Home Alarm Systems
- Thread starter Thunderballs
- Start date
Alarm Force is a joke with their "two way voice" gimmick.
You need to find someone that will explain to you what you need and why. I'm a big fan of putting contacts on every opening on the ground floor, not just a door or two. And get a couple of smoke detectors as part of the package.
The Beam and Alarm Superstore will sell you a complete system installed, and you can either get monitoring through them or find your own. Once you have a system installed, you can find monthly monitoring for as little as $12/month.
And pay for the guard service. If you live in Toronto, it can take up to 2 hours for Toronto Police Service to respond to a home alarm call.
You need to find someone that will explain to you what you need and why. I'm a big fan of putting contacts on every opening on the ground floor, not just a door or two. And get a couple of smoke detectors as part of the package.
The Beam and Alarm Superstore will sell you a complete system installed, and you can either get monitoring through them or find your own. Once you have a system installed, you can find monthly monitoring for as little as $12/month.
And pay for the guard service. If you live in Toronto, it can take up to 2 hours for Toronto Police Service to respond to a home alarm call.
By the time any alarm force gets there the burglars will likely be long gone. I'd rather have a really loud honking alarm that disturbs all the neighbours and makes them come looking.
I have a neighbour that had Alarm Force. He accidently set the alam off while he was inside the house. When he was rushing down the stairs he tripped and broke his ankle. He said that he was screaming at the 2 way voice system and they could not hear him because he was about 15 ft away in the next room. He calls it Alarm Farce. He switched over to a private contractor and installed a system where all doors have contacts and he has several motion detectors in important places.
What I need to know from the people that have Alarm Farce, how much will they charge you to contact every door and window and add 2 or 3 motion detectors around the house. Surely its not the same $25 for a one bedroom condo as it is for a 4 bedroom house with basement windows, 3 floors a garage and enclosed sundeck like I have.
What I need to know from the people that have Alarm Farce, how much will they charge you to contact every door and window and add 2 or 3 motion detectors around the house. Surely its not the same $25 for a one bedroom condo as it is for a 4 bedroom house with basement windows, 3 floors a garage and enclosed sundeck like I have.
Grind said:
Flood alarm? Is that really neccessary? If it doesn't stop raining in 3 days you would know for sure there's going to be a flood without an alarm, and even if your alarm goes off in a flood, what purpose does it serve, how can it help you stop it?
Music_Box said:
The majority of floods are caused by broken pipes. Easy to find the shut off valve before more damage is done.
I am a very strong believer in the monitored smoke detectors.
3Tees said:
Must be how you talk to them
. When I wanted to upgrade I sent emails to each company I was looking at specifying the system I wanted. Alarmforce had the best deal. For my $25/month fee I got 2 door contacts, 2 motion detectors and 1 monitored smoke alarm w/ no extra charges for the "extras". Guess they wanted my business bad enough. lolFWIW when the guy installing it stuck the sign in the lawn he said that just having the sign reduced your chance of break-in by about 80% as most crooks would just continue on to a house that didn't have one.
Could be, but I just find them unprofessional, and their equipment unreliable. The contract was assumed when I got possession of the house, so we had no real choice in companies. We had them come to give us a quote for a few other things, and it was some ungodly amount of like a sixty dollar install fee for every extra contact and motion detector in the house. I just did not want to be taken for that amount of money.Moraff said:Must be how you talk to them
The equipment is not reliable either. I have someone that has a key to the house, and they entered before I woke-up, with the alarm armed!!! They don't know the code, and the alarm didn't make a sound.
Another time I get a knock on my door with a Rent-A-Cop there asking me for my ID, and proof I lived in the house because Alarm Farce got a notification. No way I'm showing this guy my ID out of the blue - could have been a scammer. I called Alarm Farce, and they said that something was triggered THREE HOURS before!!! I realized I had just returned home three hours before, but had indeed had disarmed the alarm.
My experience is bad - I just don't have the time or energy to investigate other companies. I'd switch if I could.
Basically, I think their system sucks.
Compromised said:
I have a flood alarm too. If more than 1/2 inch of water accumulates on the basement floor, it sets off the home alarm system and alerts the monitoring station of a flood, whether it is armed or not. (monitored smoke detectors will also alert the monitoring station if they activate even if the system is unarmed) In case a pipe breaks and fills the basement with water...I also have a sump pump that will flush the water out into the floor drain. In case the drain gets clogged, there is a backup where the water will then be pumped through pipe up the wall and out a hole in the wall just above ground level with enough force to blow it 20 feet away from the house. Of course it may be a bit of overkill, but I'm slightly paranoid lol
3Tees said:
Well that would be the difference between your situation and mine, they've already got you hooked whereas they needed to get me signed up first. I'm sorry to hear about your problems with them. Oddly I've had more problems when I was with ADT, including a rash of false alarms which took 3 techs to figure out. Turns out the neighbour had bought a new garage door opener and the frequency matched up. So every morning at 5am the alarm would go off....... First two techs had no clue, just changed the batteries and poked around. Third tech received the same info and immediately asked if I knew if the neighbours had gotten a new garage opener recently. He then fixed it right off. Said he had no idea why the first two techs didn't get it right since it was posted as being one of the problems with their systems.
Hopefully there aren't too many more years left in your contract and you can switch to someone you might be happier with.
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