House alarm but have a dog!

Mankysteve

ali-t wrote: »

From memory, when I got mine put in around 5 years ago there are plastic things that are put infront of the pir and these can be adjusted to whatever height you require but if they are too high (e.g. for cats that jump on worktops) it would defeat the purpose as any housebreaker could crawl along the floor and not trigger the PIR.

My old work got robbed. First time the alarm went off they all scampered one of the manageress turned but as non of the other duties bothered she just looked though the window and check the sides of the building and the alarm company reset the alarm remotely.

When they returned later on they crawled across the floor thus avoiding setting the alarms off. It was quite funny to watch on the CCTV them moving boxes of power tools while crawling.

ali-t

Dan_Iggulden wrote: »

Is it a wireless system you have?

I don't think so. There are wires going under the stair carpet and the rest are through walls but there are none visible.

The only downside to having the dialler is that it is possible to intercept it if you use your home phone line to dial out when there is an 'intruder alert'. If I forgot to punch in the numbers on the alarm I could lift the phone to block the line which stopped the dialler dialling out. I needed to be quick to do this but it did work. I guess if burglars work out there is an alarm that may have a dialler they could also get to the landline and intercept it.

Dan_Iggulden

I wonder if the wireless systems have more restrictions with the pet friendly PIR's.
I used to have a landline autodialer alarm, was a nightmare, used to interfere all the time. My current one is a GSM one and runs from a payg sim card, infinately better.

ic

My two cats managed to frequently trigger my wireless yale alarm with pet friendly sensors - in the end I flogged the majority of the sensors on eBay and now have minimal PIR coverage. I'm not sure if its because there was two of them that the PIRs were confused.

MikD

I have two cats and they have never set off my pet PIRs. My alarm is with Alarmfast and was told that the cost of pet PIRs is about the same as normal PIRs, they didn't charge me anything for switching some to pet PIRs last minute as the alarm was being installed.
I also looked at wireless alarms but was put off with the having to replace batteries, ease of disruption to wireless signal/interference etc.

I'd go with wired every time, even though there is potential for some visible wires, most installers are good at hiding them and the cable routes are usually agreed during the planning visit so shouldn't be any surprises.

Monitoring is only £17 a month and that includes police notification upon confirmed alarm (2 sensors activated).

I would recommend you get a 2/3 quotes from reputable known installers and then see how they compare. If all else fails and you're still not happy there are still the wireless solutions. HTH.

MikD