Spent 4 hours chasing a tamper fault in a crawlspace in Fresno and it was a bent pin the whole time | Alarm System Installers

Fiona Carter · 2026-10-23T20:00:04.677956+00:00

Last Tuesday I got called out to a strip mall in Fresno because the panel kept throwing a tamper trouble on zone 3, and the owner was losing his mind about it. I crawled under that building twice, replaced the contact on the back door, and even ran a new wire run because I was sure the old one was nicked somewhere. Four hours of my life gone, plus a busted knee from the gravel down there. Turned out the pin on the zone 3 terminal was bent just enough to break contact when the box got warm in the afternoon sun. I bent it back with a tiny screwdriver, tested it three times, and packed up feeling like a total idiot. The worst part is I skipped checking the panel first because I was so sure it was the field wiring. Two days later the same thing happened on a different job and I went straight to the terminals, fixed it in ten minutes. Any of you got a go-to order for chasing tamper faults, or do you just suffer through the crawlspace like I did?

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Spent 4 hours chasing a tamper fault in a crawlspace in Fresno and it was a bent pin the whole time | Alarm System Installers - The Community Guide