Spent 5 hours chasing a false alarm on a DSC system last week

I had this DSC panel that kept triggering the alarm at 3 AM every other night for a month, and I swapped out the motion sensor, the window contacts, even the battery. Turns out a tiny spider had built a web between two terminals on the main board, causing intermittent shorts. Anyone else run into weird critter-related issues inside alarm panels?

3 comments

3 Comments

parker1831mo ago

Honestly though, isn't that more of an edge case than a common problem?

josepha321mo ago

Just keeping up with regular maintenance fixed it before it became a big problem for me.

lopez.quinn1mo ago

My buddy had a similar issue with a Vista panel that went haywire after a mouse chewed through the wire insulation on the zone 3 input. Took him three service calls to figure it out since the wire was tucked behind a wall plate and looked fine from the outside until he pulled it all the way out. Cost him like $400 in labor before he spotted the tiny teeth marks.