Guest Jerry Lowe Posted March 3, 2004 Posted March 3, 2004 Our existing home intruder system is 7 years old and includes a Vista 4110 UXM control panel and 5 Pyronix Magnum EP PIR's. It was installed by a well known company who have subsequently been taken over. They also provide the monitoring. I'm considering upgrading to alarm confirmation or dual technology PIR's due to a false alarm that was never explained. I asked our current monitoring company for a quote for upgrading it to alarm confirmation or to convert it to dual technology PIR's. To my surprise they said that the control panel would have to be replaced in order to get alarm confirmation and to upgrade the PIR's to dual technology would cost £495 for five. Also if I change the control panel they will nearly double the yearly charge for monitoring & Servicing! The quote sounds very high to me given the cost of dual technology detectors and their labour charge of £54 an hour. Would I be better off getting a quote from someone else and changing the monitoring company ?
Service Engineer Posted March 3, 2004 Posted March 3, 2004 That quote does seem to be a little bit on the expensive side for 5 new DT`s, but it does depend on which DT`s they are quoting for. What type of monitoring are you currently on..? Redcare, Digicom, ???? And yes you would have to upgrade the panel to a DD243 compliant one. ........................................................ Dave Partridge (Romec Service Engineer)
Guest Jerry Lowe Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 I was so surprised at the cost I did'nt look at the quote until after the salesguy had left. Unfortunately the quote does not say which type of dual technology detector. The alarm is currently monitored by //.National Installer.//. But was installed by Masco. To upgrade the Vista control panel to a galaxy unit for the alarm confirmation, I was quoted £450.
Guest dale Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 It doesnt suprise me that they want to charge £450 for a galaxy control panel upgrade. They are the bees knees of control panels, and this is reflected in the price. I would have thought that for about £650 they could have done the galaxy and the dual techs. The best thing to do is haggle with them.... tell them you feel the price is a bit steep, and ask them to compromise, also do a bit of shopping around! Allways get three like for like quotes, then choose the company that you were happiest with (this may not be the cheapest!).
gooner31 Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 jerry wot part of the country are you in. im sure there is someone from the forum that is near you and could possibly steer you in the right direction. i agree with dale get 3 quotes from different companies and go for the one your happiest with not necessarily the cheapest one. pete B) pete ................. Any comments/opinions posted are my own and not that of my employers.
Guest dun_that Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 My understanding is that you are not required to upgrade to the latest standard unless you have lost your URN due to the amount of false alarms from your system. So you should be able to change detectors no problem. It may be worth asking why your detectors are false alarming before going to that expense. Check the location of detectors, potential problem areas and make sure that the detectors are sealed. And as mentioned get a quote from a local company. Regards Adrian
Guest Peter James Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 I dont want to sound rude but why are you upgrading to dual techs? DT's are really designed for hostile enviroments like drafty garages or in large comercial enviroments. If your property is none of the above I would consider upgrading to quads (optex rx40's are very good) the magnums ep's were never the best pir in the world. If you have lost Police responce then your panel would need to be updated with a panel that conforms to DD243 this would include alarm confirmation of some sort. If you have not lost police responce how many false calls have you had in the last 12month rolling period? If you have had 2 or more than I would consider panel upgrade, If its just the one then upgrade to the rx40's until you get another fa then consider upgrading the panel for confirmation. I agree with the others get three quotes try local companies, if you need police responce then these quotes should be from either an SSIAB or NSI company. I would also reccomend that you ask your neighboors who they use and how good they are. And remember the cheapest is not always the best value for money. Pete
Guest Jerry Lowe Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 Thanks for the suggestions. Its all very useful. This is one of those jobs that start small and get bigger when they don't really need to. Our existing system has only false alarmed once, but it was at 10pm when we were on holiday a while back. The keyholder sorted it out without a police callout. We never did get to the bottom of whether the monitoring centre picked up the alarm. It was a neighbour who heard the siren who informed the keyholder! We we still have full police cover. When we got back from holiday the engineer came out and he could not work out why the alarm went off and ended up putting a piece of white tape over half the offending PIR! That and the monitoring question did not give us much confidence in them. I read an article in the paper at the weekend which described "alarm confirmation" and dual tech detectors, so I thought I would get a quote. I gathered that if we had one of these it would reduce the chance of another false alarm. Needless to say the salesman tried to sell us 5 dual tech detectors and a new control panel, which would result in twice the monitoring cost as well. We would even have less coverage as "we needed to loose one of the zones in order to get a spare zone for the alarm confirmation". Thinking that I'm being ripped off I turned to the Internet and found this excellent forum. If I get the system upgraded by a local installer would it be a simple matter to swap the monitoring over to another company ? I own the alarm system so there are no contractual problems.
Guest Peter James Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 You will find that most companys would be willing and able to takeover and upgrade your system (including the monitoring). You may even find the annual monitoring and maint much cheaper. If you have full police responce then your panel does not necasarily need to be upgraded. Confirmation wont stop false alarms only stop the Police being called. I would investigate further as to why the arc didnt do anything when your alarm activated though. What if it had been a real intruder and your neighboor was out Pete
Service Engineer Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 Needless to say the salesman tried to sell us 5 dual tech detectors and a new control panel, which would result in twice the monitoring cost as well.Why would upgrading the Detectors result in a doubled monitoring cost..?we needed to loose one of the zones in order to get a spare zone for the alarm confirmation Now im confused, why would you loose a zone in order for confirmation to be set up..?Thinking that I'm being ripped I`m thinking that you would have been ripped off & very ill informed. ........................................................ Dave Partridge (Romec Service Engineer)
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