Previously, I saw the magnet contacts on the window itself and assumed all sensors had been installed. I should have caught this at the time of installation 3 years ago. Live and learn, I guess.After this discovery, I remembered seeing a loose wire in the panel, went back to the panel to check, and saw what could be the wire from this unresponsive physical zone. (So, after all, this zone may never have been terminated in the panel, although I’m not 100% sure.)
Given the findings above, do you have further guidance/suggestions?
On the panel side, I found an unterminated wire coming out of the wall that looks like the same wire type (brown, 2 stranded conductors). Could this be the wire that runs to the room? Looking at the other wires in the panel, it looks like I’ll need a resistor and a wire nut (or b-connector)?
Well that is frustrating! The way you would want to test this then is with a multimeter so that you can measure resistance on the circuit. I’ll go over the steps below, but it would require access to all window wires, and it sounds like one window may be unable to complete the circuit.
Remove the wires from all of the window sensors in that room and twist the wires together to close the circuit. Measure the resistance between the two wires at the panel you believe to be the other end of that circuit. Is the resistance 0 or close to 0?
Next Open the circuit by untwisting the wires at one of the window locations. Measure resistance again at the panel end. Is the resistance infinite? (your multimeter may use different methods to indicate a fully open circuit, check the manual to determine)
If you can open and close the circuit by connecting and pulling apart the wires at the windows, yes that would be the other end of the circuit. If the resistance reading does not change, no, it would be different wires.
Is there a way to still make use of the 3 windows that have sensors installed? I only see one wire in Window 3 entering the hole to the bottom and also saw a short wire fragment 7″ in length kind of stuck in the frame. To clarify, the 7″ fragment is really just a fragment, with both ends cut and not connected to anything. It was just there wedged in the wood frame.Does Window 3 make the entire zone unusable? Is there a way to test?
If you cannot pull the wire up and find another conductor, yes, unfortunately if wired in series that zone would always be open due to that one window.
It would usually be much easier to replace with wireless sensors.
On a side note, this is almost becoming an addiction! I’m so mad at the installer (and at myself for not checking) that I want to go further before admitting defeat
The puzzle-like problem solving aspect can definitely be fun, even if the reason you need to do it is infuriating. We love the DIY spirit! The more you learn about the system the easier it becomes to maintain and upgrade.