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Okay I'll try to make this brief. We bought this house with a security alarm installed, however we have never used it. It seems to be lit up all the time, and the motion sensor blinks, but we've never paid for any security company and we have no codes for it. Tonight it starts beeping - loudly and rapidly at the keypad. The screen says "BAT" - assuming its a low battery. Does anyone know how we can power down the whole thing? We can stop the beeping for a few hours by pressing the Off key, but it comes back. I want the thing shut down if possible.

we had something like that happen to us... we pulled the power and the system ran off the battery all the while beeping, we just let it till it died.

Find the main control center for the system, there's gotta be a way inside that box to kill the system. If not there, find the circuit breaker for the system (usually home alarms run on their own circuit) and trip it.Might have to pop the panel off the keypad, however, and 86 the battery to shut the beeping up.

As Ragingfish was saying, there is a control box somewhere in the house. I used to install security systems and we always put the control panel in a closet (master bedroom) or in the basement. You will have to get inside the panel, you may need to pry it open if you don't have a key. Inside will be a large battery in the bottom of the panel, pull both wires off the battery. You might find a transformer plugged into an AC outlet (in the box or nearby) unplug it. If not, try to identify and follow the power wire to its source. Do not try to disconnect the power in the panel (except for the battery) It may be live AC and you could get a nasty shock. Good luck with this.

Thanks for all the info. We did find a grey box attached to the wall near the electrical panel in the basement and it has a phone line going to it, so we are going to assume that is it. I didn't see any key hole on it though. So today we will try opening it.

That is exactly what you're looking for. Good Luck.

Quote, originally posted by Sputnik »Thanks for all the info. We did find a grey box attached to the wall near the electrical panel in the basement and it has a phone line going to it, so we are going to assume that is it. I didn't see any key hole on it though. So today we will try opening it. I don't know about Canadian telecom codes, but make sure you aren't cutting your home's phone service! I know our NID for the phone system is right next to the electrical service panels as well...

So we got delayed and only got around to this today. We disconnected the battery. We took the whole box off the wall to try and figure out where its power is coming from, and there is nothing but the phone jack cable going into it. We already unplugged the phone line from the jack... so where would the power be coming from?

That's probably not it if you took the whole box off the wall. There would be more than one cable going in.Usually there's a screw holding the front door on to the thing. You may have to open it up and disconnect the power leads directly. Also a picture of said box may help..

Oh its definitely the security box. Inside it has the Ademco security information. I was going to get a pic, but the hubby put it back together and screwed the lid back on it. The box was held onto the wall by three screws, and only seemed to have the wire from the telephone cable coming out of it.

It turns out he left the lid off, so I just went and took a pic:The battery has already been taken out - it was sitting in the bottom left corner of the box.

There are other white cables (near the top of the photo) that come out of the box as well - they look like the ones that go to the various sensors around the hosue...?

One of the white wires carries power from a DC transformer that is or used to be plugged into a wall outlet. That board runs on low voltage DC. It looks like you can disconnect the white wire coming from phone jack. Do not disconnect anything else in the jack, just the 2 wires coming from the alarm. If you can handle that and locate the transformer, the panel will be dead. Get me the model no. on the board and I'll look it up and tell you which wires are power.

It is an Ademco Vista 15CN

OK, that helped. When looking at the terminal strip (left to right) 1 & 2 - Incoming Power from AC transformer.4 & 5 - output power for motion and smoke detectors21 & 22 - phone line out23 & 24 - phone line inFollow the wire that connects to 1 & 2, it will lead you to the transformer, unplug it and the panel will be dead. Disregard my advice on the phone line, it is wired differently than I thought. Once the power is disconnected, the phone will still work fine. However, if you want the panel off the wall, disconnect 21, 22, 23 and 24. Pull them through the panel(careful not to touch each other) then connect 21(brown) to 23(green) and 22(gray) to 24(red). This will keep the phone circuit active the way it's wired. If you don't feel comfortable, see if a friend can help or call the phone company. Let me know if you need anything else.

I appreciate all the help - I've learned more about security systems than I really care to. The wires for the transformer lead outside the box, and disappear from my field of view, or from anywhere I can get to. So I think I'll just find a new battery and get it to stop that way. Which leads to my next question - where does one typically find batteries like this?

Do you plan to use the alarm system? If yes, I'll hunt down a battery for you. If not, disconnect #1, wire nut it, disconnect #2, wire nut it. Mark the wires as "Live " with a tag or tape and forget about it, everything will shut down and never make a peep again.

Something similar happened to me. We were renting the house we now own and the alarm was installed. We had it on beep so that when the doors opened it beeped but did not have a code to set it. So we started having trouble with our phone and everytime the phone line went out the alarm would start making loud trouble beeps. Sometimes in the middle of the night. We found out how to turn that off but it would only stop for a few hours. Then one night it woke me up around 2am and I stumbled over to the keypad and entered the wrong thing and ended up arming it. I was like @%#$^#@& I set the alarm, and we didn't have a code to disarm it, and couldn't go downstairs to use the phone because I'd set off the motion detector. Luckily my cell phone was upstairs and I looked up the alarm company on the internet and called them. Apparently I somehow set the alarm but bypassed the motion detectors. So she had me go downstairs to that circuit box you're showing. We unplugged it from the wall and took the two terminals off the battery. A few months later we decided to get it monitored and had to get them to try and disable it from their end since we didn't have the access codes. I'm just glad things got fixed that night so I wouldn't have to call in and tell my boss I locked myself in the house.