Internal alarm sounders & pets

[Ricardus]

I'm looking at fitting an alarm next year as part of my house/garage extension project . Current plans are to have locking exterior grade doors between the main house and the porch and the main house and attached garage, and I'm toying with the idea of having internal sounders / sound bombs in the porch and garage.

Thing is I have three indoor cats, and I'm worried about their ears if the sounders go off. Insurance will pay for a new TV, but probably not pet medical bills.

 

[ekmdgrf]

I think you should be OK. The ears can withstand some quite insane momentary exposure. When looking into this due to the insanely loud fire alarm at a previous workplace, I seem to recall BS5839 specifies an upper limit on sound output at 120dB and the HSE caps momentary sound exposure at something like 130dB.

The land speed record for an animal is held by my cat exiting the house when my alarm goes off.

 

[OwainDIYer]

exterior doors should have a fairly good noise attenuation level so if the cats are in the house and the sounders are in the porch the cats shouldn't be badly affected.

I'd suggest having them on fairly short timers but to resound if the detectors reactivate.

If the cats happen to be Siamese then you probably don't need a burglar alarm anyway. Just put a shelf over the door from which the cat can launch itself onto people's heads.