House insurance and burglar alarms

Having read the thread I would like to add the following for the groups discussion. I agree with all who say change your insurance carrier as the discount is far less the cost of an alarm contract. However an alarm in a domestic property can be justified if it gives piece of mind to the occupier and alerts neighbours to an alarm or frightens off the robbers. An alarm will never stop you being robbed if the thief want to take your things they will find a way. On a technical front, PIR detectors can last over 15yrs but deteriorate with age becoming hyper-sensitive causing false alarms. Dual tec devices start to fail mainly because the microwave antenna corrodes (especially in damp or cold locations like garages) this causes the device to go out of tune giving false alarms. Modern analytical vibration sensors (if setup correctly) will detect forced entry on uPVC windows before the glass is broken. Mine did and still do. The Redcare system is a BT dedicated telephone line which is monitored 24/7 so the monitoring station will know if the line is cut before you do. Modern dual-com monitoring systems use both the mobile phone network and landline together so unless you jam the mobile signal and cut the phone line at the same time a line fault will be sent to the monitoring station. By law external bells must stop after a predetermined time (usually 20mins) but this is set by local authorities.This said if the alarm is programmed to auto reset as most are the bell will stop for 10secs then start again. Monitoring stations will call the police but most forces and stations operate a 3 strikes and you're out system. ie. Within a set timeframe ;1st false call a warning 2nd a fine ,3rd a bigger fine and no more monitoring (NB you will still have to pay for the duration of the contract.) From the above it becomes clear that to guarantee everything works a company must regularly check the system and would not normally take on a DIY install. We all know this is not always the case but hopefully you can see why nobody will touch a DIY system.

HTH CJ

"Toby Sleigh" wrote in message news:Rf-dnXAL8M snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...

Hope someone can help.....

I have tried a number of them...

Focus Dual-tec: 7 out of 8 failed within 3 months and returned. The one remaining one is still working fine 12 years later.

Pyronix Equinox Dual-tec: No failures in 12 years, but have had to increase sensitivity on one in a cold location.

Guardall Astra Micra dual-tec: No failures in 12 years.

Pyronix Octopus 360 degree PIR-only: They all lasted about 5 years before starting to generate false alarms.

Scantronic 460 dual-tec: too soon to say, but no problems in 6 months.

AEI 360 degree PIR-only (CPC): too soon to say, but no problems in 6 months.

or even a system installed by another alarm company, unless they're doing a bulk take-over of all their business.