House insurance and burglar alarms

Bungalows amuse me even more. All the burglar has to do is go on the roof and lift a few tiles. But a good dog cures most things.

Move house if the area is that bad?

at waht cost? After feeding and vet's bills, an alarm might be cheaper.

Seems pretty daft. I wonder if alarm engineers are allowed to maintain their own?

Brian

Redcare is expensive, but works very well if the line is cut. Firstly it continuously monitors the line state and generates an alert within about half a minute of a line fault and secondly in most modern installations switches to a radio backup to still detect sensor activation.

Automatic dialling alarms on the other hand take e few seconds and require no tools to disable. They are treated by the police as a Type B alarm (the same class as bells only) and activation of them will not generate a police response.

Having a display purporting to detect an alarm activation which is very easy for the user to set to show any date or time they like may not be very acceptable to an insurer.

From the ACPO guidance "Association of Chief Police Officer of England, Wales & Northern Ireland Police Response to Security Systems Jan 2013"

"3.4.2 To obtain police attendance, Type B systems will require some additional indication from a person at the scene that a criminal offence is in progress which indicates that police response is required. This will require human intervention such as member of public, owner or agent visiting, or viewing the premises. The addition of electronic means to provide confirmation will not promote such systems to Type A or achieve police response.

"3.4.5 Calls received from non compliant ARCs/RVRCs and calls from compliant ARCs/RVRCs without a valid URN will not receive a police response unless circumstances outlined in 3.4.2 and 3.4.3 above applies."

charles :

Not true. A BT engineer working on another line up the pole outside the house accidentally cut us off the other day. The police were here PDQ.

Nonsense.

It's clear however why he was an *ex* copper though.

A few years ago I installed a new consumer unit at an old vet's practice. I switched off the alarm, but simply couldn't find the hidden battery and the damn thing sounded for two hours solid until the battery ran down. The house was just up the hill from the cop shop and had several nearby neighbours. Not one person even came around to look up the driveway, never mind call the cops.

On Friday 15 February 2013 23:02 charles wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Find another insurer then.

On Saturday 16 February 2013 07:50 harry wrote in uk.d-i-y:

And cut a few battens and break the nails on every 2nd or 3rd row of tiles. It would not be a wholly silent procedure.

and pay a much higher premium ....

By that you've never owned a dog.

On Saturday 16 February 2013 10:50 charles wrote in uk.d-i-y:

You must live somewhere very "colourful" - I've never seen an alarm requirement on any insurance quote.

My only problem is that occasionally the flat roof elements on my house cause odd companies to refuse to quote.

I used to think of it as a free bonus when I did own a dog.

Companionship, an excuse for healthy exercise, and a reasonably reliable burglar alarm and deterrent. Of course, the best system would be to have two dogs, one small yappy one because they sleep lightly, and will wake up the large one and the household, and one large one to go for the throat while the little one distracts the intruder.

Probably illegal now if it's a declared intention, knowing my luck.

I have to admit that mine was more likely to lick an intruder to death than attack them, though, especially if they had a packet of chips about their person.

They turned up pretty quickly when me an a mate interrupted a breakin at a chemists late one night. The getaway driver bottled it and drove off, the guy outside the chemist ran off over the fields and we captured the guy that was inside the chemists. It was probably the most stupid thing that I have ever done. We fought with with the guy (and that included pushing fingers very hard into his eyes and throttling him) before we managed to restrain him. When the police turned up and arrested him a knife dropped out of the sleeve of his jumper - that sobered me up, but not sober enough for the police to take a statement - they had to take one the next day.

When asked about the alarm when I insure the house the only question is it a NACOSS approved alarm? I just say no.

In message , geoff writes

Sweet :-)

You can never have enough sound bombs, they even manage to drown out my tinatus!

Seriously making the burglar feel uncomfortable, by what ever method, does seem the best way to go.

And no, I have not told my insurance company that I have an alarm fitted, for the reason given earlier, if I don't admit to having one, they can't hold it against me if for some reason it isn't set when a break in occurs.

In message , harry writes

You may as well put a notice up saying that "this is a fake camera please break in".

How many real CCTV cameras do you know with LED indicators on them? Especially flashing ones?

I have often wondered about the double bluff idea and putting a few flashing LEDs on real systems though :-)

In message , Bill writes

Watford magistrates court used to have a couple of CPC dummy cameras and a big notice - lying bastards