It cannot be emphasized how important it is to get your home alarm system to ensure that it is working well. You need to check your own home alarm system every month without fail because if not, if it is not functioning well, then the whole point of it being there is defeated. Along with checking your home alarm system every month, make sure that you also notify the Monitoring Station before you start checking on your home alarm system. If you do not have the direct contact number of the Monitoring Station then call SAFE beforehand first.
How can we start checking if the home alarm system is working well?
There are basically two ways you can employ to check if your home alarm system is working well. Firstly you can check it while staying at home with the signals within your house. Secondly you can take the testing process from your house to the monitoring center. These two procedures are slightly different from one another and the differences depend on the manufacturing of your personal home alarm system.
If you already possess a home alarm system, then try to read up on the user’s manual to check how its function checking is conducted. If you do not have a user manual or if you are not sure how the checking should be done, then you can read more on the instructions below as the following methods of testing a home alarm system are quite generic and would apply to most types of home alarm systems.
Testing signals from within your house
This is a less cumbersome process as you would not need to go out of your house to check on your home alarm system. Firstly you need to make sure that your home alarm system is put in the ‘Ready’ mode. That being said, ensure that you do not arm your home alarm system in this step else you are going to be shown as breaking into your own house.
After you have placed the system in ‘Ready’ setting, then try to open each of your window or door that is protected by the home alarm system. Make sure you open these one by one and one at any one time. After you have attempted to open your doors and windows which are protected with the home alarm system, then countercheck if the keypad would display for you that the particular door or window is shown that is being opened by you. Then close that particular door or window and re-check that your keypad now says that the door is closed. Go on to testing every single sensor in your system by this method of checking your actions with your keypad.
Checking your signals from the Central Monitoring Station
This is a different way for you to take your home alarm system checking process. A lot of people prefer to carry out this method of checking their home alarm from a Central Monitoring System compared to checking it from home, because you do not need to do a lot of routine and manual procedures.
In order to carry this out, first you would need to call in to the Central Monitoring Station and tell them to place your system in a ‘TEST’ mode. This is to ensure that they do not think that something fishy is going on at your place by all these weird and random opening and closing of doors with sensors on them. In order to tell them to place your system on ‘TEST’ mode, you would need your central monitoring account number and your pass word ready. This is because you are only allowed to change the mode of your house alarm if you have the security details to do so. In order to find the contact number of your central monitoring station, simply contact your house alarm system provider. They should be able to provide you with a contact number to get this done.
Arm your systems
Next, move on to arm your system as per usual. After that, try to set your alarm off by opening one of your doors or windows or by tripping your motion detector. Let your house alarm sound off for at least 1 minute. Then you can move on to disarming your system using your code given to you. Again, wait another minute, and then call in to your central monitoring station again to tell them that you received the signal and all is good. Finally, let your central monitoring station know that your monthly house alarm system testing went well and you are ready to finish the testing off at that point.
Having an intact house alarm system is crucial for your safety and checking it often would just ensure that it is serving its purpose right. However, if you find yourself in a difficult time and you do end up facing a break in then fear not.
At I.G.S security, we are quicker in terms of our response to alarm calls than the police in certain situations. Rest assured, your house is under our watchful eyes once we hear the alarm go off!
