Impossible wiring situation

[BrettS]

I'm trying to wire a deadbolt sensor on my front door. My house is three stories and I'm getting quite sick of thinking "Did I lock the front door?" when I get to bed and then going down and then back up two flights of stairs just to check it. In my old house I had simply installed two little metal tabs on the top and bottom of the deadbolt hole (I don't even remember what I used for them... some bit of sheet metal I had laying around) and connected the wires right to the tabs... when the deadbolt was closed it closed the circuit and when it was open it opened the circuit... that worked (for the most part... it was maybe 95% accurate... occasionally the deadbolt didn't make contact and it read as open even when it was closed). I'm thinking of trying to find another solution for this house, but that's not the biggest problem I'm having.

The biggest problem is trying to run a wire to the deadbolt... you can see what my front door looks like if I managed to upload the image properly The problem is that there are windows on all three sides of the door. The house is on a slab, so there is no basement to run wires through.

It would be pretty easy to put something in the deadbolt hole and run the wire under the weather stripping around the door. While probably not ideal I think that's about the only way I'll get the wire to the top or bottom of the doorframe as it's solid wood between the door and the window. Unfortunately, once it gets to the top or bottom of the doorframe I'm not sure where to go from there.

Here are my curent thoughts along with some of the downsides...

The door has a recessed magnetic contact on the top that's connected to the alarm system. I thought about trying to tie my deadbolt sensor into that and just wire it in series with the magnetic sensor. Assuming I could get the recessed contact out and that the wires are long enough to work with then it would be pretty easy as far as the wireing goes... it could all be done behind the weather stripping. However, I'd have to get a much more reliable way of detecting the deadbolt. The 95% accuracy I got on my old house was fine when all it meant is that I had to get out of bed to check the door when it was wrong... but now with it connected to a monitored alarm it could mean waking up at 3AM when the alarm starts going off and having the police dispatched to my house. Additionally I would lose the ability to tell if the front door is actually open or just unlocked. Given that there is no screen door and I have indoor only cats I like the ability to make an announcement if that door is left open for more than a minute or two.

I also considered using a DS10a, but I don't like having it exposed and there isn't a great place to hide it. I initially thought about going up and putting it below the window that's above the door, however that ledge is visable when you're coming down the stairs. The other thought I had was to run the wire down to the bottom of the doorframe (through the weather stripping) and hiding the DS10a under the window on the right of the door behind the brown curtain. The other downside to the whole DS10a thing is that I don't currently have a DS10a or a receiver for it (the MR26A doesn't work with the DS10a's, does it?). I can get them, however, that increases the cost of this project significantly.

Finally, if I can get a wire through the half wall into the room on the right side of the picture, then I can run it under the baseboard halfway around the room and then through another wall into the closet where my homeseer computer is. I think this might be the best solution as it would be invisible, seperate from the alarm system, and inexpensive, however, I just can't figure out how to get the wire under the baseboard in the other room without making a lot of holes in the drywall in the foyer.

Do you guys see anything I'm missing or have any other thoughts for me?

Thanks much,
Brett

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I have always wondered (we had a couple of posts like this) if one could "recess" a small round magnet on the end of the deadbolt itself. You would have to countersink a hole on the end and I'm not sure how easy that would be to do (hardened steel?).

If this is possible you might have enough of a gap between locked and unlocked that a wireless sensor could be used.

 

[CollinR]

What kind of alarm is it? Wireless contacts exist that could be used in the door frame and the bolt magnetized or drilled and tapped to hold a magnet on it's end. Also someone here has done a plunger which would be an ideal solution but would (AFAIK) would require a seperate transmitter. Still depending on the alarm the transmitters may be much smaller then a DS10a.

You have a crawlspace below? Probably not as that would be too simple.

With the right tools you could run inside the wall into the room on the right only making 4-3/8" holes, but it would need some skill.

 

[WayneW]

A ceiling mounted laser sensor aimed at the knob to detect the locked position?

I don't recall that any of the automated deadbolts gave any 2way feedback (other than a beep). Since you have a sensor on the door, you could hope/assume that if the door was closed and you sent the signal to lock (Rf or IR), that the deadbolt would fully extend.

I wanted to monitor my human sized exterior garage door so I just mounted a magnet on the deadbolt lever. But since it was just the garage, I just used masking tape to run the wire horizontally across the door to the wall.

 

[BrettS]

What kind of alarm is it?

It's a DSC1616 which can support wireless, but as of yet it's hardwired only and I don't have a wireless receiver for it.

You have a crawlspace below? Probably not as that would be too simple.

Unfortunately not... just a slab of concrete

With the right tools you could run inside the wall into the room on the right only making 4-3/8" holes, but it would need some skill.

Are you saying a quantity of 4 holes that are 3/8" each or several holes that are 4 and 3/8"? The former would be pretty impressive if it were possible. The latter is something I'm hoping to avoid, but I may consider if I can't come up with anythinig else.

Thanks,
Brett

 

[huggy59]

How are you at carpentry? It seems to me that you could pop off the trim work around the door and get a wire into the wall or ceiling, or at least into the space around the door jamb. There's already an alarm sensor, so they got the wire there somehow! The top window doesn't appear to be attached to the door - is there wall (sheetrock) between the bottom of the window and top of the door frame?

Remember, you don't need much of a wire there. Something small like a 2-conductor telephone wire would be fine - it's pretty much continuity, not carrying a lot of power or anything. You could even route a small notch in the trim boards around the door and windows and paint the wire in... but where you go after that depends on where your panel is, your house layout, and carpentry skills.

 

[BrettS]

How are you at carpentry? It seems to me that you could pop off the trim work around the door and get a wire into the wall or ceiling, or at least into the space around the door jamb. There's already an alarm sensor, so they got the wire there somehow!

I could do that, but I was hoping to avoid a lot of work and repainting and such. The alarm system was pre-wired when the house was being built, so they had the advantage of no drywall when they ran their wires. I'm not sure how that wire is run, though.

The top window doesn't appear to be attached to the door - is there wall (sheetrock) between the bottom of the window and top of the door frame?

That is the case and there is sheetrock between the window and the door, but it's literally only 2 or 3 inches and I suspect that it may be a solid wood header under it. Tomorrow I'll have to take a look at one of the other identical homes that are under construction now and see what I can see. I don't think they've been drywalled yet.

Thanks again,
Brett

 

[drozwood90]

I was thinking about this.

You want a sensor for the dead bolt.

If you took the metal plate off the door jam, you would only need to (worse case) use a file (best case) router to cut a 1/16" to 1/8" channel from where the metal plate is screwed in, to the inside wall.

Then, you can insert your contacts or dead bolt sensor, run the wire through this channel to the moulding.

Then, where the moulding is touching the door jam, you could run the wire in that 90 degree area (where the moulding is touching the door jam).

The wire then runs through this channel down to the floor, along there to the wall on the (from your picture's point of view) left hand side, where you can put the wireless sensor wherever you wanted.

To hide the wire, you need only take a bead of paintable latex caulk, then run your (wetted so it doesn't stick to you) finger along the bead where you routed, in the area between the moulding and jam.

Along the floor, you'll need to hide it behind some quarter round or something like that.

After that, you are on your own! I'm not sure what else is around that side of your door.

I'm not sure where you wanted the wire to end up...but with some minimal work you could get this out of there without taking moulding door jams apart.

HTH

--Dan

 

[BrettS]

Well... it's been quite a while and I wound up getting sidetracked by other projects, but I finally finished this and I figured I'd post and let you know what I did.

I spent quite some time sitting and staring at the door and trying to find a good way to run the wire, but I just couldn't figure out anything that wouldn't involve a visible wire and/or a fair amount of drywall work.

I'm not exceptionally fond of the wireless idea, but that was what I was left with. I debated getting a DS10a and a receiver to go with it, but I really didn't want to spend that much right now. Although I have since come up with a few ideas where DS10a's could be useful, so I might still get a receiver and some sensors at some point.

One of the projects I was sidetracked with was getting my MR26A connected again (I hadn't set it up since I moved) and getting a better antenna so I could get signals from everywhere in my house.

Today I remembered reading a while ago about hacking the dusk/dawn sensor of an X10 motion sensor to support a contact closure switch. So I grabbed a motion sensor that I had lying around and did the hack. I installed a little switch in my deadbolt hole and ran the wire under the weather stripping of the door, then through a small hole I drilled near the bottom of the door frame to the motion sensor I had mounted behind the curtain near the floor. This keeps the wire out of sight and the motion sensor is behind the curtain, so that's hidden. Wireless still wasn't my first choice, but from my testing today it seems to be pretty reliable.

Thanks for all of your suggestions

Brett

 

[nightwalker]

No matter which way you go with sidelights it's gonna be a pain getting wire there. On my house I've mounted a plunger type security contact behind the deadbolt so that when the bolt is extended (locked) it depresses the contact. Luckily i didn't have a sidelight door to deal with and I had all the room i wanted in the wall. You may get away with a very small magnetic contact but you don't have a lot of room to work with and that's assuming you are able to get wire to it.

 

[dutchyn]

If you have z-wave, this is a simple solution:

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=10359

Chris D.