Burglar Alarms

Great peace of mind since installing ours. You can have PIR (passive infra red) which is activated by warm blooded creatures like burglars! This also stops the alarm being triggered by something falling down in the night, like a newspaper slipping off the coffee table.
We also have personal alarms in the bedrooms - a panic button, which connects to the alarm monitoring centre. Great if you hear intruders downstairs.
Costs are an issue - cheapest will have just a cosmetic box on the wall. Then you can have an alarm which has a siren but is not connected anywhere. Then you move up to something monitored.
I would definitely stick to the main companies, to avoid dodgy contractors who would then have access to your alarm and property and know what you have. SECOM are great, or ADT. (I have no interest in either company). A separate alarm phone line is useful, if you opt for monitored, otherwise someone could dial your phone and leave their end off, effectively engaging your line and preventing an alarm call going through.
Good luck with the project.

We had one when we moved into this house, but because it was motion sensor we weren't able to ever use it because of the cats roaming around at night.. we did try altering the sensitivity but they just set it off.. so we had it disconnected eventually and have never bothered with one since. I'm sure they are a comfort to a lot of people but we've never felt the need to be honest and we live in West London.

Sorry, can't be of any help here. We have very little worth stealing and the family joke is that anyone breaking into our house would feel so sorry for us they'd leave a donation on the way out!

Do the police still send people to your house if requested to advise on how to burglar proof your home? if you do install a burglar alarm and mention it on your house insurance just remember that it then has to have been be turned on if you make a claim; if it wasn't I think it invalidiates your insurance. No nipping out for 5 minutes and not putting the alarm on.

I know this sounds stupid but our local Fire Brigade Officer when he came to check on smoke alarms had one of his collegues come and fit a safety chain to our front door when we first moved in.
When we lived in the family house we had an alarm fitted by BT and if anything untoward happened they automatically sent the alarm to local Police but I am not too sure if they still have the service available.

No alarm is connected to a local police station.
The signal is sent to a monitor.
The monitor then alerts. The monitor only alerts AFTER it has not been possible to contact key holders!This could take a minute or two, or five even.
If you live in the depths of the country an alarm is not going to help you.
Bye the time the police arrive, your burglary will have been done and dusted.

For you, to install an alarm is at the request of your insurance company, is it not.?
An alarm may guard your treasures but it will not guarantee your personal
safety.
I speak from bitter experience.

We had an alarm fitted after having been burgled twice. The second time, we came home and surprised them and they legged it before they had the chance to take anything much, but the first time was horrible. I don't actually know whether most burglar alarms are an effective deterrent or not, unless they are monitored, but I definitely felt more secure when we had ours fitted. (We had a panic button fitted into the bedroom - but then moved into a different bedroom! My grandson couldn't resist the temptation, and frightened himself silly! We also had the facility to alarm the downstairs while we were sleeping upstairs). It would be tempting fate too much to say we have had no problems since, wouldn't it? Do your homework thoroughly and don't be rushed into anything.

I have an alarm and CCTV, four cameras at various point around the outside of the house. We used to have undesirables roaming the area and breaking into the garages but we have not had one incident since fitting cameras.

We had an alarm fitted when we moved into our house about 20 years ago. Fortunately we've never had a burglery here, but I had in my previous house before I was married. I wasn't in the house at the time but it left me a bit neurotic about security. Although I know an alarm does not guarantee that you won't be burgled, it helps me to feel a bit more secure as I know that if it does go off, our neighbours too will be alerted.
On the odd occasion when that has happened in the night - spider in the works - we were more concerned about stopping the noise, than frightened at the thought of someone downstairs.
If you do go ahead and have one fitted, make sure you go with a firm that has been recommended to you and have it serviced every year. This is really important. We have a contract with our firm and they have been brilliant about quickly replacing bulbs in the security lights and also sorting out our spider problem.

It's important to tell the police who your keyholder is, so that they can get in, if necessary. Once when I was away, my alarm went off and there was no sign of any break-in or attempted break-in. My alarm installer told me that some burglars were going around aiming laser pointers at the PIR sensors through the windows and if this set off the alarm, they knew it was set and didn't bother attempting a burglary! I wondered about re-siting the sensor, but haven't got round to doing more than thinking about it.

It is a legal requirement to notify the police of the names and contact details of two keyholders if you have a burglar alarm.
It is worth making sure that the alarm can be set in a variety of ways, omitting certain areas if necessary, e.g. when grandchild is visiting and a normally empty room is put into use or he gets up and goes downstairs early.
Unless you are rich and own valuable art, fine silverware, expensive jewellery, etc. your risk is going to be from opportunist burglars. An alarm helps to deter opportunists who will look for an easier option. However, it is no substitute for common sense – don't leave windows open when you are out, lock door, lck up ladders, etc.

....or get a dog! My big soft basset hound has a great bark and tells me if a squirrel runs across the garden. When some workmen were up a ladder sorting my guttering the other day, she prowled up and down, growling and letting them know she had them in her sights

Dogs can certainly deter opportunists and even small dogs can make a lot of noise. However, there have been instances when a burglar has made off with the family pet as well as the family car.

My neighbour has four labradors and I have a feeling that they would all welcome a burglar with open paws! They are the quietest, most amiable dogs I have ever come across.

Our dog loves being "on guard" but I am sure that would be as far as it goes as the only way a burglar would get bitten is if he smelt of male doggy hormones!!

We had 2 very worrying burglaries in our lane recently. Both were elderly residents and had key safes for their carers. The thieves levered the key safes off the wall ( most are only screwed to the wall with wall plugs), took them away, opened them (easily done with a cutting wheel) and returned later in the night with the key. The key safes were never recovered. Luckily only property was stolen and no one was injured. There must be many thousands of these key safes fitted to elderly peoples home that could easily be levered off with a wrecking bar. It would be far better if these were secured with rawl bolts, which could not be levered off without taking the brickwork with them, but I doubt many are.

The most important part of the burglar alarm system is the little box on the outside of the house wall that indicates that there is an alarm system fitted - and the security light that allows a potential burglar to see this box. It does not even matter whether the system is connected up! - the deterrent effect is the same!

The best you can do is to try to deter burglars. They will always go for the easiest option. Basically if they see you have a burglar alarm but next door doesn't then they will try next door! I have an alarm, window locks on all downstairs windows and can double lock my doors at night. I can also set the alarm at night so only the downstairs is covered - means my night time visits to the bathroom don't give the neighbours heart attacks!

I have security lights back and front that light up if someone comes near, even at dusk or on very cloudy days. Sometimes they flash if an animal scurries past. One night the front garden lit up and two fox cubs stared back at me when I looked through the glass door at them. They had dragged a dead wood pigeon onto my path, and abandoned it there when the light went on. It had gone by morning - seems there's quite a lot of activity in my garden that neither I nor the dog notice much of the time.

Mishap Some burglars habitually check that the motion sensors are flashing by looking through a window, as they are aware that some external alarm boxes are fake or disconnected – so I was told by my local crime prevention officer.

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As the leading body that certifies security alarm installers in the UK our advice to homeowners is to look out for companies that are certified by bodies such as the NSI - you can find a list of your local installers on our website. We would advise you to invite three or four quotes, a good installer will visit your home and provide an assessment of your needs free of charge. Choosing a certified installer means you have some comeback if anything should go wrong. When the installer has completed the work they should provide a certificate of compliance which should also help reduce your home insurance costs too. We hope this helps do visit our website or call NSI if we can offer any further advice.

We had smoke alarms installed when we had our alarm system installed. These are on mains electricity so we dont have to worry about checking the batteries. However if you have your alarm on a monitoring system that responds to any sounding of the alarm make sure that the smoke alarm is not included. DS burnt some sausages which set the smoke alarm off. He was taken aback when the door bell rang 10 minutes later and when he opened it there was a fireman and appliance. He explained what had happened, when he explained they asked to see the sausages. DS had to admit he had even them but he did show them the grill pan that still hadnt cooled down.

I did something similar a few years later, after which we had the smoke alarm disconnected from the monitoring system. It went off this week when we had workmen sanding a floor and the dust in the air set it off but at least we did not then have to explain it to the firemen.

Mine goes off when I make an omelette. I don't know what that says about my cooking.