Elk Area Choices/Setup Questions

[sanders2222]

I am new to Elk and I have some basic set up questions defining arming areas. I would assume all my exterior door contacts would be wired into Area 1 (Main House). My front door is set up for a delayed entry. Do my garage doors belong there too (as a delayed entry).

I have smoke/heat detectors I am adding too. Would those wire to another defined area (e.g. Area 2).

I have a sump pump fail switch installed. Should that be Area 3 (crawl space)?

I haven't added any interior door contacts, but if I did, how would I set them up?

Finally, to monitor the smokes, sump or interior doors, do those 'areas' need to be armed instant? All the time? (I assume arming interior doors would not apply if you were in the STAY mode.) I guess I'm just struggling on how this is suppose to work.

 

[wuench]

The easiest thing to do is to put everything into one area. Areas are basically for zones you want to arm/disarm separately, i.e. arm the house but not the shed or guest apartment/suite, or garage, etc.

 

[DotNetDog]

What he ^ said! I have half of my basement setup as an in-law suite. There is a sound-proof (resistant) wall that seperates the two halves of the basement.

I put a keypad in the "common" half and another keypad in the in-law suite. I defined the main house to be everything except the in-law suite (area 1). Then I defined area 2 to be the in-law suite.

The windows, glass breaks and doors inside the in-law suite are assigned to area 2.

Although aresa are probably not used often in residential settings, I think this is a scenario where areas are useful. Your situation sounds like you just need one area. Zones will distinguish the types of sensors (including zone types).

 

[Del91574]

There's pros and cons to setting up areas in addition to the basics that wuench mentioned.

In my case, I have used areas as a non-traditional partition that I define operation further via rules. The one example I can give is my own house, I have a garage attached to the house via a breezeway. While I have it as a second area, I have it arm automatically via rules if it's disarmed and the main house/area is armed, with further functionality via ZT's, force arming and rules.

Overkill, sure, but I have items such as auto-arming based on time in conjunction with the area following another area's arming scheme, it works.

That said, most people won't go the same route, and for a novice it may be more confusing in programming and getting it working right for their lifestyle, but in my case and a few other installs, it works well.