How do I maintain an ADT house alarm?

Question

My mother has just moved into a bungalow fitted with an ADT alarm, installed by a previous occupant (who never used it). It appears to be fairly new. She called in ADT to remove a detector form the kitchen (so the dog may sleep there) and install a panic alarm. However, when the surveyor called he said that ADT would charge £22 to £25 per month to maintain the alarm.
She had an alarm in her previous property that was checked once a year at a cost of c£40. Are there companies in the Essex area that will check and make adjustments to an ADT alarm without my mother signing up to an expensive long-term cvontract.

Answer 1

I note from your previous questions that your mother is elderly.I would make an approach to your local police crime prevention officer and perhaps also to a local office of Age Concern. They may have some useful advice on reputable alarm / locksmiths in your area. Many alarms are totally unsuitable and just too sophisticated for elderly people for a variety of reasons, the complexity of codes, the time delays, the key pads etc. You can get large button size pads for example. I do not know the details of the ADT product but lots of alarms that have or require an angineer monitoring / call out to reset them are capable of being programmed to be reset by a householder them selves, in this case by you on your Mothers behalf. Depending upon how technical you are, if you can get hold of the installation book it might tell you how to get back to the factory default settings and you can follow the re programming instructions yourself. I will not tell you how on this open site.If need be a once and for all payment might enable an alarm fitter to use the existing sensors etc. and fit a new more appropriate control box and key pad. There are sensors on the market that are pet friendly, they are set, depending upon the height and weight of the dog so that they do not activate when the animals move around but still activate when an intruder enters.This is useful as the dog can move around as freely as you want acting as another deterent.There is some benefit in monitoring for elderley but it comes at a cost, perhaps it would be worth asking about a 'red alert' panic button which people can wear round their neck and press for assistance, this works via your phone, and is useful if people are prone to illness emergencies. Do not underestimate the simple benefits of a door chain and persuading your Mother to use it properly. When I say properly a door chain should not normally be left on all the time as if it were an extra door lock, instead it should be put on before opening the door fully to calllers.It shouldn't be left on othertimes, or at night because in an emergency helpers will be hindered in gaining access. In some areas the local authority will maintain a register of key holders to record your details for a call out. Police forces nowadays do not routinely respond to house alarms without additional evidence of a crime in progress, hence the selling point for the monitoring companies but you can get systems that will dial a phone number, eg. yourself or friend, when activated and also ones where you can dial into your own home and listen in for any unauthorised presence.

Answer 2

have you recently changed telephone providers? If you switched to one of the new ones i.e. comcast it might hot be compatible with your box. how old is the box? we were having problems with our 16 year old box through JM. I'm not familiar with adt but with JM we were able to get a brand new system if we signed up for a 5 year service plan and any problems like this would be fixed, with out there $110 charge just to show up to your house. you might need a new box is the battery charged? does it need to be replaced? we thought we had a battery problem be cause the battery in it was 10 years old. we bought a decent sized battery at radioshack for $35. The alarm could be going off to signal a problem with the battery. It could discharge because of a recent power outage, or electrical work, and cant charge back up. check around Your alarm contacts for loose wires it could be a wire blowing around, and possibly setting off a chime to signal a door/window is open.

Answer 3

Most alarm companies have codes built into their equipment that make it useless without their monitoring service. She may just want to go to the same service company she had before and let them install their equipment.