ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion Building Codes for Electricians smoke detectors

iwire,
1st thanx for responding to this issue.
About the 120 volt relay...if the house loses power,the 120 volt relay won't send a signal to the alarm panel under alarm, right?
And about the 14-3 romex...I meant that the low voltage smoke detector systems can't utilize my 14-3 romex for hook-up to their smokes.I had a alarm guy tell me today that the wire he uses must be rated for 105`C and the romex is only good to 90`C...He said it is in NFPA 72, but I havn't seen it in print yet?
He also mentioned about the way we don't daisy chain our wiring between all detector locations (T-Taps) and they wouldn't be able to tell if one of the detectors was disconnected.
The alarm guy went on to say he will replace my smokes with wireless ones that will let them(the monitering service) even know when a battery is low at the individual detector.

shortcircuit
Sounds like your problem is being sorted out.

As for the relay idea, I have done it before. Only to eleimate having the alarm guys smokes and mine right next to eachother. We're required to install hard wired smokes by law in new and major remodels, then the alarm company sells them some more with thier system.

On a simular problem, we had a very smart alarm guy "forget" to rough once! They rocked away! He did the wireless thing for most of the security. Then used our smokes with the relay described above, then another relay that triggered "loss of power" to thier monitor. Which, I believe they do anyway... Then only had to wire the heat detectors in a few key areas.

As far as the red wire, not sure if it is required to be red specifaly, very rarely do I see it used in residential systems. These most often are property protection, not life safety systems. Tempature and insulation another story. I'm not sure of what Massachusetts is requiring. (I left in 1990) But I hope it works out.

Yuo could also move some undesirable friend to the neighborhood, and drop the propety value... to say $999,999.99!

When my buddy (alarm tech) wired my house, all the hardwired smokes & heats were run with a (red) fire-rated cable of some sort - no bigger than 18AWG max - for both 24vdc power and signal loop connection. (He stated it was fire-resistant, which automatically made me think of plenum rated cable... don't know if it's the same or not) According to him, it's more of a UL requirement for the individual installation than an NEC item.