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Three alarm panels on one farm, all different brands, what a week
Last Thursday I had a day I'll remember for a while. Hit three outbuildings on a farm outside Boise, each one had a different panel: a DSC, a Honeywell, and an old GE that was barely hanging on. The GE had corrosion in the keypad that took me an hour to trace, and the owner kept asking why I couldn't just swap everything to one system. I get it, but their budget says otherwise. Anyone else run into that where the customer expects a universal thing that just doesn't exist?
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valthomas1mo ago
That GE with corrosion is the worst. I had one last spring where the keypad was reading ghost zone opens, turned out the ribbon cable had green crust all the way up to the connector. I carry a tiny can of DeoxIT and a fiber brush now, saves me from swapping boards on old stuff. For the budget thing, I usually break it down for them like this: each panel runs about 150 to 250 for parts plus labor, but tearing out three and putting in one new system with new wiring is easily double that. Sometimes I just leave a written quote for the single system on the counter, and tell them to call me when the GE finally dies. Most of the time they call me within a year anyway.
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