It’s not monitored
Last week I started a 4 piece blog on why your alarm system doesn’t work. We covered that if its not on, it doesn’t work. Today is just as important. Why do you have a system if its not monitored?
Not having your system monitored is like buying a car without a steering wheel. It goes but you have no control over the direction. Monitoring fees do not break the bank or at least they shouldn’t. For basic monitoring $25/month is the industry average. Less than a dollar a day. Monitoring puts your system in contact with a central station and when an alarm goes off, they know. When you have the alarm set up the technician will ask you for a list of contacts that the monitoring station can call in the event of an alarm. The Central Monitoring Station will attempt to call the people on this list once the system has gone into alarm, and will continue to call until somebody is reached or until the police are dispatched.
A few weeks ago a Milton home avoided, what could have been, a scary fate when their monitored Smoke detectors went into alarm, notifying the monitoring station and dispatching Fire Fighters to the scene. Even with the alarm system unarmed, Smoke detectors are a 24 hour supervised zone which means that even with your system disarmed, these life safety aspects are monitored at all times. If its not monitored the system will provide you with an audible alarm, but nobody has called the fire department yet.
Knowing that your home has had an alarm gives you a valuable piece of knowledge. Imagine not knowing that your home has gone into an alarm and your son or daughter gets home from school before you. Knowing that may give you a chance to contact them, the school or a neighbour to meet them and make sure they aren’t the first ones in to meet your unwanted visitor.
Half way there on this piece. Keep tuned in this week and find out what else you can do to make sure your home security system works for you.