien to what i was saying.He didnt check the battery if it was flat , he didnt check the electric power if it was off if it had been tripped.

both times he didnt llisten to what i was saying
both times he simply rebutted and negated what i was saying, despite me saying that i've had this alarm for 21 years and it was not normal for my alarm. . Both times he replied that it was normal without considering what i was saying..
it was not normal forthe battery to need changing so soon
and it was not normal for the alarm to still send out 'no power 'noises after the battery has been changed

should he have heard what i was saying and realised to check the battery and to realise immediately that the battery was fine and didnt need changing . Should he have realised to check the electric powerand realised that it had indeed partly tripped for some circuits and so that is whythe house security alarm didnt have power and was sending out the alert noise that it makes when it has no power. It was not sending out the no power alert noise due to a low battery, it was sending out the no power alert noise due to electricity being tripped.

s

Last edited: A moment ago

 

I think yes they should have checked power was actually being supplied to the unit. However it sounds as though they did say to call them if the noise was still being made a few hours later. Did you do that?

Should you also have realised the power was tripped?
How come you didn't know when you live in the house?

 

thank you qak for a very helpful reply.

surely on the phone before coming out especially when i said that it is not usual to need changing so soon he should have asked me to che3ck electric box.

also shouldnt they also as experts before even changing a battery check that its not in fact the electric power?

and shouldnt they check the battery to assure it wasnt the battery

i didnt think it was the electricity becuse
when the house security alarm no power alert woke me in the middle of the night
i checked my bedlight and saw that it was not the power
so i wrongly assumed that it was the battery
so yes as a novice i could partly be blamed for assuming that the alarm battery needs changing

however i did say clearly on the phone BEFORE he even came out that it is unusual for my alarm battery to need changing so soon. i feel that they know we are novices and they should have at that point heard that and told me to check the power box. then i would have immediately seen that the electricity was tripped.

surely on the phone before coming out especially when i said that it is not usual to need changing so soon he should have asked me to che3ck electric box.

also shouldnt they also as experts before even changing a battery check that its not in fact the electric power?

and shouldnt they check the battery to assure it was the battery

and no i was not able to be home all morning waiting for him to arrive and also the aternoon waiting to see if it still made noises .

i had 3 sinking stressful feelings with this guy because
1 i told him its not usual for the battery to need changing so soon
and i didnt think it was answered or feltright when he negated that and just said yes it is usual when i knew it wasnt

2 i told him it wasnt usual for it to still make noises after
and again he negated that -he might have a point it might still make a noise for 10minutes longer but not 4hours

3when he told me to let him know if it doesnt stop within 4 hours and i knew that i was not going to be home to tell him.

surely on the phone before coming out especially when i said that it is not usual to need changing so soon he should have asked me to che3ck electric box.

 

The alarm guy is not obliged to help you troubleshoot the problem over the phone. Imagine the risk of that if you had done something stupid in the electrical box and electrocuted yourself.

This is why people are professionals in their field of expertise. They solve other people's problems that cannot be solved themselves. That is essentially what everyone goes to work for.

You need to take a good look at the situation from the perspective of the industry professional. You call them, they come out, they troubleshoot the problem for you. It's a clear waste of time whinging about it on the internet.

If the problem persists, have 2x Panadol and a lie down......and then shell out for a new alarm, because clearly that sounds like the solution to the problem given by the expert.

pinkboy

 

From the alarm guys point of view: customer thinks its the end of the world and impatient because they have other things to do. Really old alarm that was done badly 20 years ago. Emotional customer doesnt want to know about replacement. Insists on knowing about batteries.

 

alarm guy is screwing you around (why does the new battery need to be charged up? did he replace it with an empty one? lol) Nothing wrong with the previous install, if its been working well for months. Is he from the same company that did the initial installation?

Maybe you need to manually reset the system after the new battery install.

Just get another company. You can easily check a company's reputation now on the web.


Best option if its your own place is to get a guard dog. It has been shown that this is the best deterrent to burglars. Probably cost you less than maintaining an alarm in the long run. Solve your Possum / wild animal invasion problems too.

otherwise just DIY.

 

Your posts are too long and rambling to read in full.

Glancing at the first few lines if seems you paid for someone to come out and do something. What was it you agreed on? If they agreed to replace a batter you have no recourse. If they agreed to go through and investigate and guarantee to fix it you may be able to sue for breach of contract.

If your alarm is 20 lifes old it probably is past its lifespan in age and needs to be replaced.

 

Please also consider that the alarm guy is probably not an electrician and therefore not allowed to or able to give advice on the anything other than the alarm.

 

if a customer is saying its not usual for the battery to need changing so soon then he who deals daily with these would know immediately that the electricity box should be checked .

Even if i didnt say that its unusual for the battery to need changing so soon, he deals with these daily so he should be asking people to just make sure its not the electriticy fuse tripped

many companies dealing with appliances have on their answering message to check that appliances are plugged in etc

for him this would have been obvious that its either
1 the battery ,
and i was saying this is unusual to need changing so soon,
or
2 the electricity box,
and you dont need an electricition or any troubleshoutting or risk to take a second to look at the electric box fuses if they are down or ok. it takes a second and i feel i should have been told as he would have known that that was important to check
with what he knows dealing with these daily , why isnt he checking electric boxesaret tripped, before just changing batteries?

trainee i was not emotional
but yes it was urgent as noone could sleep all night from the noise and the noise is on going all night and all day till its fixed

he deals with these daily
he would know to just look in the electric box to confirm no fuse is tripped

i'm a novice, once i've turned on a light and seen my electricity is on, then i didnt realise till hindsight that i had to actually check the electricity box to makesure no fuse is tripped

 

thank you wylie and all the posts much appreciated
qak they came out a few hours later which wasmuch appreciated until i realise thebattery wasnt the issue andi had saidonthe phone that thebattery doesnt usually need changing so soon so i am frustrated that h e didnt immediately tell me to check the electricity box that no parts had tripped
that is not a huge troubleshooting to tell a novice to check the electricity box that no fuses had tripped especially if i'm saying thatthe battery usually doesnt need changing so soon.