had a guy round testing the consumer unit. one of the trips was down as lights but didn’t seem to do anything. so he left it ‘off. turns out it was power to the alarm system, which I had shown him. Once the battery packed up the alarm tripped at 11pm (thank God it wasn’t 4am of domething)

massive panic screaming kids and ended up having to hang out of a window with s crowbar and pliers to disconnect the siren

So is it something you would have expected him to pick up?

yes.

If you knew that MCB fed the alarm then why didn’t you mark it on the cover/label?

If you told him clearly what it was then yes, be annoyed.

If you didn’t then it could well be an unused live cable sticking out of a wall somewhere so he was right not to take a chance. Better safe than sorry with electricity, electric shock is no fun, trust me 😉

no I didn’t know that’s why I got a professional in to check it all and tell me…

no I didn’t know that’s why I got a professional in to check it all and tell me…

Can’t really complain then, some things are literally impossible to trace without ripping the place apart. Especially if the MCB was marked but appeared to do nothing, he’d have presumed it was for a lighting circuit not in use anymore.

I’d rather deal with a faulty alarm than grab the open end of a live cable while climbing about the loft or feeling down the inside of a cupboard/under the floor etc etc.

yea I suppose. If got someone in to help avoid situations like last night and it ended up causing one

You should probably be more annoyed with whoever installed the alarm and failed to label the consumer unit properly.

Surely just switching the breaker back on was a simpler / better solution than crow barring the sounder off the wall. Power restored, code entered and hey presto.

I don’t have the code. crowbar and hammer was last resort after 20mins. Not a single neighbour checked in that time or anyone check. can’t really see the point of alarms

Something isn’t right. Shouldn’t the alarm have sounded as soon as he switched off the breaker, using its battery backup to power the siren?

Unless it automatically arms at 11pm…Doesn’t sound like you use it if you don’t know the code so presumably this is not the case as you would have tripped it in the past.

We don’t use it, we bought a probate so no handover on the property. it hasn’t gone before and we’ve been in since Dec.

anyway it’s in lots of bits now! Need to sort the wires hanging out of the walls

yea I suppose. If got someone in to help avoid situations like last night and it ended up causing one

Your complaint isn’t with this electrician but whoever mislabelled the breaker in the first place. An alarm you don’t use and don’t have the codes for would have been a problem one day and maybe would have been at 4am so just as well you’ve dealt with it now.

Replace it with an outside light. Save changing the label