Making them leave
The great majority of would-be intruders go elsewhere the moment something makes a noise and a light comes on. This is what a well-sited external sounder and a visible bellbox buy you, and it's most of the value for most homes.
Home › Intruder alarms
Sized to your property, not to a sales target
A three-bedroom semi does not need fourteen detectors. Most homes need the entry points covered, two or three well-placed internal detectors, a sounder that will actually be heard, and a reliable way of telling you about it.
Where the money goes
What an alarm is actually for
Two jobs, and it's worth being clear which one you care about, because they pull the design in different directions.
Telling you about it
An alarm nobody hears is decoration. Modern panels send an alert straight to your phone and to anyone else you nominate, wherever you are, with nothing to pay monthly. This is the part that has genuinely improved in the last ten years.
What we fit
New systems, and rescuing old ones
New systems
- Wired where cable can be run without pulling the house apart — most reliable, no batteries to change
- Wireless where it can't, which is most occupied houses
- Hybrid where the building makes it sensible
- Panels chosen for parts availability and for whether we can still get into them in eight years — not for whichever brand pays the best margin
- Pet-tolerant detectors where you need them, set up properly rather than just switched on
Servicing and faults
- False activations traced, not solved by swapping parts until it stops. Usually a detector seeing a draught, a heat source or a spider
- Batteries, sounders, tampers and detectors replaced
- Panels reprogrammed where the code was lost with the previous owner — very common, and not a reason to replace the system
- Any make, including ones we didn't fit
The part other firms skate over
Police response, monitoring, and what we can't do
We cannot get you an automatic police response. That requires the system to be installed and monitored by a company certified by NSI or SSAIB and holding a police reference number for your system. We hold neither, so we can't, and anyone telling you otherwise is either mistaken or selling.
What that means in practice
Under the national police policy on security systems, alarms fall into two groups. Systems installed and monitored by an inspectorate-approved company can be given a reference number and a graded police response. Everything else — including ours — is treated as an ordinary call: you or a keyholder can report a crime in progress like anybody else, but there's no automatic dispatch triggered by the alarm itself.
When that genuinely matters
- Your insurer has specified a monitored or graded system. Read the policy wording. If it names a grade or an inspectorate, you need a certified firm and we will tell you so rather than take the job.
- You hold high-value stock, or a premises where a fast response is the whole point.
- A licence condition requires it — some licensed premises and pharmacies.
When it honestly doesn't
For the great majority of homes and small businesses, a loud local alarm plus an instant alert to your phone does the job that people imagine monitoring does. It costs nothing per month, it cannot be switched off by somebody else's billing system, and it doesn't lock you into a contract that quietly renews.
If you need a certified firm, we'll say so and you should use one. Losing a job is a much smaller problem than selling somebody a system that fails them at the one moment it mattered — or that turns out not to satisfy an insurer after a claim.
Afterwards
Alarms fail quietly
A standby battery goes flat, a detector drifts, a sounder corrodes — and in every case the first you know is the day you needed it. That's the argument for a yearly check, and it's the only recurring thing we'll ever suggest.
-
An annual check, if you want one
Batteries tested, every detector walked, the sounder run, the panel's log read. Booked in advance so you're not chasing it.
-
You're reminded, never auto-charged
Every system we fit goes on our schedule and you get told when a visit is due. No auto-renewing contract and no cancellation fee — it happens only if you say yes.
-
The same person comes back
Whoever fitted it is who returns to it, so you're not explaining your system to a stranger or losing an afternoon to somebody learning it from scratch.
What would an alarm cost you?
Five questions and you'll see a range. No name needed to find out.