Learned at a job site that 90% of false alarms come from just 3 mistakes

I was swapping out an old panel at a house in Austin last Friday and the homeowner started telling me about their monthly false alarm fees. They had 5 false alarms in 6 months and the city was threatening fines. While I was checking their system I noticed the motion detector was pointing right at a vent that blows hot air from the HVAC. After I fixed that I looked up the stats from the Alarm Industry Association and found out nearly 90% of false alarms come from just 3 issues: bad placement near vents or windows, old batteries dying, and door contacts that are loose. I never realized how predictable these problems are. Has anyone else seen that kind of breakdown on their own service calls?

2 comments

2 Comments

jana_fox5027d ago

I feel you on that HVAC thing... my cousin had the exact same problem and her security company actually tried to upsell her on a "premium monitoring package" before a tech finally figured out the vent was the issue. It's wild how something so simple causes all that headache. And the cat setting it off is totally valid too haha, my sister's cat used to jump on the counter right under the sensor and set it off almost every night until they moved it. The battery thing is such a pain too, I've been there where you think you replaced them but they were just old stock or something and die in a month. It really does come down to those few things though, once you know what to look for it's way easier to avoid the drama.

reesea4927d ago

Lol does that mean I can blame my landlord's cheap HVAC install for getting screamed at by the alarm company at 3am? I had a motion sensor that kept going off every time the heat kicked on and I felt like such a dummy when the tech showed me the vent was right under it. Also my cat probably set it off a few times too but we don't talk about that. The battery thing is real too - I let mine die twice before I learned my lesson and now I just replace them every 6 months like clockwork.