Alarm Systems

When most people think of alarm systems, they think of the systems that alert the police when someone is breaking in, or will call through to the fire station if the house is on fire. These are pretty standard things for those who have them, but what I did not know, and what many do not know, is that there is so much more that these systems can do today, though much of it is used in commercial buildings. Some homeowners may find they would like things such as these as well, especially if they travel away from home for long periods of time.

My husband works for a large construction company, and when something goes wrong with one of their buildings in our town, he is the one they call. It doesn't happen all of the time, but it does seem that the alarm systems have hair triggers, and there are times when we get a lot of calls, many of them in the middle of the night. They aren't all about motion detectors, fires, or even burglar alarms. The calls often have to do with things that may go wrong with the building and cause damage.

I had no idea, but there are alarm systems that could gauge the heat of a building, but they do it. One building in particular has a very touchy heating and cooling system. When the temps drop down to far, the alarm systems go off as a warning. This then usually leads to a call to our home in the middle of the night. When the temps get too low, the system can freeze, and the entire building will be messed up by the next day. These alarms don't come in the summer, but they come often in the winter. My husband has to get out of bed to go fix the problem.

Even more amazing, alarm systems can detect water. After a particularly bad rain last week, something busted in a basement, and water filled the rooms up to about twelve inches. The basement had offices for a lawyer, a tax office, and a physical rehabilitation office. The first notice they had that something was wrong was an alarm that warned of high water. Thanks to the alarms, the problem was taken care of immediately. There was still damage, but there would have been more if no one had known until Monday morning.

I learned a lot about home security when I worked as a maid to pay for college. There were a lot of great homes that I cleaned on a weekly basis, and most of them had some sort of alarm system. There were many great houses in great neighborhoods, but there were also some really nice ones hidden in not so nice neighborhoods. You would often never know it from the outside, but some of the houses in the bad neighborhoods were nicer than the obvious ones. One thing I noticed a lot of were window alarms.

We were often warned not to open any windows while in a house because you never knew if they had window alarms installed. In most cases, they were silent alarms, but some of them would sound off rather loudly. I know this because some of my coworkers would open the windows despite the warning from the supervisor. In many cases, you could actually tell there were window alarms, but there were some instances when you could not see them at all. That is why you never took the chance unless the homeowner told you otherwise.

If you want window alarms in your home, you might want to think it over first. Remember that once you have these installed you run the risk of someone in your home setting off your alarm system. You might not need to have them on the second floor windows, but quite honestly, if you are worried enough to get window alarms, you may want to get them on every single window in your home. Just make sure your family knows what to do, and that you tell those who come into your home about the alarms. You don't want to set off a lot of false alarms, though most alarm companies are used to it happening.

You may be offered window alarms when you put in your alarm system, or you may decide at a later date that you would like to add them. Never hesitate to add to your security system if you feel that this is something that you need to do. You need to feel safe in your own home, and if that means that you have to add window alarms to your system then you should by all means do so. They say you cannot put a price on security, but spending a little more money might be just what you need to do.