Powering up a Texecom Control Box

I've been installing a new wired Texecom alarm system over the Christmas period. Its made up of an external Bell Box, 4 PIR's, 2 magnetic door contacts, a veritas excel keypad and a Texecom control box (cant remember the product name off hand). It's taken quite a while to install as its meant channeling walls and upping most of the floorboards in the house! lol But its finally all wired up and in place. All except the main control box that is. I'm no electrician and this is all new to me so I am almost certainly going to get a professional in to wire it up to the mains.

How does it get wired up to the mains though? Should it be wired via a fused box then up to the breaker box and put on it's own breaker? What's the best way. I think it's gotta be a pretty simple and quick job given that the control box and house electrics are in the same room and just need connecting, but I'd like to know how its done so I can see how much I should be paying a professional to install it. So far I've been given a quote of a ton, and I think it's more like £30-£50 as it should only take 15 mins (I think). Advice on this would be much appreciated.

It most certainly isn't a 15 minute job. Connecting via an FCU as you've suggested is the most likely route your electrician will take, but flushing said FCU into the wall, chasing out the wall for the supply, making good and testing will, as you can appreciate, take quite some time.

Your electrician could take a spur from the ring main in the same room as the panel. If it's possible, it would provide greater security of supply to run back to a seperate MCB on the non-RCD side of your consumer unit (assuming it has an RCD) so that in the event of a trip (say while you're away on holiday) the battery in the panel wont become depleted.

An easy mains supply is the first thing I look for when considering siting a panel. It can make life hell if you get it wrong.

That's great advice, thanks. Maybe £100 isnt so bad after all then - as long as they are willing to test it all properly. Does the wire need to be channeled and FCU need to be flush mounted by law/regs then? I thought the wire could be run through conduit and the FCU mounted sat on the wall? Thats what the last electrician I had did for the front porch light.

Joe-90, the mains ring is literally a meter from the alarm control box so that sounds a-ok.

Thanks

If you're happy to have conduit or trunking running on the walls inside your house then there's nothing wrong with that. Your electrician could even use a surface mount box for the FCU and simply clip the cable along the wall, but it would look pretty ghash.

Even for a surface mount installation, £100 seems a very fair price considering the parts and labour involved, especially with regard to testing and certifying the installation.

The alarm control box, the consumer unit and all the cabling is in a cupboard under the stairs so I'm not fussed about the way it looks to be honest. Especially as the cupboard is being knocked down in the near future and all the cables moved anyway (extension on the way). As long as it's safe and passes regs I dont mind how it looks really. Thanks