Newbie guide? Or somewhere to find out how to start?

[larryllix]

@larryllix - funny stories, thanks for making me laugh this morning.  I am from the UK and moved to US (WA) about 11 years ago.  In the UK the incidence of alarm installation is way way higher, i was shocked when i moved here how few people have them even in the cities (i think this is might be a pacific north west thing?) and most people didn't bother with monitoring  - the goal was absolutely to get them to go somewhere else or make them scarper if they did try something.

 

This is definitely why i struggle with idea of how much local alarm folks want to charge for quite frankly doing nothing and not supplying any hardware!

Yeah, Underworld has an alarm system but Rover's Return doesn't seem to use one.

[Deadeye]

All of the new content that was posted during the forum change over has been lost. All of the posts I replied to and uploaded pictures have since been lost.

 

The wall of text is now gone . . .

 

I don't believe I have the stomach to reload everything from scratch . . . The link you provided above is the correct one though you may have to notch out a small portion of the molding frame.

 

With a chisel it takes about 2-5 minutes depending upon how nice you want it to look. I spent the five minutes because it would bother me if I ever removed them and saw a hacked job just sitting there. 

You've got to be kidding me!!  All of that information just lost? What type of crappy forum software are they using!?  Dammit!

I've ripped off my moulding to replace already, so I'll just run that section through a router and try it out.

 

 

ebay is your friend

 

when i bought my house the guy claimed it had an alarm system, when we move it turns out it only ever had stickers - we made him pay us after the fact $2k 

 

I installed my own DSC Powerseries alarm - nodelink is awesome to integrate it with the ISY

(now my front door wireless alarm sensor turns my hallway lights on when the door is opened from sunset to sunrise - as an example)

 

I am still pissed at how expensive monitoring is mind you.  For example i know the wholesale price on the telguard software is $7 a month and whole monitoring is $5.  so why do local companies want $30 to $50 out of me - grrr.  so my 2 way communicator has never been hooked up....

Forgive my ignorance, but how is ebay my friend?  For sensors?  I find I get a lot of cheap Chinese rip offs when I order off of eBay.  I don't want to cheap out or risk getting a defective part when it comes to my security system.

 

I'm 99% sure I'm going to go with a DSC system (for the much lower price than Elk and I really just want it to handle security.  All of the HA stuff will be done on the HA controller).  But yeah, that sort of automation (front door wireless alarm sensor turns my hallway lights) is exactly what I want.

 

I was hoping that I could use one of those $10/month internet monitoring sites, but they aren't responding to my inquiries (which doesn't really fill me with confidence that the will answer the alerts from my security system), and the ones that do respond, aren't registered with my city (which is a requirement by my local police department to respond to any alarms).    I think I'm stuck with the $30/month monitoring fee (plus the $100 "setup" fee) in order to get a local company to do it.  Dang.

 

 

 

 a neighbour paid the monthly fee for a ADT security system installation on his lawn, no electronics or hook-ups, but there was a small fee to rent the lawn sign and some window stickers. If it looked more like a gnome it wouldn't have been as noticeable by the teenagers in the area,

 

It definitely can be a double edged sword.

Gotta try to get some signs/stickers.