reasonable monthly rate

Depends. You going to buy your system or finance it? You want local service or DIY? If DIY you going to cover the local alarm permits or ignore them until you get a ticket?

I have a professionally installed system. It's a Radionincs, built with the home twelve years ago. Uses phone line, no GSM. I've been paying $35 a month since I purchased the home. It seems a bit high. Do you think that's a reasonable rate?

Best, Christopher

"Christopher Glaeser" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion : snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

I have a professionally installed system. It's a Radionincs, built with the home twelve years ago. Uses phone line, no GSM. I've been paying $35 a month since I purchased the home. It seems a bit high. Do you think that's a reasonable rate?

Best, Christopher

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Do you rent the system?? for me 35$ a month for 12 years seem pretty high.. Unlesss you have a service contract, 24/7 all parts and battery included..

"Christopher Glaeser" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion : snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

I have a professionally installed system. It's a Radionincs, built with the home twelve years ago. Uses phone line, no GSM. I've been paying $35 a month since I purchased the home. It seems a bit high. Do you think that's a reasonable rate?

Best, Christopher

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Do you rent the system?? for me 35$ a month for 12 years seem pretty high.. Unlesss you have a service contract, 24/7 all parts and battery included..

You could find a lower rate since you apparently own the system. The trick will be to find a dealer willing to monitor it. Call around the locals in your area and tell them what you have, and ask if they want to monitor it. Radix panels need a special programmer machine and not everyone messes with that line.

What model do you have? If it's the cheap residential panel I'm thinking of (can't remember #) it's probably time to replace it with something less proprietary and more feature rich.

It's my system. If the contract expires, they want to remove their prom. When the original battery needed replacement, they charged me (as I recall, for both battery and service). When the battery needed another replacement, I did it myself for a fraction of the cost.

I asked them about reducing the rate. They reduced the rate to $280 per year, but if there is a fault or alarm, they will no longer tell me where it is.

My brother has an answering service for his roofing company. The service gets the name, number, address, and brief message from each caller and sends it via email. The service is about $1 per call for a modest number of calls. I know it's a bit of apples and oranges, but I don't know how an answering service can monitor so many companies and so many calls for so little money compared to a security monitoring service.

I have my own business and I know there are many expenses to running any business and it's all too easy to overlook all the expenses and say something is overpriced. That's way I was asking for what is reasonable in the industry. In addition 24/7 monitoring, which I assume is done entirely by computers, all they need to do is answer the phone once or twice a year and mail out an invoice.

Best, Christopher

Yes, I should probably do that. What would you recommend?

Best, Christopher

I like Honeywell stuff myself.

I would not have charged for that. I would take the time to explain the system layout to the manager(s) and write the ticket up as training time.

Same with this one. Charging a homeowner for this you're just being kinda dickish. You can put whatever you want on the service ticket... chances are the customer was never properly shown how to use the system in the first place. Again, unless the Cx has a history of dumb shit, it's better to train and no-charge for long-term customer satisfaction.

I may or may not have charged this one. If they replaced the frame and were nice enough to drill the proper size hole and bring the contact through, I'd do a free mag if they were calling for more of an 'inspection'. So, I would give them a break if they were being proactive and wanted the alarmco's blessing that the contact was ok. If I have to actually 'work', like drill & dig a wire out or something... yeah, then charge.

Maybe charge. If they took me right to the cut wire I'd probably do a freebie.

Point is, I've worked the big-name players too... but I used discretion and common sense when it came to charging customers. I never even read the "fine print". I'm not saying it's okay to blatantly violate policy, but every tech has leeway when it comes to collecting on those service calls.

In eleven years I've had one battery replacement service call, which I paid for. I've never had a cut wire or open window or anything that even required a phone call, much less a service call to my house. A couple times a year a family member will fail to shut off the alarm soon enough and they will call to confirm the password. That's pretty much it. And, I own the system. So, what is a reasonable monthly rate for monitoring?

Best, Christopher

You're right, I don't want to service or program my house alarm (with the exception of battery replacement), but I have not needed any programming or service calls for 11 years. I've paid approximately $4,000 during that period to monitor my security system. What would you recommend? Continue with same company, or look for an alternative?

Best, Christopher

I'm not planning to reprogram or otherwise fiddle with my home security system.

Best, Christopher

I'd call around and bet you can find somebody to do it for $20/mo. 'if' they will "takeover" your Radionics panel. Like I said before, finding that dealer may be a problem you wouldn't have if your panel was one of the "common" manufacturers like Honeywell, DSC, GE, Napco, etc..

OK, thanks, that makes sense. I'd be willing to have them replace the Radionics with a Honeywell et. al. and pay for that up front if the monthly rate were reduced long term.

Best, Christopher

If you really want to save a buck doing it that way you can purchase the equipment yourself (online, eBay) and just pay the new alarm company labor to install it for you. You'll only need to replace the panel, keypads, and power supply if everything else is in good shape. At least get a feel for what the equipment is actually worth by doing your research first.

Remember, all this advice is based upon you finding a "local" reputable dealer. The big name companies are not as flexible.

Have you tried Tom's site?