CASE STUDY

ALARM WIRING PLAN

LEGEND
P: Main Alarm Panel K: Keypad Input Devices M: Motion Detector D: Door Sensor W: Window Sensor G: Glass Break Sensor L: Liquid/Water Sensor 24 Hour Input Devices F: Fire/Smoke/Heat Sensor Output Devices H: Horn/Siren S: Strobe Light

First step when installing any alarm system is to determine what to install and where. Above is a typical floor plan from a home builder that has been marked up to indicate where alarm components will be installed. Marking up a copy of these plans is a good place to start to determine how many window & door sensors and motion detectors will be needed to protect the entire home. The first major decision is to determine if sensors for every window in the home are required or are motion detectors good enough to provide coverage. These floor plans show that wiring sensors for every window more than doubles the amount of wires that are needed to run. A typical entry level panel is limited to 8 zones. Even higher end panels need expander cards to support more than 8 zones. Even if more than 8 sensors , 8 zone panel can be used. Wiring multiple sensors to a single zone is needed. When a zone with multiple sensors is tripped, determining which sensor is the cause will be difficult. Also, if there is a fault/error with a multiple-sensor zone it will be more difficult to diagnose.

Here are some examples of 8, 16, & 32 zone setups.

8 zone: - assumes Fire detectors are handled separately Living Room Motion Detector Family Room Motion Detector Dining Room Motion Detector Basement Motion Detector Front Door Back + Garage Door Dinette Glass Break Sensor Water Sensor

16 zone: - the above 8 zone layout plus window sensors (multiple windows per zone) Dining Room Windows Living Room Windows Family Room Windows Kitchen/Laundry Windows Owner's Bedroom/Bathroom Windows Bedroom 2 Windows Bedroom 3+4 Windows Basement Windows

32 zone: With 32 zones, every sensor indicated in the floor plan above will have its own sensor.

There are other considerations when combining sensors into a single zone. Alarm systems can be activated with some zones disabled. For example, if you activate the alarm at night when you sleep you want the doors and windows protected, but you do not the motion sensors active. You probably want the motion sensors disabled so that you can walk around the house without setting off the alarm. Therefore, you should not combine the window & motion sensors from the same room into a single zone. During a hot summer night you may want to leave the windows in your room open, but not any of the downstairs windows. Again, these windows would need to be in separate zones so that you could leave upstairs windows open but have the downstairs windows protected.

HOUSE WIRING PLANS

PLAN 1
The first plan lays out the following: RG-6 coaxial cable for satellite & cable Cat-5 cable for internet Cat-3 cable for phone

Speaker wire for some in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and for the banana jacks next to some bookshelf speakers Video cable for surveillance cameras Alarm cable for the motion detectors and keypads for the alarm system

Component audio/video cables that ran from the computer to the family room entertainment centre Computer cables that allowed for a second computer monitor & keyboard in a separate room X10 electrical wall outlets that allowed for remote control of electrical devices

What's in this plan: For starters, every bedroom has 2 wall plates with a phone, internet, and cable jacks. The 2 wall plates are usually at opposite ends of the room. The idea here is to determine every location a desk/table could potentially be placed (after accounting for door, windows, and closets) and then put a wall plates there. The master bedroom/bathroom gets the royal treatment with in-wall speakers for the bedroom and in-ceiling speakers for the bath. These speakers are wired jacks behind the Armoire that holds the TV and stereo components. My A/V Receiver has A/B outputs so no

special equipment was needed to run the second pair of speakers. There are also 2 coax cable connections behind the Armoire for my satellite receiver. The bedroom also has a phone, internet, and cable jack wall plate near the bed. Downstairs, the Dining Room got in-ceiling speakers and the Sun Room got outdoor wall mounted speakers. The family room had bookshelf speakers, but the wires were run through walls to plates directly behind the speakers. All of these speakers were wired to plates behind the entertainment center. The main receiver was for the Family Room and a second amp (with input from the receiver) was used for the other rooms. Besides the speaker wire, the entertainment center had:

A phone line for the satellite receiver Internet cable for a video game system: PlayStation or XBox 3 coax cables for the TiVo Satellite receiver: 2 for the dual-tuner satellite receiver and one for local channels over antenna A fourth coax cable connected directly to the Sun Room so that the output of the satellite receiver could be watched on two TVs without paying for a second receiver. Note: The Sun Room also had a coax cable for the antenna to watch locals and an A/B switch to select between local or satellite feed. Component audio/video cables from the computer so that music or movies could be played from the computer on the TV/stereo Note: Another set of these cables ran to an upstairs bedroom where I used to have the computer before we had kids.

The security system consisted of four X10 cameras that were wired in with the antenna feed. The X10 remotes ensure that only one camera is active at a time.

Most of the wires ran to the corner of the basement near the electrical box (not close enough to cause any interference). The cable modem, network routers, alarm panel, and all connections were all located here. Each room in the front of the house had an X10 outlet. We used this for Christmas candle lights in the windows. For about $30 we could turn on/off the lights with a timer (controlled by the computer) or with a remote.

Plan 2:
The second plan is cleaner since doesn't show the wires themselves. Instead, every wall plate is assigned a letter. The boxes on the right side of the diagram show what wires are available at that plate. Every wire in the basement is labeled to indicate what wall plate it connects to and what position it is in the plate. Ex: A coax cable with F5 label is the 5th coax cable on plate F.

What's in this plan: Similar to the first plan, each bedroom has 2 wall plates at opposite ends. Each plate uses the standard 2 coax, 1 internet and 1 phone setup. The Master Bedroom has some jacks in odd locations. These were installed by the builder. Most of my work was behind the Armoire with the bed/bath speakers jacks again and another plate with the standard 2 coax, 1 internet, & 1 phone jack. The Living Room, Dining Room, and Morning Room got in-ceiling speakers, and the Family Room and Study both got 2 pair of in wall speakers for surround sound. Like the first plan, most of the speaker wires terminated behind the entertainment centre. There are many more jacks behind the entertainment centre besides the speaker connections and wires to the Study. There are 6 coax cables, 2 internet and 2 phone jacks.. The Morning Room and Study also got the standard 2 coax, 1 internet and 1 phone setup. The areas marked X and W are the kitchen island and countertop. This time the alarm system includes door sensors that chime when the doors are opened and closed.

WIRING PANEL:
The panel is actually 2 boards in the corner of the basement near the electrical box. The boards are standard 2'x4' plywood that can be bought from any hardware store. They are mounted to 2"x4"'s that are screwed directly into the concrete. From left to right the panels contain: Coax cable to the different rooms - most of these are not connected, 4 are connected to the satellite input and some are connected to each other so that different rooms can share the same signal. Incoming coax from the the satellite dish - this is a triple LNB dish with four outputs so I didn't need a multiplexer to split the signal. 2 outputs go to the Master Bedroom and 2 go to the Family Room. Ground wire connected to the copper pipe - this is used to ground all the incoming coax cable lines and also is the ground for the alarm panel.

 Incoming cable feed - not in use but wired so that the cable company wouldn't need to mess with my panel in the future. This coax wire was placed furthest to the right because the incoming cable could also be used for internet access. Internet cables to the different rooms - most of these are not connected, the rest are connected to the network routers. The top box in the stack is a wireless network router, the second is the DSL modem. The other two are straight network routers. Phone cables to the different rooms - most of this wire is Cat-5 internet cable allowing for future upgrades. Incoming phone line - the phone feed is split using a DSL splitter into a DSL line and phone line. If you use DSL for internet access, every phone line needs a DSL filter. By putting it in the basement right off the main feed I only need one filter for the whole house. The DSL line goes to the DSL modem. The phone line splits into a bank of phone jacks. Alarm Panel - The wires for the motion detector, door sensors, keypads, and horn enter the top of the alarm box. The power goes in the bottom. The box is locked and contains a battery backup. Power - The electrical panel is just to the right of this picture, but far enough away so that it wont cause any interference. The builder installed an outlet right next to the electrical box, so getting power to the routers and alarm was easy. I used a power strip with gaps between the sockets that was designed for use with power transformers.