House alarms - do they really need servicing?

[Ari]

Had an alarm put in to my house about 15 years ago, pretty straightforward thing, few PIR sensors and a keypad and panic button.

As part of a service agreement a chap toddled round and 'serviced' it once or twice a year (took the cover off, made it sound, checked the PIRs, made it bleep a few times) and I get invoiced about £130/year I think. That then allows me to call them 24/7 if I have a problem with it which they will sort out.

Thing is, due to some administrative cock up they seem to have dropped me off the system. Which begs the question, do I really need to keep paying them this money (about £2,000 so far) and keep getting it serviced? I can't think of any other electrical appliance that requires servicing, not a TV, not a computer, not a microwave.

Nothing worse than a malfunctioning alarm I know, but why should it?

Tempted to say nothing and stop paying the contract thing.

[anonymous-user]

We got ours serviced when we moved in about 5 years ago. He just showed me how to work it, changed the battery and checked it worked ok. Not bothered since, but probably should do really. I guess with a contract you are paying for peace of mind if it goes off in the middle of the night and you can't turn it off. Although, the chap that serviced ours left his card, so we could call him and pay his call out charge I suppose.

[8.4L 154]

Your house insurance may require it. But you would have to check your policy to be sure. Of course if its anything like Tesco its probably cheaper to rip it out given they charged us more when we notified them we had window locks "they cost more to replace" was their reasoning.

[putonghua73]

Ari said:

Nothing worse than a malfunctioning alarm I know, but why should it?

Tempted to say nothing and stop paying the contract thing.

House / Contents Insurance. Check your T&Cs very, very carefully and then make an informed decision. Your T&Cs may state that your alarm has to be serviced once per year.

[anonymous-user]

Ours asked if we had an alarm and if we used it, nothing about servicing. We live on a new build estate where every house had the alarm built in from new. Trouble is they all use the same alarm, so all sound the same, so pretty much get ignored anyway.

[bristolracer]

See what discount you get for having an alarm
If you declare you have an alarm it needs to be serviced.

The only thing that is serviceable is the battery,all the other tests you can do yourself.

The only other slight fly in the ointment is the engineers code,which the servicing company are unlikely to give you, if you open the box to change the battery you may get a tamper alarm,and on some systems only the engineer code will clear it.

[Robbo 27]

Ours costs £35 a year for a service and I dont think they actually do anything apart from check that the PIRs are working.

As others have point out, its a condition of the insurance that we have it serviced.

Every 5 years he changes the battery which costs £40.

[Ari]

Good suggestion about the insurance but I've never told mine that I've got one.

It was suggested that it made very little difference to the premium but it would basically invalidate any claim if I forgot to turn it on.

I forgot that it had a back up battery in case the mains power went out (or was cut) so I guess that's one item that legitimately needs checking in a service.

[easy_rider33]

Ari said:

It was suggested that it made very little difference to the premium but it would basically invalidate any claim if I forgot to turn it on.

This. We just declare we have a self installed one. No difference to the premium. A professional install would be thousands and the return on investment would be 30 years with the negligible reduction in premium.

[megaphone]

I don't bother to tell my insurers I have one, it would be just my luck that I got broken into on the day I forgot to activate it! I assume they would wriggle out of paying if the alarm is not on. Difference in the premium is negligible.

Only thing that needs servicing on an alarm is the battery. Also the bell box has a back up battery that can fail with time.

[Big_Dan]

We ended up "needing" a new battery every year, which I'm sure they used to just move from customer to customer

Beware that there may be a limit on the number of times you can set the thing if you end the contract like we did