Today the inspector was due to give the final inspection before the pool can be completed (I think there's another inspection after the pool is completed) when they checked the gates, fence and doors. The gates and fence around the yard have to be 5 feet high (I knew about that, we were fine) and the gap under the gate has to be less than 4 inches (I didn't know that one, but we scraped through at 3 15/16ths). All doors from the house to the yard have to have door alarms - these are possibly the most irritating things I've ever known.
After you open a door, you have 7 seconds to press the button on the alarm (which has to be high enough off the ground that kids can't reach it). You then have about 15 seconds to get out of the door and close it. If you don't close it, the alarm will go off - even if you continually press the button. You can never leave the door open - you would need to employ someone to press the button, wait 20 seconds, close the door, open it again, press the button, wait 20 seconds, etc. (Several people I've described this to are convinced I've got it wrong, because it sounds so insane.)
The alarm is designed very cleverly to be hard to disable. As soon as you detach it from the door, it's going to go off every 15 seconds or so, until you can get the battery out. And you can't get the battery out without removing it from the door and then undoing four screws. And you can't get it back on the door without a battery (that's kind of clever, in an irritating way).
The dogs are always a bit hesitant to leave the comforts of the house for the yard. (Well, they're a bit hesitant to do anything). So to get the dogs into the yard, I need to get them to the door - this is a challenge, because by the time the second dog has arrived at the door, the first dog has got bored and wandered off. Then I open the door and try to get them out, but they've only got 20 seconds before the alarm goes off, which frightens them and makes them run back into the house. And I usually can't get then both through the door in that time, so getting the dogs out of the house is close to impossible.
But a door alarm might be useful. I can see that there are times when I might want a door alarm - like if we've got visitors with kiddies. However, the rules about door alarms make them so irritating that as soon as the inspector has done the final inspection, they are removed. But because the rules insist that a door alarm is absolutely 100% effective (well, maybe 99%) , it makes it so that no one uses it at all. It's like those paracetamol (acetaminophen) that had Acetylcysteine (a treatment for paracetamol overdose) in them, but they cost more, so no one bought them. Because, either you're not planning to OD on paracetamol, in which case why pay more? Or you are planning to, in which case, why pay more?
But I have a cunning ploy. I've ordered two switches from Amazon for 99 cents each (plus $4.50 p&p), which I'll attach to the alarms, so I can detach the battery without dismantling them, and will, in theory, have the best of both worlds. But we'll see. Check back later.
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2 comments:
you rock what a good devious solution.
Does having the door alarms mean no ugly fence around the pool if the yards is properly secured>
FF - yes, that's right. The yard needs to be fenced, the fences must be 5 feet high, with gates that are no wider than some amount (I forget). The gates must also open outwards, and close automatically. They shouldn't have more than 4 inch gaps beneath them. The house and fence/wall then act as the barrier, and no fence is necessary.
We also have a pool alarm which will detect anyone going into the pool (without typing in the code), and some wrist alarms - if smaller children come around we put one on them, and it goes off if it gets wet.
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