When Would I Need a Honeywell Steel Door Contact?

If you have a door or window made from steel rather than your traditional wood, a lot of door and window contacts will not work properly. Oftentimes, they won't work at all. The solution may be an extremely strong magnet such as the one included in Honeywell's 947-75T sensor and magnet. The steel of the door makes less powerful magnets less effective so that the system can't tell if the door is open or closed.

If you have a door like this, and can't figure out why your contacts aren't working, you may not need to replace the sensor altogether. A lot of times though, all you will have to do is change out the magnet you are using and replace it with one of the magnets that come with the 944TRE, 947-75T, 947-75, or the 947.

Honeywell 944TRE with rare earth magnet:

Honeywell 947-75T:

You may be able to buy a separate magnet just for this purpose. The Honeywell PROBTM is a rare earth magnet. These magnets are two (2) to three (3) times stronger than their non-rare earth counterparts and may resolve the issue. Alarm Grid also sells a host of different magnets manufactured by GRI. These magnets come in a good selection of sizes. Not all of the magnets listed on the page linked above are rare earth magnets, but any that are described as being for a steel door, or being rare earth should provide better results than the standard magnet.

Honeywell PROBTM:

Beware, however, if you have installed the 5800MICRA wireless door and window contact. We have found that this sensor is sometimes finicky, and may not well with the steel door magnets. When these sensors were first released, they were polarity sensitive. There was a mark on the magnet that the installer had to match up with the same mark on the sensor. When matched properly, the magnet polarity was correct. Later versions of this sensor dropped the polarity sensitivity feature. If you would like a wireless contact that will work with these stronger magnets, we have found that the 5818MNL is a much better choice when trying to pair a wireless sensor to a strong, steel door magnet.