If you have never had a burglar alarm fitted, it is worth knowing what actually happens before you book anyone. Here is how a typical domestic job runs with us, from first visit to handover.
The survey
A survey is a walk around your home, not a sales pitch at the kitchen table. We look at ground floor doors and windows, integral garages, oil tanks and outbuildings, and we ask how the household actually lives: pets, children coming in at different times, who sets the alarm last thing at night. We work out where the control panel and keypads make sense, and confirm signal strength for the communicator that carries alarm signals out of the house. You then get a written specification to consider in your own time.
Grades
Intruder alarms are graded under BS EN 50131, from Grade 1 up to Grade 4, according to the sort of intruder the system is designed to resist. Most Northern Ireland homes are well served by a Grade 2 system. Your insurer may specify a grade in the policy wording, and a system intended for police response monitoring must meet the recognised standards, so mention both to the surveyor at the start.
Pets
A dog or cat does not rule out an alarm. Pet-tolerant motion detectors are designed to ignore animals of typical household size while still detecting a person, and positioning matters as much as the detector itself. Where a large dog has the run of the house overnight, we can protect doors and windows with contacts and shock sensors instead, so the perimeter is covered without a detector ever watching the dog. Tell us about pets at survey, not after the first false alarm.
Installation day
Most homes are completed in a day. Wireless systems keep disruption to a minimum; where we run cable, the routes are agreed with you first and finished tidily. Once the hardware is up we program the panel, walk-test every detector, and set and unset the system with you until you are comfortable. You leave the day with a handover pack, including the certificate of compliance your insurer may ask for.
App control
Modern panels pair with an app, so you can set and unset from your phone, check whether you remembered to set the alarm after leaving, and get a notification when someone unsets it, which is useful when children get home before you do.
Monitoring
A bells-only alarm depends on a neighbour paying attention. A monitored alarm sends its signals to our own alarm receiving centre, where operators respond to activations, phone your keyholders in order and pass confirmed alarms on eligible systems for police response. It is the difference between a siren and an answer.
Advanced Overwatch has installed intruder alarms across Northern Ireland since 2017. Advanced Overwatch is SSAIB certificated (NIRE127) specifically for Intruder Alarm Systems, Visual Surveillance Systems (VSS) and Access Control Systems. Call 028 7087 8077 to book a survey.