Guy at the supply house told me to stop using resistors on every zone

I had this older installer named Don tell me I was wasting time putting EOL resistors on every single zone. Said he'd been doing it for 20 years without them and never had a problem. Well, I skipped them on a 16 zone panel at a house in Oak Park last month and the panel kept throwing false alarms on zones 4, 7, and 12. Spent 3 hours troubleshooting before I realized he was full of it. Anybody else ever get bad advice from someone who's been in the trade too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

robinson.jake1mo ago

You had a similar issue with the false alarms after dropping them? Did Don ever explain why he thought skipping resistors was fine or did he just wave it off like it was no big deal? I'm curious what his reasoning was beyond "never had a problem" since you wasted 3 hours fixing what he told you to skip. Seems like a pretty expensive lesson from someone cocky about their old habits.

morgan.charlie1mo ago

Been doing it 20 years without them" just means he got lucky, not that he was right.