Tanisha Sid

Anyone know what is the better alarm system for homes? what security you have done for your home?

__________________
Los Angeles locksmith

cabinetman

This is my system.
.

jlhaslip

my neighbours... we watch their place, they watch ours.

__________________
The Pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity while the Optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty...

GeorgeC

Winchester, Smith and Wesson, Remington, etc.

G

joesdad

You're a locksmith...I thought locksmithing and security devices kind of went hand and hand. I have various implements of mass destruction for when I'm home. If I'm away and someone breaks in, they will be extremely disapointed.

__________________
"Well... it looked good on the drawing" :http://armandj.com

raskgle

pit bull named bear

jdixon

As someone who works in the industry I really like the GE Concord panels. They are easy to use for the homeowner and I can make them do anything I want through programming. They also are capable of being hardwired or wireless. Overall I believe they are one of the better systems out there. If you have more specific questions I would be glad to help.

John

rrich

At one of the offices that I worked at we had an alarm / monitoring service. It was one of the most useless things that I ever encountered. I was first on the call out list.

Great! We had several break-ins over the years. I was called out and usually got there just as the police arrived. Whatever was gone was gone. Generally speaking I had to clean up the mess, call out the people to repair the doors or board up the windows.

Other fun and games
The windows were "foiled" with lead tape. One of the installers was leaving the company the day of our install. We had many micro breaks in the foil thanks to his handy work. One labor day weekend I was called about 15 times because the foil was opening and closing. The last straw was when they called me about 5 AM Monday to say that the foil break had CLOSED. I yelled at the guy and asked for his supervisor. I asked why the eff are you calling me when the foil strip on the window CLOSED? Tuesday when I got to work, another installer was waiting for me so he could fix the problem. He found one break, fixed it and left. (I got a roll of lead foil table from him before he left.) Over the next year I repaired 10-20 foil breaks with the lead foil tape, clear nail polish and a leather working tool for marking holes. (Sort of a star wheel.)

The gardener plugged the A/C drain pipe. The A/C drip pan overflowed. The water softened a Cellotex ceiling tile which fell out of the frame. As the tile fell it went through the infrared beam. I was the lucky guy that let the police department into the office to check things out at about 3AM.

It's birthday time with the cake and candles. Oops there goes the smoke detector. I call the alarm company. I'm told, "Without a password I'm calling the fire department." (We had been on the service so long that we never established a password.) I could tell them my name and phone number that was in the records but without a password the fire department showed up. The fire department called the alarm service, really yelled at a supervisor. The alarm company was waiting for me to come to work the next day and I had to fill out several very involved forms to establish a password.

Same company, another office but the same alarm company. I'm working late and hear the janitor come in so I yell, "Hello." The janitor yells back "I'm just hear to clean." A bit later I get the key and go outside to use the restroom. As I come back the Santa Clara Deputy Sheriff with a female deputy are pounding on the door trying to get the janitor's attention. (He is running the vacuum cleaner.) I walk up to the door, say "Excuse me." unlock the door and go inside. The sheriff starts yelling at me and telling me to get out of the office. I look at him and say, "Hell no. It's cold out there, you come inside." The sheriff is really irritated now and confronts me with, "Do you know that there is a silent alarm going off?" I look at and say, "If it is silent, how would I know. HOWEVER I do have a code for the alarm." (The female deputy is doing all that she can to keep from laughing out loud.) When I get to the panel for the alarm, I can tell that it is in alarm mode as it is beeping softly. (The janitor works in binary mode. Enter the suite, enter the alarm code; exit the suite, enter the alarm code.) So the janitor set the alarm when he came in to clean.

From my experience, all the alarm company does is to call the police or fire department. The people who "operate" the monitoring equipment operate from a cookbook. There is no room for common sense in the cookbook. The alarm company may or may not send an armed agent in response to an alarm going off. If an armed agent arrives at the scene there is very little that he/she can do. They don't know you and your family, they don't know who is authorized to have access to the protected site and they have no legal authority.

If you look at the commercials on TV. The loud siren will scare some intruders. The scene where the mother and kids run into the panic room and the alarm company calls. "OK, I'm calling 9-1-1 for you." You are better off calling 9-1-1 yourself. The call will get through sooner and you KNOW the location information about your house and things like, "No, we shouldn't have a 1968 Ford Truck in the driveway."

In all reality, Mike's alarm system is probably about the best there is. Not only will they let him KNOW when intruders are in the area but will be good protection AGAINST intrusion.

__________________
Use the right tool for the job.

Rich (Tilting right)
Huntington Beach, California
Remember that when we have the "BIG ONE" everything east of the Rockies falls into the ocean.

GeorgeC

rrich, funny that you mentioned the fire aspect of alarms. That was the main reason that I had an alarm system installed at my house. I do not think my house would be very attractive to a burglar, but I have a number of family heirloons that I would not want to lose. Mainly pieces of furniture that have been in our families for many, many years. Other things like picture albums. Of course now it is easier to copy pictures and store them on discs in a fire proof safe or similar.

George

cabinetman

George...what's an "heirloon"? Is it like a crazy antique? Speaking of family picture albums, if I was breaking in to rob you, the first thing I would take is a family picture album.

Sooner than you think neighbors and passerby's know that there a couple of fanged monsters on the property. If they don't get a chance to see them from a distance, they'll sure hear 'em.

MarkR

We are subscribed with a local alarm company, nothing fancy fairly typical. We haven't really had any issues with it, although our area is fairly calm.