House alarm?

As ever Epic is full of great information and people who can do stuff. This time I wondering about which house alarm to install and if anyone in the club installs them?

We have a HSK wire free alarm with a GSM chip (you can communicate with the alarm and other services in the house, e.g. heating). The GSM gets you around the monitoring companies, i.e. if the alarm goes off it contacts you, same as the monitoring companies.

The good: wire free = no mess installation, GSM chip: it will dial you if the alarm goes off, you will be able to see if there is someone moving through the house (it sends a text each time a sensor is tripped), you can turn on and off the alarm using your phone (send it a text message), you can turn on and off the heat with a text message, you can check the status of the alarm (on/off) or the heat (on/off) from your phone.

The bad: wire free = have to change the batteries in the sensors every 18 months or so - depending on the number of sensors this can add up to 80e for batteries and 50 for a guy to do it (if you choose to go this road).

I'm in the market for a house alarm also. I did a bit of research a couple of months back and came to the conclusion the HSK is the way to go. They have a hybrid version which does both wired and wirefree, which is good for having some sensors wired, no messing with batteries. Add lots of wire-free sensors as you see fit, eg. the bike shed, range is not an issue for this. The hybrid only makes sense if the wiring is in place from a previous alarm or doing serious renovation.

What sort (and how manly) batteries does that one take; it looks very effective:-)

HKC are a good panel, reliable, easy to use with plenty of additional features available like the gsm unit. Try to retain as many existing wired contacts and only use wireless where needed as their expensive. (Standard wired contact is about €4 vs €40 for wireless wholesale), for new locations go wireless, quicker and cheaper to install than wired after the cost of pulling cables in taken in account. House insurance requires a PSA licensed installer so that rules out nixers as such, but I still used a local lad to do mine, spot on job and very reasonable price.
Also think about changing lock barrels to anti-snap, internet will show you how quick a door can be opened, usually side or rear doors. Fit additional sliding door locks. Prevention is better than cure, if its going to be difficult they walk away unless their determined, in which case nothing will prevent a break in.

My house was burgled on Thursday and they ripped the alarm off the wall. The guy fitting the new one said that they do this and it stays on for 15 minutes and then it's useless.
Get a camera for the front of the house.

thanks for all the advice folks - yes, need to get it installed with camera soon!

They even come with a Camera!