Burglar alarm service cost...
Discussion
I've just paid for a hard wired bells only system to be installed next week. They're also recommending their annual £80 maintenance fee. Does anyone have any idea what they do, and can it be done by someone else, for much less? Has anyone just skipped the maintenance, you'll know if it's not working, surely?
About the only thing i can think of is the nicad battery in the panel & bell box as back up. £80 to "service" a wired alarm, hmm, would you pay £80 to have your mains wiring tested each year? Sounds like a load of b
ks to me. (just moving to house with wired system & certainly won't be paying for a service each year).
ks to me. (just moving to house with wired system & certainly won't be paying for a service each year).It'll be a lead acid in the panel and NiMh in the bellbox. They will check the state of the panel battery with a meter - not much point really - and see if the self acting bell unit in the bellbox actually powers the bell (siren) unit. That's about it. the lead acid will fail in a couple of years to five years, and the NiMh in the bell unit - who knows 'cos it depend on the quality and charge rate. Most of the £80 is the call out cost, and the work is quick and cheap once they're on site.
Dont bother basically, this is a classic rip off and opportunity to rip you off further in the future. Test it yourself (say every 6 weeks). Buy a multimeter if you dont have one (they're about £20). Fix it when it stops working. The manual supplied with the equipment will give you all the info you need and if you aint got them, then i'd be starting to ask questions already.
They should:
- Check batteries and replace as necessary
- Measure the resistance of the device field wiring (alarm pair and tamper loop)
- Check tightness of all terminations
- Check operation of all field devices, sounders, strobes and the panel functions
- Clean internal components with a soft brush
- Check operation of all tamper switches
- Check security of fixings
- Check for evidence of tampering
- Check power supply
They'll lift one pole of the hold off and listen for the bell, and put a meter on the panel battery with the mains off if you're lucky. I was manufacturing equipment for the alarm industry for tweny five years and I have a low opinion of the level of training of many alarm companies. Oddly enough it's the small family owned ones that know their business better and the national companies that perform poorly in my experience. They think Ohm is where they live most them. 
BTW Ganglandboss, I love the consolidated kicking poster!
BTW Ganglandboss, I love the consolidated kicking poster!
Edited by motco on Friday 14th August 20:08
We do our service between £65 - £130 incl vat per year for bells only systems depending on area location and contract required, Or £75 - £140 for systems not installed by ourselves on first callout during normal working hours.
This includes checks as outlined by Ganglandboss + more. This also includes 24hr support and cheaper rate call outs any time night or day, 365 days per year.
If you do not have any kind of contract and you require an engineer to attend, generally at 3.00am in the morning or weekend, expect a hefty bill when you start thumbing through yellow pages to get somebody out. That's if you can get one to answer at stupid o'clock in the morning. I think you'll probably be wishing you'd have had it serviced and taken out a maintenance contract.
If done correctly, on average a full maintenance check takes approximately 1/2 - 1 hour depending on system installed + travelling time. IMHO and contrary to popular belief by some, these checks are not bullst or a rip off. I regularly find faults with systems customers have no knowledge off. Some have even said it's all working fine only to find detection circuits and bells not working, batteries leaking acid ( one even exploded inside the panel causing a potential fire hazard ), batteries not having enough power to hold off the alarm in power cut for longer than 5 minutes, blown fuses, detectors rendered useless due to being covered up, wires chewed by rats, etc etc etc. the list goes on. If you try to open up any of the circuits etc they will have a tamper on them, this will kick up a tamper fault on the system and on most new alarms it will require an engineer reset.
Generally on a professionally installed system the default engineer code will have been changed. This is done so that your alarm system is further protected and also to stop people who think they know what they are doing tampering with the system. It also protects the company as they know that no settings can be changed then being made liable for customers changing the programming then blaming their company. I doubt very much your company will give you this engineer code. If you open up anything and can't reset the system, your expensive investment will be rendered useless.
You may also find that your insurance requires an alarm system to be annually checked by an approved engineer, who will issue a form to say all is ok at time of service. Without that form you'll be giving your insurance company yet another excuse not to pay out a claim if anything ever happens.
If done correctly £80 is peace of mind your alarm is working to standard and will do it's job if ever required. I expect you have invested a lot of money in having your alarm installed. Personally I can't understand why people are loath to look after them. Having it regularly serviced also means it also shouldn't pee off you neighbours in power cuts.
On a side note I was called to a curry house at 11.00am on Christmas day when I worked for another company about 8 years ago. I was on triple pay and charged 3 hours. The company I worked for charged Triple rate call out per hour on Christmas day. The 2 council officials where on site for approximately 4 Hrs probably on triple time. Now add all that up plus the fine the curry house owner received through the post. I expect he also said servicing an alarm was a load of bks.
Hope that helps.
This includes checks as outlined by Ganglandboss + more. This also includes 24hr support and cheaper rate call outs any time night or day, 365 days per year.
If you do not have any kind of contract and you require an engineer to attend, generally at 3.00am in the morning or weekend, expect a hefty bill when you start thumbing through yellow pages to get somebody out. That's if you can get one to answer at stupid o'clock in the morning. I think you'll probably be wishing you'd have had it serviced and taken out a maintenance contract.
If done correctly, on average a full maintenance check takes approximately 1/2 - 1 hour depending on system installed + travelling time. IMHO and contrary to popular belief by some, these checks are not bulls
t or a rip off. I regularly find faults with systems customers have no knowledge off. Some have even said it's all working fine only to find detection circuits and bells not working, batteries leaking acid ( one even exploded inside the panel causing a potential fire hazard ), batteries not having enough power to hold off the alarm in power cut for longer than 5 minutes, blown fuses, detectors rendered useless due to being covered up, wires chewed by rats, etc etc etc. the list goes on. If you try to open up any of the circuits etc they will have a tamper on them, this will kick up a tamper fault on the system and on most new alarms it will require an engineer reset. Generally on a professionally installed system the default engineer code will have been changed. This is done so that your alarm system is further protected and also to stop people who think they know what they are doing tampering with the system. It also protects the company as they know that no settings can be changed then being made liable for customers changing the programming then blaming their company. I doubt very much your company will give you this engineer code. If you open up anything and can't reset the system, your expensive investment will be rendered useless.
You may also find that your insurance requires an alarm system to be annually checked by an approved engineer, who will issue a form to say all is ok at time of service. Without that form you'll be giving your insurance company yet another excuse not to pay out a claim if anything ever happens.
If done correctly £80 is peace of mind your alarm is working to standard and will do it's job if ever required. I expect you have invested a lot of money in having your alarm installed. Personally I can't understand why people are loath to look after them. Having it regularly serviced also means it also shouldn't pee off you neighbours in power cuts.
On a side note I was called to a curry house at 11.00am on Christmas day when I worked for another company about 8 years ago. I was on triple pay and charged 3 hours. The company I worked for charged Triple rate call out per hour on Christmas day. The 2 council officials where on site for approximately 4 Hrs probably on triple time. Now add all that up plus the fine the curry house owner received through the post. I expect he also said servicing an alarm was a load of b
ks.Hope that helps.
Edited by Westy Pre-Lit on Saturday 15th August 07:51
I can understand something like this in a commercial premisis but i seriously doubt it would be worth it at home, it all depends if you have £80 to spend on piece of mind. Bear in mind i fitted my own fully wired alarm system 6 years ago and has been totaly faultles.
Its also worth noting that alot of alarm panels have setting for engineer reset, what this means is you are supplied one code to arm/disarm the system but if it goes off then there is a different code to reset the system so you have to call them out at a price to reset it, so make sure they arnt implimenting that rip off way of doing things.
I always remember that from rogue traders a few years back where the installer was adding a timer to the alarm system to set it off every now and again so he could charge for the reset, and all he was doing was resetting the alarm and his timer for next time
Its also worth noting that alot of alarm panels have setting for engineer reset, what this means is you are supplied one code to arm/disarm the system but if it goes off then there is a different code to reset the system so you have to call them out at a price to reset it, so make sure they arnt implimenting that rip off way of doing things.
I always remember that from rogue traders a few years back where the installer was adding a timer to the alarm system to set it off every now and again so he could charge for the reset, and all he was doing was resetting the alarm and his timer for next time
Like I said changing an engineer code is NOT a way of ripping off a customer.
When we first started we supplied the engineer manual and the code. We got called out to a customer saying alarm was not working. On inspection found that the settings had been changed and when I looked inside the panel the tamper switch was broken and various parts damaged. They was able to reset it thus saying it was our fault. We had to replace faulty parts at our cost, apparently it was our fault and we couldn't prove otherwise and was threatened with court action if not put right. Needless to say the engineer manual is no longer given out or the engineer code supplied.
As said before this is not a way of ripping people off, It is designed to protect customer and Installation company of liability. Remember we are talking about the protection of your property here not a throw away DVD recorder.
For the nay sayers....try running a security company rather than trying to make out everybody is trying to rip them off!!!! Funny how at stupid o'clock in the morning when we get called up from a non maintained customer, they get the shock of their life when they are told a callout is going to cost £150. They then start asking how they can mend it themselves. Shock horror we are a business not a charity or an advice line!!! You don't work for nothing so why should we. They generally carry on the maintence contract after that or find a company they trust and are happy with. Saying that though we generally we try to help our customers as much as possible as repeat business is important to us.
Yes there are some rogues out there as in all services. That guy was rightly prosecuted but sadly people seem to view every company from this one guy.
By the way, if I'd have been called out to a residential property instead of a commercial one the costs will still be the same had a complaint been made and the council called out. If you have installed your own alarm and haven't informed the various bodies that hold keyholder details, be very aware that one day if a complaint is ever made of your system, you could also be in the same position as the curry house owner!!!
When we first started we supplied the engineer manual and the code. We got called out to a customer saying alarm was not working. On inspection found that the settings had been changed and when I looked inside the panel the tamper switch was broken and various parts damaged. They was able to reset it thus saying it was our fault. We had to replace faulty parts at our cost, apparently it was our fault and we couldn't prove otherwise and was threatened with court action if not put right. Needless to say the engineer manual is no longer given out or the engineer code supplied.
As said before this is not a way of ripping people off, It is designed to protect customer and Installation company of liability. Remember we are talking about the protection of your property here not a throw away DVD recorder.
For the nay sayers....try running a security company rather than trying to make out everybody is trying to rip them off!!!! Funny how at stupid o'clock in the morning when we get called up from a non maintained customer, they get the shock of their life when they are told a callout is going to cost £150. They then start asking how they can mend it themselves. Shock horror we are a business not a charity or an advice line!!! You don't work for nothing so why should we. They generally carry on the maintence contract after that or find a company they trust and are happy with. Saying that though we generally we try to help our customers as much as possible as repeat business is important to us.
Yes there are some rogues out there as in all services. That guy was rightly prosecuted but sadly people seem to view every company from this one guy.
By the way, if I'd have been called out to a residential property instead of a commercial one the costs will still be the same had a complaint been made and the council called out. If you have installed your own alarm and haven't informed the various bodies that hold keyholder details, be very aware that one day if a complaint is ever made of your system, you could also be in the same position as the curry house owner!!!
Edited by Westy Pre-Lit on Saturday 15th August 12:41
When I left school at 16 I went onto a YTS scheme - they placed me at an alarm company - after 2 weeks I wanted another placement. They asked why? - I said wiring up 4 (or 6 wires for a PIR) isn't exactly rocket science and wasn't taxing enough. I fitted my own alarms into both my houses complete with autodialers, so I know they never go off when I'm away. So servicing an alarm system every year seems overkill for me. Perhaps every 3-5 years would be benificial - but my standby battery has never been changed in 10 years and will easily hold the system for 30 mins without mains.
eliot said:
will easily hold the system for 30 mins without mains.
and here lies a very small part of the problem why alarms can have a bad name!!European standards require an alarm system to be held off for no less than 12 hours. The old British Standards require 8 Hours. Maybe you should have taken a bit more interest when you was on YTS. We attended a 2 year collage course plus on the job training before we where classed as qualified.
Yes your right anyone with a bit of knowledge can wire up a basic and simple alarm it's not rocket science. It's when it goes wrong we earn our money diagnosing faults, fitting to required standards and programming alarms correctly etc.
Alarm service schedules are set out by these standards, governing bodies and insurance requirements, and as recognised companies we have to abide by them. Have you looked at the cost of a 'Standard' recently which can generally only be one piece of A4 paper. We have a folder of them that is probably worth in excess of £700 at the very least. Conveniently they are regularly updated and we have to buy the new one once released......Maybe you'd like to inform the governing bodies of your concerns.
Sorry to sound a bit bolshy, but when people bang on about an industry they don't fully understand it does rather grate some what!!
Edited by Westy Pre-Lit on Saturday 15th August 16:41
Westy Pre-Lit said:
Sorry to sound a bit bolshy, but when people bang on about an industry they don't fully understand it does rather grate some what!!
I said 30 mins, because I've had my power of on a regular occurance that long. Shall I pull the fuse out on it now and see how long that 10 year old non serviced battery lasts? - if its less than all day, I'll appologise. But alarm systems are really not that difficult and please dont underestimate my background - After my 2 weeks doing alarm systems I moved onto component level repair of mainframe computers - which thankfully was more challenging than running 4 and 6 core round piss ridden pikey houses.eliot said:
I said 30 mins, because I've had my power of on a regular occurance that long. Shall I pull the fuse out on it now and see how long that 10 year old non serviced battery lasts? - if its less than all day, I'll appologise.
Carry on it's your alarm. I'm only quoting industry standards which require alarms to be held off for those periods. The OP has asked a question and I'm being as honest and given as much information as possible why servicing a professionally fitted alarm is advisable. Have serviced hundreds of alarms, I'm yet to find a battery that has been in that length of time and in good enough condition to hold it's charge longer than an hour, let alone 8. May be yours is the exception who knows, it's never been serviced or checked apparently.eliot said:
But alarm systems are really not that difficult and please dont underestimate my background - After my 2 weeks doing alarm systems I moved onto component level repair of mainframe computers - which thankfully was more challenging than running 4 and 6 core round piss ridden pikey houses.
Have I tried to say simple alarms are difficult ? again I have given reasons to the OP why a system needs to be serviced, so he can make an informed decision.I don't recall underestimating your back ground so please don't underestimate mine when you are basing your knowledge on a 2 week YTS training placement. Try wiring up some of the new systems with integrated entry systems/access control etc etc etc then sorting them out when problems occur. It's not all about running 4 and 6 core round piss ridden pikey houses, as you so eloquently put it!!
Edited by Westy Pre-Lit on Saturday 15th August 19:41
Been out with Westy Pre-Lit a few times to alarm jobs, mostly due to us being somewhere else on a day off and the phone ringing as he was on call.He is as honest as the day is long, mostly due to the fact he treats his job more like those old-skool family run shops you used to get, the ones where service mattered and the owners had a genuine interest and knowledge about what they sold.It always amazed me how certain people would look suprised when he drops everything and travels 80 odd miles to look at someone elses bodged alarm install and suggests how much it may cost to fix.On the other hand, I have seen the look of suprise when he has noticed that it's something so simple, he has fixed it free of charge due to the fact it was local and the cost of running the van and or turning away other work was not a massive issue.
I have also seen him digging earth in the pissing rain, running cables underground to wire up CCTV systems connected to PC's etc.Some would say that in itself was harder and more challenging than finding a blown capacitor on a motherboard or changing a GPU etc.A basic alarm may be relatively simple, but it can go way beyond having a flashing light in the corner of the lounge and a magnet on your door in these modern times.I don't think a service charge is a rip off when you get the kind of service I have seen him provide and on some of the equipment he installs, or simply due the problems he has come across which may have been preventable etc.
Each to their own though, but I know someone who also does not believe in paying such charges, purely as his alarm has never "gone off" (who knows if it works as it was supposed to, though), yet he will happily do a few thousand miles in his car a year and pay for a service it so obviously does not need (peace of mind he says) and will get his lawnmower and watch serviced even if they are fine (peace of mind he says).I even cleaned out his PC once, despite him having never heard of such a thing.It was making odd noises after sitting on the carpet for a few years and apon opening it, most of the fans were having trouble spinning due to the dust and crap inside.When I told him I clean mine out yearly or during an upgrade, he simply thought I was joking.Now he cleans it out every so often (peace of mind he says)
Funny old world.
And yes, I may know Westy Pre-Lit, but I am not posting to 'big him up' etc, It was just an eye opener for me to see it from his side and see what he comes across day to day.
I have also seen him digging earth in the pissing rain, running cables underground to wire up CCTV systems connected to PC's etc.Some would say that in itself was harder and more challenging than finding a blown capacitor on a motherboard or changing a GPU etc.A basic alarm may be relatively simple, but it can go way beyond having a flashing light in the corner of the lounge and a magnet on your door in these modern times.I don't think a service charge is a rip off when you get the kind of service I have seen him provide and on some of the equipment he installs, or simply due the problems he has come across which may have been preventable etc.
Each to their own though, but I know someone who also does not believe in paying such charges, purely as his alarm has never "gone off" (who knows if it works as it was supposed to, though), yet he will happily do a few thousand miles in his car a year and pay for a service it so obviously does not need (peace of mind he says) and will get his lawnmower and watch serviced even if they are fine (peace of mind he says).I even cleaned out his PC once, despite him having never heard of such a thing.It was making odd noises after sitting on the carpet for a few years and apon opening it, most of the fans were having trouble spinning due to the dust and crap inside.When I told him I clean mine out yearly or during an upgrade, he simply thought I was joking.Now he cleans it out every so often (peace of mind he says)
Funny old world.
And yes, I may know Westy Pre-Lit, but I am not posting to 'big him up' etc, It was just an eye opener for me to see it from his side and see what he comes across day to day.
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