Burglar Alarms

neral1

I am looking to install one and quote received from ADT for a 3 bed room house is £967/- plus maintainance and police : £24.95 per month.
Can anyone suggest any other reliable company?
I live in wembley area.

Views and ideas will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

ormus

this site is about saving money. goto wickes and get a wireless alarm system for about 100 quid.

300 quid per annum for maintenance??? i should coco!

securityman

if you dont need a monitored alarm, how about an alarm with a speech dialer.
£0 cost per year other then about £50 to £100 for a maintenance contract.
The best way would be just to have a service every couple of years, but do a walk test, bell test etc every week.

neral1

I am aware this is a money saving site. That is why I asked if anyone knows any better then what I have. I am sure B& Q and ADT can't be compared.

Thank you anyway for your time !

ormus

if you think that paying all that money for ADT is gonna protect you more than a BQ/wickes alarm, then goto it.
the polices reaction time to a domestic alarm callout is approx the same as to a callout to sort out the local chavs throwing stones. ie about 2 hrs/2 days.
im pretty sure even a dim witted burglar is faster than that?

youre welcome to my time, its free. and a lot cheaper than ADT etc...

Miss_Penny_Pincher_2

neral1 wrote: »

I am looking to install one and quote received from ADT for a 3 bed room house is £967/- plus maintainance and police : £24.95 per month.
Can anyone suggest any other reliable company?
I live in wembley area.

Views and ideas will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

Firstly please let me apologise for the previous poster! I'm afraid I don't have much advice to offer but was ashamed of his response and wanted to post!

When we moved in to our current property there was already window frames / doors only alarms and 2 panic buttons installed but no sensors. We upgraded this to sensors in all the rooms downstairs and upgraded the bell too. Quite a few of my neighbours use the same 1 man company even though he lives around 30 miles away. He does our annual service for around £40. Do any of your neighbours have alarms fitted? Perhaps you could ask them if they'd recommend anyone? Obviously with this system there is no dial up / police connection but maybe a local self-employed tradesman would be able to provide this cheaper than ADT? Good luck!

neral1

Miss Penny Pincher, Thanks very much even though you say you do not have any suggestion but you have provided me to look in to something diffferent.
I am not interested in linking it up with police it is too expensive.

Thanks once again.

gregg1

neral1 wrote: »

I am looking to install one and quote received from ADT for a 3 bed room house is £967/- plus maintainance and police : £24.95 per month.
Can anyone suggest any other reliable company?
I live in wembley area.

Views and ideas will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

We had British Gas install our alarm system and they are excellent. It cost about £750 to install and around £16 per month to monitor and service it. We had a small fire the other week and as the alarm is linked to the smoke detector the fire brigade were here very quickly indeed.

jos22

Well I would certainly steer well clear of ADT at that cost.

Personally I went down the DIY route which gives me an alarm (fitted in less than a couple of hours) with a dialer that dials up to 6 numbers (until answered). Total cost under £150.

However, if you want someone else to monitor your alarm (which is all ADT propose - except for the service/repairs, for which they will charge) have a look at BT

As I understand the position all alarms (professional) have to be connected to a central monitoring service. When the alarm is activated they inform the key holders and police. Police response depends on current workload/seriousness of incident. I am pretty sure a domestic burglary would rate low.

George_Bray

neral1 wrote: »

I am sure B& Q and ADT can't be compared.

I'm no fan of B&Q. I prefer Wickes or Screwfix. But any of these DIY outlets security systems could be compared to what ADT offer. If you know the ADT spec, then line up a DIY solution to achieve the same 'spec' or level of cover, like the number of detectors (PIRs), number of rooms covered, technology used (e.g. to help prevent false alarms), etc, etc. Of course, ADT's £1000 installation fee will include labour which you would need to do yourself, or bring in someone else to fit the DIY kit. And there must be a level of expertise, like locating the wires so they are neat, tidy and can't easily be cut. But £1000 still seems expensive. The real way they make money, though is from the lucrative maintenance contracts. Worse still, your insurance company may insist you pay for maintenance. It's all a rip-off. I would NEVER take out one of these contracts. Just test the system yourself and wait until it goes wrong, if it ever does. If I needed to pay £5 more per year for my insurance, so be it!

LittleJo

Hi,
Re: annual service.
The installer of my alarm showed me how to do a 'walk test' and replace the battery.
Neither of which is difficult, just follow written instructions.
The test shows any faults in the system and the battery gets replaced every 3 years.
After 5 years, no faults and one battery from Screwfix.
Jo