FAQ Do I need to have it Monitored

Monitored vs. Local

Definitions:

A "Local" alarm is one that relies only on sirens or bells sounding inside and/or outside a protected premise.

A "Monitored" alarm may or may not have the same sirens and/or bells, but in addition, has a "communicator" or other device which reports alarm conditions to someone off the premises, usually a 24-hour Central Station company.

Q#1: When might a Local Alarm System be appropriate?

•If you simply cannot afford to have the system monitored by a professional company.

•Caveat: You have to be prepared to accept the losses that might result by the inadequacy or a defeat of your local-only alarm. We note that our subscribers come from all income brackets. It’s simply a matter of priorities. Some people cannot enjoy their home living in fear of fire and burglary. Our systems can help.

•You or a family member is unable to cope with a monitored alarm for one of a variety of possible reasons.

•Your security professional should try to ferret out such problems when recommending a system, which must be able to surmount the obstacles. A strictly local-only system could be one of the possibilities, but it is also possible that monitoring the important, trouble-free points while not monitoring a particularly troublesome point could help to solve the problem.

•You have a full-time resident who rarely leaves, for example, a parent, living with you. In a commercial property: a guard is always on duty with a good view of the accesses to your protected resources.

•Caveat: What if the resident or guard himself takes sick or is under attack?

•Your premise is in a neighborhood or apartment building that is always occupied by trustworthy neighbors who are willing to get involved in protecting your property. A row home or apartment complex where several active and mobile senior citizens reside is a good example. Ideally, the neighbors must have full view of the accesses to your property and rarely leave the property. In this situation, it would be desirable to have an outside siren that is clearly audible to several such neighbors.

•Caveat: One untrustworthy neighbor can offset the benefit of all the others.

•Caveat: They can’t watch your property 24 hours a day, seven days a week, can they?

•Others in a neighborhood closely watch your premise under a Neighborhood Watch or other program.

•Caveat: They can’t watch your property 24 hours a day, seven days a week, can they?

•Your neighborhood has a very low historic crime rate.

•Caveat: There’s a first time for everything.

•Your neighborhood is within a complex that has gated access roads.

•Caveat: One untrustworthy neighbor, workman or employee within the complex can offset the benefit of limited access.

•Your property is used or configured in such a way that a monitored alarm system can’t be designed for effective use without having false alarms.

•We will do our best to design an effective system for you, but sometimes we just don’t have what you need. A good alarm company will recognize an insurmountable problem and tell you up front.

•Your property is vacant, contains no valuables worth stealing, there is no threat of fire, vagrants and vandals do not know about it and can not gain access anyway, and you have adequate property insurance to replace or repair damage to the building itself. If the property catches fire, there is no danger of it spreading to neighboring properties. There is no danger from heater failure, broken pipes or basement flooding.

•Caveat: Come on, now. How many people have places like this?

Q#2: When is a Monitored Alarm System indicated?

•It is indicated whenever there is an absence of the above criteria. A monitored alarm can be a valuable tool to augment and assist in most of the above scenarios as well.

•When time is of the essence, there is no substitute for early warning.

•One of our customers originally called us because her home had suffered a fire while she was at work. A neighbor across the street was keeping an eye on the place. He noticed smoke pouring out from under the eaves and called the fire department. That’s a little late, isn’t it? Luckily, too, it was daytime. We installed a monitored fire alarm for her after the home was restored. By the way, she was displaced from her home for several months while it was being restored.

Q#3: How about a Success Story? OK, you asked for it...

The Woodford Mansion Fire

In a story that dominated the local news for several weeks in the summer of 2003, a heat gun used in removing paint is thought to have sparked a fire in the attic of historic Woodford Mansion (1756) at 33rd and Dauphin Streets in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. The painter had already gone for the day when the fire alarm tripped, resulting in a dispatch. A caretaker was on the premises at the time. He had not yet determined the origin of the alarm and was on a portable telephone with Reliance Alarm Company owner Luis Arellano, III. When he stepped out the back door to meet the first fire truck, Arellano heard him say, “I see it!” Then the phone went dead.

Arellano learned in a later phone call that flames were already coming out of the eaves at that moment. The fire took roughly an hour to extinguish.

The roof of the mansion was severely damaged, but the main floors essentially escaped with broken windows, smoke and repairable water damage. The priceless Naomi Wood Collection of antiques received limited damage because of the early fire detection and rapid response. Television news reports later showed volunteers and fire fighters removing the collection for temporary storage. The Trustee commented privately to Arellano that he believes Reliance’s system helped prevent the total loss of the mansion and its irreplaceable furnishings.

Reliance Alarm Company and its predecessor B.C. Associates have provided fire and burglar alarm service at Woodford Mansion since the early 1970’s. Arellano personally installed much of the early system while employed at B.C. He has since overseen several major system renovations.

A smoke detector that their Senior Technician David W. Ashcroft recommended is believed to have given fire fighters the edge.

Arellano describes the experience this way:

For many years there were only heat detectors in the attic room, a legacy from the system that preceded ours. After the fire I got in the shower worrying that a smoke detector would probably have picked up the fire much sooner than a ‘heat.’

When Dave later commented it was a good thing we put a smoke detector in the attic because it saved the building, I said, “I thought it was just a ‘heat.’ When did we do that?” He then reminded me how it got there:

In the early 1990’s, an alarm industry study had recently proved the early detection advantage of smoke detectors over ‘heat-only’ detectors. Reliance had an ongoing policy to emphasize this advantage to customers having mostly (or all) heat detectors in their systems. During a substantial alarm system update Dave noticed that Woodford’s finished attic had only heat detectors. He recommended to me that we replace at least one with a smoke detector. I approved the update on the spot, even before getting an authorization from the Trustee.

Later on, a wave of emotion suddenly flowed over me. For 30 years we’ve been installing fire alarms and we rarely experienced an event like this. We’ve always been satisfied just knowing that our systems are ready to save lives, but to prevent a calamity at one of our most revered locations is truly cathartic.

While restoring the fire circuits after the fire, Ashcroft and Arellano’s son Dave took pictures of the charred detector, still in place, and later gave the unit to Arellano as a memento.

- Adapted from a newsletter released by Reliance Alarm Company October 2003

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