Home Security Monitoring costs

[charles]

all the alarm monitoring company will do is to ring you.

[Bill]

My son inherited an oldish system with his house that called the cops. I was always the one that had to attend. I always got there first. The last time, I overheard the plod, who I'd walked round the house with, on her intercom saying " You can't be at the house because I'm here and you're not here". We were then up to the 3 false alarms and you're out, so he got the local alarm company to install a new system. This is monitored by a 3rd party company 24/7. They ring the son, but he switches his mobile to silent at night, so occasionally at 3.00am'ish they ring me. I then drive there and reset the false alarm. SWMBO seems to think it would be better for her to stay at home in bed so there was someone to execute the will if there was a villain in the bushes with a crowbar. The alarm system is backed up by a bunch of CCTV cameras that can be inspected from anywhere in the world.

I'm currently playing with cheap wifi cameras to see if I can cobble together a simple CCTV system for another son. I've got it working fairly well using iSpy software on Windows, but I'm currently trying and failing to beat ZoneMinder into submission on Linux Mint.

I really think a cheap home-installed system with a bunch of wireless pir's and some central unit that rings when there is an alarm, plus some CCTV accessible via the router is as good as anything.

I have no idea what my son pays - he is abroad at the moment.

[Huge]

[snippage]

Except, as I said, if you're too far away for it to be any help. In which case it's worse than useless.

[Bill]

In message , Huge writes in reply to

I think you can speculate about what might happen, but if you are far away and see live video of intruders, it ought to be possible to ring the local police and/or neighbours.

I just think that is at least as useful as getting a call from somewhere (hopefully in the UK) saying the alarm has gone off. In our case the monitoring is 24/7 but the alarm company is 9 to 5, and they don't have a door key.

Alarm -> police direct contact in our case didn't work because of the number of false alarms caused by trigger happy pir's, pir signal failure, branches falling off trees etc.

[charles]

our crime prevention officer said: "Burglar alarms alarm burglasr"

[Huge]

You want your neighbours to engage with burglars? You do realise that burglars kill people, don't you? And good luck convincing the local plod that you're who you say you are.

Then they're about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. You did read my posting about the time ours went off when we were in Malta, didn't you?

Isn't allowed any more. Unless you have a bullion vault in the City of London, or the like.

Crappy alarm, then. We haven't had a false alarm for getting on for 15 years.

[whacker james]

Its nothing like worse than useless. You can always call the cops and tell them that you can see the criminals inside the house.

[whacker james]

Mine are quite capable of checking if they can see any activity at the house and calling the cops if they can.

My neighbours are quite capable of not going close enough to get killed.

Never needed to do that any time I have called them myself.

Ours are quite capable of checking who owns the mobile phone.

[Graham.]

Wireless PIRs are not fit for purpose in a permanent security installation.

[tony sayer]

Happened here many years ago . Neighbours alarm went off they were away at the time. Bit of excitement, called 999 was told that "could you make sure there were people actually there" as they were short of staff and it would take quite some while to attend. Told them wasn't too keen on doing that as it was me against them and god knows what they might be armed with so I said OK I'll go provided I could take my gun with me.

Whoooaa!!! No sir!, do not do that.. we'll have someone round there straight away and very quickly there were three cars there inc someone in a SWAT type vest. Made a big fuss re the "gun" well it was only an old .177 airgun! ..looked the part in the dark;) but no you cannot possibly do that you'd be in the wrong was a tad annoyed. Then I pointed out where did these three cars come from your bloke said you had no one around?.

With that a truce was called and off they went and that was that..

False alarm the burglar alarm was too;!...

[ARW]

Sounds familiar. When I had a run in with the bad neighbours I phoned the police and explained that I had been attacked in my own garden and that it was all on CCTV. I was told that no-one was available so I replied "then call an ambulance as I am going back outside to kick their heads in".

A police interceptor (one of them on the TV programme) arrived within 4 minutes, shortly followed by 4 patrol cars and a riot van.

- Adam

[JimK]

/Graham.

- show quoted text - Wireless PIRs are not fit for purpose in a permanent security installation.

[JimK]

/Huge

- show quoted text - Spot on.

We had an activation when we were on holiday in Malta. It turned out to be a false alarm caused by a thunderstorm, which incidently fried the panel. Alarm company policed it, nothing found, they sent a patrolman to reset the alarm, found it wasn't working, sent for alarm engineer who replaced and reprogrammed the panel and all w....../q

Snip

How much did they charge you for that? Did they know you were away?

Jim K

[Peter Parry]

So we already know he isn't the most honest of people. Not a good start for your potential security company.

If he is talking of wireless sensors it only because they make for a cheap install. The only wire free system which conforms both to British Standards and the ACPO Intruder Alarm Policy is a BS 6799 Class VI alarm. Forget any other alphabet soup - if it isn't doesn't specifically state that standard it isn't. Wireless sensors are inherently less reliable than wired systems.

Also what monitoring are they offering? Many of the cheap installs simply use a dial out device on your existing phone line. These are defeated simply by cutting the phone line where it enters the building or more easily by taking the phone off the hook as you enter the house and dialling any digit. As the dialler has usually not finished dialling by then the Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) doesn't know there is a problem. Only monitoring systems such as Redcare properly monitor the line for tampering and work whether or not the line is being used.

Of course it isn't free. These companies offer cheap equipment installed as quickly and cheaply as they can with no proper risk assessment.

Call around a couple of local installers for quotes for a Redcare or Dualcom system. Monitoring only should be about £20 per month.

(I've seen people been sold "24hr monitoring" when the ARC operated

09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday.). £450 per year for monitoring and maintenance (which is essentially what you are paying for) is pointing towards this not being a quality job and not being good value for money.

Rule no 1 is first spend money on physical security, so better doors locks and windows, hostile thorn bushes around perimiters, better fences etc. An alarm will deter but not prevent. Good physical security does both. If you fit a simple "bell only" alarm (not monitored) and have good physical security that is the better solution.

Usually alarm sellers tell you you may save money on your house insurance by fitting their product. What they don't tell you is that if you do tell your insurance company then they have a nasty habit of turning down claims if you can't prove the alarm was triggered in the event of a break in. Do you really want to have to set the alarm every night when you go to bed? To set it every time you want to sit out in the back garden? Also if you have dial up system the scrote has bypassed the ARC will happilly tell your insurance company they received no indication of alarm activation at the time of the burglary.

They also fail to mention that the police hate domestic intruder alarms with a vengeance, mainly because about 95% of alerts from them are false alarms. If you have a registered domestic alarm monitored by an ARC it will attract one of two levels of cover.

Level 1 is misleadingly called "Immediate response" The police do not guarantee to attend within any time and any response will be determined by the call on resources. If you live near a town and the alarm goes off at 23:30 on a Saturday night you might get a response by midday on Sunday.

If in any 12 month rolling period you get 3 false alarms the response level drops to "Level 3" which means they will take no notice of it.

Did they also mention you will have to supply details of two keyholders (or employ a central keyholding service) who must be able to attend your house within 20 minutes at any time 24/7. The keyholder must have their own transport, know how to enter the house and operate the alarm and be contactable by phone.

What is often being offered is actually not a proper monitored alarm but a very cheap and nasty alarm and an ARC which won't contact the police in the event of an alarm activation (assuming they ever get notification of it) but will just contact you and one or two alternative keyholders.

Simple check is to ensure your property will be issued by the police with an alarm Unique Reference Number (URN). If you won't (or they try to claim it is the ARC which is registered) then it isn't an alarm registered for any police response.

[Huge]

That's nice, dear.

[Jethro_uk]

My last boss, an ex-copper, said that if they knew there were intruders present when told of a possible burglary, they'd find any excuse in the book not to get there any time soon. As he said "if there scrotes are still there, they might hit you."

[alan]

PIR are often installed so they can see the wrong things. I advised someone recently that a PIR pointing at his front door wasn't too good an idea. Snail mail posted through his letter box on a cold day into his centrally heated hallway would set of an alarm, especially if were are many items delivered at the same time.

[dennis]

Even one letter posted can set off my alarm, if I forget to close the door.

The pir is 5m from the letter box.

[JimK]

PIR are often installed so they can see the wrong things. I advised someone recently that a PIR pointing at his front door wasn't too good an idea. Snail mail posted through his letter box on a cold day into his centrally heated hallway would set of an alarm, especially if were are many items delivered at the same time. /q

Ah the old 'visible to scrotes or no false alarms' dilemma....

Jim K

[John Williamson]

Easily solved by having one visible to the scrotes, but not connected. And another one that covers the area from a sensible position.