In article ,
SteveW writes:
On 15/02/2013 18:53, ARW wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,

And I have decent neighbours who wouldn't just ignore it.

And that is the key to a good alarm.

I think that it is probably the other way around. A decent alarm, that
doesn't regularly give false alarms, is likely to be checked by the
neighbours, whereas one that's always going off will be ignored.

Our next-door neighbours' alarm never normally goes off. On the one
occassion that it has recently, I checked for signs of entry. Before
they moved in, I just ignored it, because the property was unoccupied,
the alarm was faulty, yet the estate agent kept setting it! Similarly, I
always ignore the alarm on the opposite side of the road, but would
investigate any others going off.

If you have neighbours who come and check when the alarm goes off
(and pleased to say we all do here), you really want to make sure
you don't generate false alarms, as the goodwill very quickly
evaporates. After one false alarm, expect much slower response (if
any), and none after a second one. It will probably at least 2
years without false alarms to recover.

Given that new alarm systems tend to generate false alarms in the
first few months, I generally suggest you wait for a few months
with no false alarms before you enable an external sounder, and
that includes having identified and fixed all causes for false
alarms. That way, you don't blow all the neighbourly goodwill in
the initial teething problems.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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