Use sounder sense

Have you seen the blind man who goes around fitting bell boxes? No, neither have I but I have seen his work! It can be seen on most streets in every town. The sheer ingenuity that some installers show for putting up bell boxes in daft positions is astounding.

Take a drive down any street and the range of sizes, colours and shapes of bell box has to be seen to be believed. Fair enough, we are all proud of our company, our company logo and the design of our bell box, and we have a right (or the privilege) of choosing an individual design. But how can we all fail to put the box in a suitable or co-ordinated position right down the street?

This is the reason I am convinced that many installers of bell boxes are, to all intents and purposes, blind. If you look at the positions you will probably notice that they are all at differing heights and levels. If they were plotted on a graph it would look like the settings on the graphic equaliser on your stereo or a graph similar to your monthly sales figures ... mostly up and down.

Where’s your design instinct?

There are many examples of right and wrong places to put the boxes and we as an industry seem to take a great delight in picking the wrong ones. So let's have a look at the logic behind the position. First, I have to admit that sometimes our hands are tied by the requirement to get a cable to the box, and sometimes we are restricted by the shape of the building or by extensions and the like but after that we still ignore common sense and our own built-in design instinct.

Our eyes always measure from the top downwards. We are taught to read from the top downwards and that sets the pattern for the rest of our lives, which is why we always start with a good straight base line on a graph and read the differences along the top. If we were to put the straight line at the top and the differs at the bottom it would never look right – imagine it in your mind and you’ll see what I mean. To make something look level we need to find what we call the "eye-line" and work to that.

In most buildings the eye-line is the tops of the windows and, with factories, the tops of the roller shutter doors. Look at a well designed building and you will probably see that all the window tops are on the same eye-line. The windows can be all different sizes but provided we have all the tops at the same level then they look right. If they were all lined up at the bottoms then the whole building would look ugly. How many times have you looked at something and thought "it doesn't look right" but didn't know why? It’s all down to the position of an object in relation to the objects around it.

So, for our bell box, if we position it with the top of the box in line with the top of the windows or other suitable eye-line, it can go more or less anywhere along that line. However, there are a couple of "sub-rules". The box should not be too close to a window or door or it loses the effect, and, if it is to be placed centrally between two windows or doors, then it should be dead centre and not "somewhere near”.

Just off-centre can destroy the whole effect. If you are looking at multiple boxes on industrial buildings then the spacing between boxes, doors and ends of buildings is critical. They should look evenly spaced.

With an apex frontage we are a little more limited. Placing it on the centre line down from the peak is obvious and around three quarter or two thirds of the way up is about right – so why do I see them off to one side or down at the bottom of the apex or tucked out of the way in a corner? Are we ashamed of our boxes?

It can be the same with colours. Some can be stylish, others offensive and some just plain bland. The choice of colour usually depends on the "company colours" and very few (if any) companies offer a selection of colours to suit either the customer or the building being alarmed. Perhaps we ought to take that into the equation.

I see the same thing with remote keypads, control panels, power supplies and (to a smaller extent) detectors. In some cases it does look very much like someone has said "If I stand about six feet away and spit at the wall, that is where it should go". Why not apply the same rule? Look for the eye-line. It could be a light switch, a central heating timer or the top of a cupboard door. The more you look for it, the easier it is to see and eventually it becomes "natural" for you to do this. On the other hand I have seen remote key pads and personal attack buttons placed in some very odd positions, just to get a cable to them.

There are some very simple unwritten rules to be applied to cable runs internally. To make them look right they need to be perpendicular or horizontal, so why do I keep seeing them run diagonally across the walls to the control? Fair enough, you could say that we don't normally see these cable runs out on view to the public and usually only when a control is put in a loft space or in a cubby hole under the stairs ... but an installer should still maintain his working standards and integrity, even out of everyday sight.

I said earlier that, to some extent, we are controlled by the need to run a cable to the box and that may mean unsightly and highly visible wiring on the internal walls. I have no need then to tell you to look for out-of-sight corners or the insides of cupboards above the stairs so that the cable is not in immediate sight. But I still see wires stapled down the sides of a window frame, taking a detour round the edge of the window sill and then straight down the wall and over the skirting board. True, it is often a case of needs must and the option is to hide the cable behind the curtains. But why do they still drill out about half way up the window instead of near the top so the box can hit the eye-line? And why do they not drill at a decent angle then get the box away from the edge of the window?

From an inspector’s point of view there are a couple of problems here. Cables fixed down the middle of a wall are often deemed to be vulnerable to damage, so use some mini-trunking – it is neater and safer. It's the same with cables stapled over the skirting board. I am not sexist you understand but the average housewife should have an "L" plate on the vacuum cleaner. In their houseproud zeal to suck up every last spec of dust they rub the vac right along the edge of the skirting board and in doing so they quite happily grind the hell out of any cables we have lovingly nailed over them. It is a relatively easy task to drill a hole down the back of the skirting with a matching hole through the floorboards and fish the cable up with a bent welding rod.

If you are looking at multiple boxes on industrial buildings the spacings between them is crucial

Many boxes are placed right up to the eaves to hide the cable that comes down from the roof cavity; it looks bloody awful and is unacceptable in most cases. It leads to problems – the number of times that installers have had difficulties getting the lids off bell boxes because they have put them too close to the top is remarkable.

The same goes for passives placed too close to the ceiling. I am positive that they have some trick of design during manufacture so that the lid will go on then refuse to come off, or vice-versa.

I often found that an extra long drill going up at a very steep angle will give a path into the cavity or even the loft (check the levels of the ceilings inside before doing that trick).Then a long stiff wire of the type used to hang suspended ceilings will pull the cables out of the loft via the cavity. I know that this is not always possible but I used it to great effect in my installing days.

Out of reach of prying hands

We are now approaching a time of possible conflict when we introduce the new Euro-standard. Currently BS 4737 expects to see the box sited high up and preferably out of reach of prying hands.

After that we are left to our own devices and we are expected to be professional about our positioning and use common sense. The standard cannot be made more explicit because the gents that wrote it have no idea about the size, construction and use of the building it has to go on – so, it’s all down to the installer.

Now, with the introduction of EN 50131, we have various choices or combinations of bell boxes ... or perhaps we should get used to calling them "Warning Devices" or "WDs" for short. (I must admit that as one of the older guys, the letters WD stand for War Department to me and as the proud owner of an "Ex WD” classic motorcycle, I am going to find it difficult to get used to the change).

Boxes side by side

EN 50131 allows for two ordinary sounding boxes as opposed to one SAB unit with nothing more said about the positioning, tampering and fixing of these units. For this information we have to refer to PD6662 which picks up bits of BS 4737 so basically the same rules apply that we have always had. On the other hand I just know that some installer somewhere is going to try the patience of his inspector by putting two boxes on the wall side by side and claiming that it complies. Well, perhaps technically it does, but it beggars common sense.

Surely the whole idea must be to have the twin sounders fixed on different faces of the building or at least a suitable distance apart and wired in such a way that if anyone interferes with one, the other will sound and cause alarm. This brings us to the next question – what about the wiring? Good working practice tells us to have both boxes on different cables, connected to different outputs and individually fused.

This now brings us to yet another question: Can we buy a control panel with twin, individually fused outputs for sounders? So far, the only controls I have seen that give twin outputs are the top of the range models. Come down the ranges and extra output terminals and fuse carriers are items that can be dispensed with in the ever onward rush to get the price down. Things may well have to change!

Once again I am perfectly sure that someone will run both boxes on the same cable and from the same fuse just because it is cheaper and easier – and leave themselves wide open to litigation if a would-be thief gains access to one bell box and shorts the wires together, blowing the fuse and taking out both sounders at one go.

It is the sort of trick that cannot be accounted for in the standards without restricting other factors. We have to rely on the common sense and integrity of the installer.

• Mike Lynskey is a former proprietor and independent inspector of alarm systems. He is now network manager with the NSI. The personal views expressed should not be taken as the opinions of the NSI. Email Mike on: mike.lynskey@virgin.net