Can anyone recommend a wirerless house alarm please.

[JohnSW20]

I know it's a bit late but came home last night around 7.00pm unlocked the front door as normal. Walked in to find some scumbag has robbed and trashed the the place. They smashed the double glazed unit at the bottom of the kitchen. What do they think they will find in a 5 year olds bedroom. They trashed it!!! Why???

I've googles them but there seem to be too many all claiming they are the best.

If anyone is in the alarm business in South West London area give me a shout or if you have any recommendations.

Cheers

John

[Stu R]

If you're talking about the wireless ones which you can buy off the shelf etc, I'm told they're all pretty much rubbish. We've got a wired system in by ADT, which I understand these days is perhaps not the best, but for us it's been faultless.

[dfen5]

I just had an ADT monitored wireless installed. Seems good so far.

[fergywales]

This, plus ADT.

[GreigM]

Having been there I'd suggest getting a proper system installed - it'll help you sleep at night...my sympathies, this can fk with your head!

[poo at Paul's]

We put a Yale one in (two in fact to cover the whole house upstairs and downstairs and can be set at night to), connected to the phone lines and they have been faultless for 3 years now. One set of bateries in the sounders, can have multiple sounders, outbuildings covered, panic alarms, smoke alarms, even flood sesnors are available. Remote control on key chain, remote on stairs and rear hall, pet friendly PIRs so the dog and cat dont set them off.

It just works really well, had about 10 false alarms in near 4 years now, and always due to our mistakes, ie leaving doors open and cat getting to a non pet PIR room.

Very loud in the house too.

Available at Homebase etc, and better delas for the more unusual sensors on ebay. Take your time installing it, getting it all set and programmed, and they work really well. Also a useful helpline if you get stuck. But once set up, its a doddle to use.

Wired and pro may well be better etc, but for a self install, and if you dont want a "security expert" looking at all the gear you have (!) the Yale ones are pretty good.

[Meeja]

Wireless technology in security alarms has vastly improved since it first appeared on the scene, but I am still a fan of hard wired systems.

Any reason you want wireless?

Are you looking to get a pro to install, or looking to DIY?

Drop me a PM if you prefer not to publish stuff about your home in public on PH.... Happy to advise on a specific setup, with no vested interest or strings attached.

[bogie]

I would go fully monitored, or just put a dummy box outside and beef up your physical security

my experience of DIY alarms a long time a go just gave me a headache, and when everyone on the street has one, they go off at random, no-one does anything anyway

take a step back and have a think about what you are trying to achieve.....

[ribenavrs]

we had an ADT system in our self build which was excellent but expensive

a mate DIY installed his wireless Yale system and he is chuffed to bits with it for around £200

he's had it 6 months and had no problems, apparently they are alot more reliable now

[JohnSW20]

Hi

Thanks for your help with this, no reason for going wireless other than I'm guessing less wires around the house for them to cut.

Cheers

John

[GreigM]

JohnSW20 said:

Hi

Thanks for your help with this, no reason for going wireless other than I'm guessing less wires around the house for them to cut.

Cheers

John

A good installer will hide all the wires well - they're used to it. They will lift carpets, floorboards, go under floors etc - this is mostly what you're paying the installer for to some extent as the actual wiring of the unit is very simple really - feeding the wires nicely is the skill in it all.

[Smiler.]

JohnSW20 said:

Hi

Thanks for your help with this, no reason for going wireless other than I'm guessing less wires around the house for them to cut.

Cheers

John

Wireless are a lot easier to install, but you have to change the batteries.

Cutting the wires of the wired system will cause an alarm condition.

If its easy enough to run/conceal the wires, go for a wired system.

For insurance purposes, I think a system needs to be maintained annually by an accredited company.

[Meeja]

GreigM said:

A good installer will hide all the wires well - they're used to it. They will lift carpets, floorboards, go under floors etc - this is mostly what you're paying the installer for to some extent as the actual wiring of the unit is very simple really - feeding the wires nicely is the skill in it all.

^^ This.

Any decent installer should be able to hide over 95% of cabling, and anything exposed should be barely noticeable. (When cabling has to be exposed, many installers will have rolls of brown cable as well as white to help it blend in)

Location of PIR detectors and door contacts that are fit for purpose is also hugely important.

A PIR should not neccesarily be located in a position that is simply the easiest to cable to - other factors need to be considered.

These days, a well installed DIY system will be as reliable (if not more so!) than a commercially installed ADT (or similar) system, as the quality of actual hardware available to the general public is now very high. (But the crap still exists...... take any £100 all-in B&Q special for example!)

Bear in mind that the major players (ADT, Chubb etc) do suffer with the quality of some installation engineers' workmanship, so whilst you may be paying a premium, you still may not get a top-notch faultless system.

IF DIY installing, take care to run cables away from mains cables (ie don't run under-floorboard cabling alongside the socket ringmain..... run it parallel, but say a foot away) It just minimises the potential for false alarms.

Also think about maintenance.

Most PIRs these days don't suffer from the old "spider crawling across the sensor" that used to happen(!) as the units are far better sealed, but it doesn't harm to give them a clean from time to time.

All systems (should) have a battery back-up (so the system remains active in case of power failure) but the battery will have a limited life, and whilst they can last for a fair few years, I would recommend replacing say every two or three years (it used to be annually when I worked in the business, but battery technology has improved since then!)

[dav123a]

If your going down the pro route have a look here, no guarantee of problem free companies but alot better than going through yellow pages.
http://www.ssaib.org/

http://www.nsi.org.uk/

[pmanson]

Hi John,

It's not a nice feeling is it! We were done over at the end of October (we had a call from the neighbours to say that they were really sorry but the house had been done over and everything put in our car before they drove off).

I asked a similar question at the time and ended up going with an Infinite Prime

Reasonably priced and easy to install (they do the config before they send the alarm so all you have to do is mount the sensors and the wall panel (requires a spurred fuse) and the siren (again needs a power source).

I've got some contact details if you want to chat with the guy that supplied ours?

Phill

Edited to add: ours is monitored and they're always quick to call if we set it off accidently