How to Walk Test Every Zone with the Central Station

Why this matters

A zone that works at the keypad has proven one thing: the panel sees it. It has not proven that the panel reports it, that the report arrives, or that the operator who reads it at 2 a.m. sees the right room. Those are three more links, and any of them can be wrong on a job where every device tested fine locally. The operator who reads "BASEMENT DOOR" when an intruder is actually walking past the upstairs motion detector sends responders to the wrong side of the house. The station walk test is the only test that proves the whole chain, and it is the finish test for an installation, a takeover, or any job that touched zone programming.

What this test is, and what the panel's walk test is not

Most panels have a local walk test mode that chimes the keypad as each zone faults. It is useful for checking devices, and on most panels it does not transmit. A walk test with the central station means sending real alarm reports while the account is on test, so the station's receiver logs every one and you can compare what arrived against what you tripped.

Before you start

• The zone list the station holds. Ask the station to read it to you or check it in your dealer access before the test. You are going to compare against it.
• The zone list the panel holds. Every zone number, type and descriptor, read from the panel or from the install sheet.
• A way to see the signal history, either the station on the phone or dealer access to the account's event history. Reading those events is owned by Reading Event Codes on a Signal History.
• Hearing protection for you and a warning for everyone in the house. Burglary alarms on test still sound the sirens unless you silence the bell output, and an interior siren at close range in a hallway is loud enough to damage hearing in a short exposure.

The procedure

1. Put the account on test. With the station, for every signal type you will send, including fire if the panel carries fire zones, with a window covering the whole test plus fixes and retests, per How to Put an Alarm Account on Test and Take It Off. Ask the operator to confirm the account shows on test before the first trip.

2. Arm the system. Burglary zones report only when armed. Arm away for perimeter and interior zones. Twenty-four-hour zones (panic, fire, environmental) report whether armed or not.

3. Trip every zone in a planned order, and log the time of each. Walk the house in the order of the zone list so the log reads cleanly. For each zone, trip the device the way a real event would: open the door, walk across the motion detector's coverage, press the panic. Then hold off for the right time before the next:

• Entry/exit zones start the entry delay and report only when it runs out. Wait it out before disarming.
• Instant zones report immediately.
• Leave a minute or two between trips so each arrives as its own event and the history is easy to read.

Disarm and re-arm between zones where the panel's swinger shutdown might suppress a second report from the same arming period (a CP-01 feature that limits how many times one zone can report per arming).

4. Compare what arrived with what you tripped. After each group of trips, or at the end, get the history from the station or your dealer access and write what the station shows beside each trip. Two columns, side by side, are the whole test.

5. Mark every mismatch, then decide which side it lives on. There are three kinds:

• Nothing arrived. The zone is not programmed to report, is bypassed, or the report never left the panel. Panel side.
• The wrong zone NUMBER arrived. The panel sent a different zone than you tripped: two zones' wires landed on each other's terminals, or a wireless device enrolled in the wrong zone slot. Panel side, and check the keypad: if the keypad also names the wrong zone, it is the wiring or enrollment.
• The right number with the wrong DESCRIPTION. The panel sent the correct zone; the station's zone list describes it wrong. Station data, fixed by sending the station a corrected zone list. Nothing at the panel changes.

6. Fix each one, then retest only what you fixed. Disarm, make the correction, re-arm, and trip the fixed zones again with the same logging.

7. Take the account off test only after the last retest arrives correctly. Confirm with the station that the account is back to normal monitoring.

Worked example: the log from a takeover commissioning

An eight-zone hybrid panel, just taken over, zone list sent to the new station the day before. Account on test 09:05 to 11:05.

WALK TEST LOG - ACCT 6634   ON TEST 09:05-11:05
TIME   TRIPPED                STATION SHOWS      OK
09:14  01 front door          01 FRONT DOOR      Y
09:16  02 garage entry door   02 GARAGE DOOR     Y
09:18  03 back slider         03 BACK SLIDER     Y
09:20  04 living rm motion    04 LIVING MOTION   Y
09:22  05 kitchen window      nothing            N
09:24  06 upstairs motion     06 BASEMENT DOOR   N
09:26  07 basement door       07 UPSTAIRS MOTN   N
09:28  08 panic, keypad       08 PANIC           Y
RETEST
09:51  05 kitchen window      05 KITCHEN WINDOW  Y
09:53  06 upstairs motion     06 UPSTAIRS MOTN   Y
09:55  07 basement door       07 BASEMENT DOOR   Y

Reading the first pass. Eight trips, five matches, three mismatches, and they are two different kinds.

Zone 05, nothing arrived. The keypad had shown zone 05 faulting when the window opened, so the device and its wiring were fine. In the panel, zone 05's report option was set to local only, a setting a previous installer may have used while chasing a nuisance problem and never undid. Panel side: set it to report.

Zones 06 and 07, right numbers, wrong names. When the upstairs motion was tripped, the station received zone 06, which is correct, and displayed BASEMENT DOOR. The basement door arrived as 07, also correct, displayed as UPSTAIRS MOTION. Nothing at the panel was wrong; the two descriptions had been typed into each other's lines when the zone list was keyed in at the station. Station side: the corrected list went to the station with the two lines swapped back, and the operator confirmed the change.

Why the distinction mattered. A tech who saw "06 BASEMENT DOOR" and assumed the panel was wrong would have swapped the zone 06 and 07 wires at the panel terminals. The station would then have shown the right descriptions, and the panel's own descriptors and the install sheet would both have been wrong, so the next walk test, or the next tech, would find the panel and the station disagreeing with each other.

The retest. The system was disarmed after the first pass, zone 05's report option fixed, the station's list corrected, then re-armed. Only the three fixed zones were tripped again. All three arrived with the right number and description: three of three on the retest, which with the five first-pass matches makes all eight zones correct. The account came off test at 10:02, after the operator confirmed the last restoral and the account status back to normal.

Two things the log shows that a match column does not

Arrival time. Put the station's received time next to your trip time for at least the first few zones. An entry/exit zone should arrive one entry delay after the trip, plus any dialer (abort) delay the panel is programmed with; an instant zone within seconds of that same dialer delay. A signal that arrives minutes late, or only after a long gap, usually means the panel tried another path first, such as a phone line that is no longer there, and only reached the receiver on a retry. Every zone "matches" in that case, and every real alarm on the account is delayed by the same minutes. On this account the front door tripped at 09:14 and arrived 65 seconds later, its 35-second entry delay plus the panel's 30-second dialer delay, and the living room motion arrived about 30 seconds after its trip, so the path was clean.

Restorals. Each alarm should be followed by a restoral when the device closes or the zone clears. A zone that sends its alarm but never restores at the station will hold the account in an alarm state at the station, and on many panels it also stops the zone from reporting again in that arming period. Check that a restoral arrived for every alarm on the log, including the panic, which on this panel restores when the alarm is cleared at the keypad.

What the log keeps doing after today

File the log on the account record with the date. It is the baseline the annual inspection compares against, and when a signal comes in months later from a zone whose description looks wrong, the log tells the office whether that zone was ever verified, and when.

Where this test changes

Fire zones. A fire zone on a combination panel is tested to NFPA 72 in the edition your authority having jurisdiction has adopted, with the method the detector maker lists, and fire alarm work is often separately licensed. The station side is the same comparison, but the fire department may also need notice before a test, depending on how the station and the jurisdiction handle fire signals. If your shop does not hold the license the jurisdiction requires, the fire zones are someone else's test; see related: Combination Fire and Burglary Panels and the License Line.

Cross-zoned devices. Where two zones must both trip within a window before the panel reports a confirmed alarm, tripping one produces nothing or a lesser signal at the station. Trip both within the window and log them as one event.

Wireless zones. A wireless device that reports correctly while you stand next to it has not proven its signal from its mounting spot. Trip it in place, mounted, with the door closed if it is a door contact. Signal margin is owned by How to Enroll a Wireless Sensor and Confirm Its Signal.

Large jobs. On a system with dozens of zones, test in groups by floor, getting the history after each group, so a mismatch is found while you are still near the device.

References

• ANSI/SIA CP-01 Control Panel Standard, in the edition the panel is listed to: swinger shutdown and cross zoning.
• NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, in the edition adopted by your authority having jurisdiction: fire zone testing.
• See related: How to Put an Alarm Account on Test and Take It Off
• See related: Reading Event Codes on a Signal History
• See related: Combination Fire and Burglary Panels and the License Line