Question:
Last October we had a new building built and a FCI 7100 series fire alarm system installed by a reputable fire alarm contractor. Over the course of the year we have had to have the contractor back out here many times. We started getting "power errors" , "comm errors" and other errors about March of this year. This has happened over 30 times. They have reinstalled the computer program in the panel and even reciently changed the 'bios" chip on the motherboard. If we have any power failure for even a short period of time (1 second) the system crashes and we have to either have them come out and reset it or we do it by disconnecting the 120v and battery from the system. Of course the display time and data is defaulted. The company now says that it is a telephone line problem and that they are going to start charging us for service calls. We have one dedicated phone line for fire panel only and another line that is also used with our fax line connected to the panel which we were told was ok. I looked into having a data-logger or recorder tied to our phone lines to see if they are loosing tip/ring but apparently there is nothing available. Common sense tells me that if there is a phone line loss (trouble) that it should report it to the monitoring station but not put the system into trouble and have to do a complete power-down to reset it to clear the faults. The faults that the display gives us sometimes covers everything in the book. All wiring and devices and panel were tested by the alarm contractor who installed them along with the fire marshall who had to approve it before we got our certif. of occupancy. This contractor has been installing systems for 20 years. Would those of you who are familiar with this type of problem give me some advice on where to go from here? I don't know of anything else we can do. We certainly can't pay them to come out here on a weekly basis to reset their system.

Answer: I would have replaced the entire panel. It may be that the panel has a bad power supply, or is just plain defective. Losing power even for 1 hour should not cause what you are experiencing. As far as the phone lines, who installed them? I have seen many instances where improperly connected line siezure causes all kinds of comm errors. It seems to me that whoever is servicing your system, is trying to do the best they can. Have the technician listen in with a telephone test set to make sure the panel is communicating with the monitoring center. I have been doing security systems for 25 years. Even I don't assume anything is working without testing it myself, especially fire alarm systems.