Posts Tagged ‘alarm systems’

Are There Security Breeches In Your Home Or Business?

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Security is an essential aspect of life, but then it always has been. It is normal for parents to do their best to take care of their families and it is normal and even a legal requirement for an employer to ensure the safety of his or her staff. Part of the way we carry out these duties is to secure the environment in which we live and work – our homes and our offices or other places of work.

A proper security system for our homes and businesses is usually an electronic system. Windows and doors – ie likely entry points – will be monitored by sensors. In order to maintain an operational security system, it is necessary to use a regularly changed password system. In a home the keypad will usually be numeric only, but you should change the password at least every month and possibly even every week.

For example, if you have teenage children or older, they will be bringing friends back. These friends will be able to see you child entering the password. This can be even more serious if the person is a boyfriend or girlfriend who subsequently gets dumped.

Similarly in an office or other place of work, it is a good idea to have pass cards that can be canceled if the employee leaves the firm. A lot of harm is caused every year to material goods by disgruntled ex-employees and old boy- and girlfriends.

You can assist passers-by and police by leaving some light on inside your building. Frequent passers-by, neighbours and police will get used to seeing lights on, so if a burglar switches them off, they will become suspicious.

Burglars do not like light. Similarly, do not let bushes, shrubs or trees hide possible entry points. Keep them cut back so that people can see any doubtful activity. You would be astonished how many people just sit in their windows all day watching.

Outdoor security lighting is an excellent way of deterring criminals at night. Set up a few solar garden lights that are switched on by passive infra red motion sensors and they will be cheap to run. The good thing about them is that they do not announce their presence to the would be burglar, but they will catch him or her in a floodlight when he enters your property.

Another suggestion is to nail carpet gripper just under the top edge on the inside of your garden fence. Anyone trying to haul himself up over your fence will have a very horrible shock and leave DNA for the police.

If your business or home has an open door policy in order to allow clients or your kids to walk in, install doorbells or chimes that are triggered by under carpet sensors, door sensors or PIR’s, so that employees or family can not be caught by surprise. It is very useful, because if your busy secretary doubles as a meeter of walk-in clients, it will guarantee that she does not miss anybody or keeps anybody waiting.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.

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The Stages Of Home Security

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

People have always tried to protect themselves and their families, just like most animals do. In very early days, cavemen protected their caves by lighting fires outside the entrance to discourage interlopers and wild animals. Later on, man learned how to increase his security by training dogs to safeguard him and his family. Later still, houses and then doors were invented; bars and locks arrived soon after that.

However, until a few decades ago in the west, people lived in extended large families. A family could consist of six-to-ten children and the mother and the grandmother would often live there too. This made home security systems extraneous from the early 18th Century to the 1930’s, which were quite peaceful times. After the Second World War, families were not so large and new families got their own house away from their parents.

Nowadays, both parents are likely to be working and the children are probably at school. This means that many houses are left unoccupied during the day, making them easy plunder for burglars. In fact, the number of household burglaries has increased by almost 10% in the last five years according to American government figures. Furthermore, according to a survey, forty percent of home burglaries were carried out due to inappropriate locks and doors.

ANSI (American National Standard Institute) produced a standard for deadbolt locks for external doors which is very hard to beat. If you are worried about your external doors, you should seek these ANSI deadbolts out, but beware, there are many copies. However, regardless of the sort of lock, the quality of the door is just as crucial. Its thickness and composition can also be a disincentive. After all, why put an expensive deadbolt on a door made of cardboard?

There are about 14,000,000 home burglaries every year in the United States and many of them are preventable. The first stage that you should achieve in home security is well-built doors and sturdy locks. Deadbolts on exit doors is a good idea.

Once you have completed that, get some exterior security lighting that reacts to either motion or body heat. The former type are microwave and the latter passive infra red sensors. These sensors will also contain a daylight sensor so that they will only become active at night. The sensors will also save you money by activating the powerful halogen floodlights only when someone enters the scope of the sensor’s beam.

Once you have done that, you ought to think about a home security alarm system. This should consist of contact sensors on all outside doors and windows, vibration sensors on all widows to alarm you in case of breakage and PIR or microwave motion sensors in the corridors and hallways.

Then, if you want to go even further in your home security system, you can install surveillance cameras on each exposed wall of the house and maybe one in the interior too. You do not have to take all these preventive measures at once, if you are short of cash, but they should be taken in that sequence.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.

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Are Security Bars A Good Idea?

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

There are many things that families and businesses perform in order to secure their property. One measure that is often taken in the name of security is the addition of security bars to doors and windows. In spite of the inherent benefits of securing property, these bars often present risks of endangering the people inside.

One thing remains accurate, most burglars will keep moving rather than attempt entering into a home that has security bars on doors and windows. Home protection is the only security that these bars supply however for many, the risks involved in having these bars on windows is not worth the small measure of security that is provided. In other words, the good of these bars is really outweighed by the negatives.

A lot of people do not purchase new security bars but rather rely on the same bars that have covered the windows of the home or business for many years. Some of these are rusted and virtually impossible to remove. In emergency situations, every second matters and these bars can be the very things that trap people inside a burning or flooding structure.

Security bars are no longer the cheap substitute to traditional alarm systems and monitoring services that they were said to be in the past. In fact, more often than not the pose a greater risk than they are a benefit to business and homeowners. Many larger companies offer free fitting of alarm systems and alarms as well as monthly monitoring services at realistic rates. More importantly not only are these monitoring services presented for breaks-in, but also for fire and smoke as well as panic button services.

Security bars may have had a time and place, but they have been replaced by something that is much more effectual at deterring criminals as well as something that offers a greater degree of protection for the most precious assets of any home or business – the people inside. The costs concerned in monthly monitoring seem great but most will find that the value this service provides if and when it is ever called upon is well worth every penny.

Options to burglar bars that are not dreadfully expensive include planting thorny bushes below windows and keeping them trimmed back just enough that they do not block a view of the windows. Most burglars do not want a complicated entry point and they certainly do not want to be injured during the process by prickly plants. Lighting is another alternative that is essentially less expensive than it would be to fit burglar bars. Intruders do not want to be observed. If the area surrounding your home and business is well lit, it will serve as a deterrent. Investigate options such as this before resorting to security bars.

To answer the question of whether or not security bars are worth the risks for home or business protection the answer would be a loud “No!”. There are other preventative measures that can be taken in order to deter intruders that present far less risk to family members and employees. These alternatives should be implemented rather than those that pose further risks to those you are trying to look after.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.

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Panic Alarms For Home And Business.

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

In all probability, every home and every business would benefit from the protection of a panic alarm. Breaks-in are common enough, but with people living longer the chances of stroke or heart attack have risen too. If you were living alone it would be awful to be lying on the ground helpless for hours. Panic alarms are the solution. They can be placed in a handy location or worn around your neck.

These are not the kind of personal alarms that emit a high pitched whistle or siren sound. Those alarms are meant to discourage criminals on the street or to draw attention to the user. No, I mean a gadget that triggers your home security system. it does not create a noise of its own, but communicates with the main security control box by some type of radio signal.

Some of these panic alarms do not activate the main security siren, but instead send a message to a monitoring security company. These so-called silent panic alarms are most often used in banks, firearms shops and places that handle lots of ready money. However, any business could use a silent panic alarm. Household alarm systems usually activate the external siren in order to alert your neighbours that you are having problems.

Panic buttons are especially helpful to the elderly or and infirm. Sometimes, people fall and cannot get up. You could also have a heart attack or stroke and not be able to make it to the phone. A panic button on a ribbon around your neck would resolve this problem. Some of these panic buttons are monitored too and others even have a microphone and speaker so that you can speak to an operator and explain your predicament.

Some of these panic buttons have a keypad so that you can transmit codes to the operator. Other means have been built into watches and brooches in order to make them easier to carry. If you wear your panic alarm, it is much less easy to forget to take it with you when you go upstairs or into the garden.

If you can afford security, you really ought to have a system, as good as you can afford, installed into your home and business. A panic alarm is a useful extra item for home and office use too, but it is especially reassuring to the elderly. Many older people are frightened of falling when they are in the house alone and fear of burglars or worse is a constant worry. A panic alarm linked to the main home siren is also a comfort to women living alone.

If you do get a home security system with a panic button, make sure that you keep a spare battery near at hand and check that the battery in the device has not become depleted. You should also advise the neighbours you get on best with that you have a home security set-up and that they should come to your aid or phone the police, if they hear your home security siren and see the flashing light.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.

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An Automated Home Security System

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

These days people are becoming more anxious about their home security, chiefly because of the increasing crime rate. Even homes that have an older security system should be checked to see whether their security system is out of date or acceptable.

It is not so much that an older system may stop working, but technology advances very quickly and your sensors may not be the best type or even the variety that suit your home the best.

The kind of security system that you should be using can change as the constituent members of your family changes. For example, if you have just had a baby, you could hook up a surveillance camera to the bedroom or put a motion sensor pointing along side a toddler’s bed so that you know if he or she gets up out of bed.

There are many varieties of security systems, including wired, wireless, monitored and Internet. The Internet wireless system is or at least can be fully automated.

That means that you can operate it through the hand set or any online device like a laptop or desktop computer. This means that you can check up on your home from your place of work or when you are away on holiday.

If surveillance cameras are part of your home security system, then you will be able to see and check up on your home on your computer monitor from anywhere in the world. If you hook up sensors to some table lamps around your house, you will even be able to turn lights on and off to make it look as if you are at home when you are in fact hundreds of miles away. Put the TV on such a sensor and you can even turn that on and off too.

If you put a surveillance camera in your children’s bedrooms and the living room, you could check up on the baby sitter or your business cash register on your WAP enabled mobile phone or PDA. This type of automated can be installed by a competent DIYer, but is intended to be fitted by professionals.

This type of automated system is very reassuring. Imagine being able to check up on your home, children or business by watching live video footage on any computer or Internet phone anywhere in the world!

An automated security system is not cheap, but is worth the peace of mind that it brings. You could get near total automated home or business security by the end of next week. Pay for it over time, if you have too, but they are not as costly as you may imagine

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with home security systems comparison. If you are interested in Security Systems For Home Use, please click through to our site.

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