Anyone in the alarm biz?

[Dukietown]

Somebody tried to break into my garage last night. Lookin into getting an alarm system for the house and the detached garage. Anybody here in the biz or have any recommendations on the systems you all use? Looking at ADT systems but wondered if there were better ones out there.

Thanks all!

[sbolt19]

A couple of things, #1 its not the installation that kills you, it's the monitoring that will. Plus, if you have a detached garage, you need a hard phone line out there for a lot of the monitoring services to work properly because they link everything through the phones. One of the guys who works for us has ADT and he hates the monitoring fees for as small as his house is. #2 if you do have one installed, go with a reseller, a lot of times they will offer the monitoring for cheaper than say ADT/Brinks. Meaning that you may have to pay for installation, but the overall annual cost will be cheaper. #3 on your detached garage, put some dummy cameras with those silly blinking lights & a sign that says video surveillance up. We installed some at our shop and people quit messing around our place & it's in kind of a shoddy neighborhood, we've had drug busts in broad daylight right in front of my window. Great 'hood, lots of entertainment, but I wouldn't want to live down here.

Those are temporary fixes, of course, but just the thought of being caught on camera deters 90% of would be thieves. Also does your garage have electrical in it? If it does, put a motion sensor light out there on a couple of corners and even a beware of dog sign.

[Dukietown]

I like that sign idea Zilla haha!

Thanks for the advice sbolt. I'm looking into motion lights and possibly cameras. I've found an ADT reseller that's offering free system and install but yeah you'd still have to pay for the monitoring fees. Looks like about $40/mo which could possibly be offset somewhat by lowering the insurance rates. I know they have cellular systems to avoid the monthly cost of phone lines but now sure how much extra that is. Sucks to have to spend money to keep what's yours. Guess this is what I get for not wanting to live in the 'burbs.

[sbolt19]

We also do a lot of work for a thrift store here in town & they were having a run of break-ins and vandalizings at their store. They didn't want to install a full blown video monitoring system and wanted to just go with the dummies for the "look" of them. They worked and they have been both vandal & break-in free for almost 2 years now because of them. The cameras that we used were these little guys. They are cheap, look real & blink. They use a pair of AA batteries and the light is an LED so it will last quite a while. We also put these stickers on the windows to boot. They were averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of $500-$1000 in damages a month for almost 4 years and once those went into place, they haven't spent a dime on fixing damages.

As for installing the phone line, it's pretty easy and any electrician can do it. Hell, you can do it if you know how to plug an extension cord in. All you have to do is get to where your lines split after the come into the house and tap into that. I put an extra phone line into my house a couple years ago and it took me longer to the line through the wall & not screw up the drywall than it did to connect everything. But if you are having an electrician come out & install a couple of motion lights, ask him what he will charge you to run a phone line out there. It's a whole helluva lot cheaper for that guy to do it than to have Qwest come out, screw the finish up somewhere in the house and have to pay for fixing it. Phone lines are easy to put in. You can also run the wire and ask him to do the connection. Just bury the line at least 20" or so. I think code here in El Paso County requires all electrical lines to be buried at least 18", but I'm not 100% on that one.

[Badlands]

[Dukietown]

Have a dog, unfortunately we have no A/C except for a window unit in the bedroom so the dog sleeps upstairs with us. Aparrantly he didn't hear them.

[Shawns Fords]

I would look into your own security system, you can buy a video camera with all of the fixings fairly cheap from harbor freight. Trip lights work also because when someone gets near your home the light turns on. Perhaps a sound alarm for the garage when your gone and or sleeping. Something LOUD!

[Jesus_man]

Sorry to hear that. A gun sign does do some good.

"trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again".

The monthly monitoring fees suck and it can be a pain to get everyone to use the system properly. When I last had a system, the PD started implementing charges if you had x amount of false alarms.

Make sure you get the little remote key fob, they are handy.

J.D.

[cobshane]

I had a bad experience with my ex step father causing damage to my vehicle a few months back. I purchased some motion flood lights and a Logitech surveillance camera setup from best buy. Just to have some insurance if something happened again.
The pathetic thing about it, it was pouring rain out there. A lot of effort for a sorry ol man