Comparing Alarm System Providers

The following pages are a summary of my research into alarm system providers in Tucson. I was obviously not able to contact every single carrier, but tried to get a range of providers, particularly those that I see represented in Sam Hughes.

• Some companies are not represented because I may have called them and never got a call back, others I may just have overlooked (for whatever reason).
• I welcome anyone to add to this information if they have anything to add. The purpose of this research was to try to do some of the legwork for others who may be interested in purchasing a system and monthly monitoring.
• I am not intending to promote one company over the other. In fact, all the companies that I talked with and then subsequently had come to the house for an estimate were very professional, and I don't think you could go wrong with any one of them. This is a very personal decision for each of us, and my hope was to somehow help others over the hump of starting this research for themselves. I hope it proves useful to some of you.

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Below is a summary table of my cost findings - trying to compare "apples to apples".

• Each provider had different recommendations, so to the extent possible I have tried to present equivalent systems (# of sensors, smoke detectors, etc.) and equivalent monitoring packages below (both with and without cellular monitoring).
• More details about each of the providers can be found on the following pages.

Apples to Apples Comparison

Assume installation includes: control panel, keypad, siren, 8 transmitters, 1 motion detector, 1 smoke alarm, 2 keyfobs

Central Alarm: 882-8142

Contact: Wayne Williams: 617-1349, 904-3901 (cell)

·        Central Alarm is probably the only completely local provider that owns and maintains their own monitoring system. This means that their monitoring system is also local. This can be both a positive and negative. It's positive because you know that whoever answers the call probably knows how to pronounce the street names; it could be a negative because that means they don't have redundancy all over the country. With the larger nationwide firms, or even the local ones that have national monitoring, if one segment of the country goes out (i.e. monsoons), then there are other regions to pick up the slack.

• The fact that Central does have their own speaks to their overall success because this is a multi-million dollar facility that is well out of reach for many companies.
• Central monitors about 10,000 customers (about 5,000 commercial, 5,000 residential).
• They have been in Tucson since 1945
• They have 200-300 employees
• The "rule of thumb" for pricing is about $1/square foot of house floor space for installation of equipment (i.e. $2,000 for a 2,000 SF house)
• He recommended using a wireless system - they typically only do wired for new construction.
• Their monthly monitoring charge is $24/month for standard phone line monitoring, with a 3-year contract.
• If you add cellular monitoring the monthly charge is $34/month. Mr. Williams felt that cellular coverage was definitely warranted.
• I believe they could get the system installed within a week.

They provided me the following estimate for labor & materials for the installation:

• Control Panel w/ cellular back-up
• Keypad
• 16-zone receiver
• Inside siren (he does not recommend an external siren)
• 8 transmitters for windows/doors
• 2 glass break detectors or motion detectors (he suggested glass breaks for us due to animals in the house - he felt that would not work with the motion detectors)
• smoke alarm
• keyfobs
• $2,100

My overall impression:

These guys know their business and probably charge a bit more than most (they were the most expensive). Mr. Williams was great to deal with, and I would definitely recommend him. He seemed the most apt to load up your system with the bells and whistles. Definitely leans toward over-protection rather than under.

Young Alarm: 332-5387

Contact: Graham Anderson

• Young Alarm is a local company
• They use a local monitoring system called Security Services, which is located at Broadway and Country Club.
• They have been in business for 20 years.
• They have about 10 employees.
• They have about 4,000 accounts, of which about 80% are residential
• He recommended using a wireless system - they typically only do wired for new construction.
• They have a 1-year warranty on parts, and after that there is only a $20 trip charge for repairs (although I feel certain that you would have to pay any parts charge)
• Their monthly charge is variable. They do not suggest the cellular coverage, so he only quoted me w/o cellular. They have different rates if you pay for a full year at a time, versus quarterly. If you pay for a full year at a time it is $29/month. They offer one year free monitoring when you purchase the system.
• He also indicated that an external siren was not desirable. Each person I talked to referred to the "car siren effect" wherein we all hear car sirens now and nobody does anything about them.
• Additionally, it's probably not advisable for your neighbors to come over to your house if there is a break-in!
• He suggested that the motion detectors would work well for us - despite the animals. They can be aimed such that there is a "pet corridor". Not sure what direction we will ultimately go with this.
• If you added cellular coverage with Young, it would add $400 to the installation costs and $11 month ($132 annually) to the monitoring costs.
• They are 3 weeks out on their installations, so you could get signage immediately, but no install for 3 weeks.

They provided me the following estimate for labor & materials for the installation:

• Honeywell Vista 15-zone control panel
• Honeywell receiver
• Inside siren
• 8 transmitters for windows/doors
• 2 motion detectors
• smoke alarm
• keyfobs
• one year warranty
• one year monitoring
• $1,495

My overall impression:

These guys are very good, and were more reasonable cost-wise. Mr. Anderson was fine to deal with.

We will likely go with Young because of the reasonable installation costs.

Guard Pro (ADT): 744-3867

Contact: Mort Palin (no relation to Sarah)

• Guard Pro is a local dealer of ADT monitoring.

• He recommended using a wireless system - they typically only do wired for new construction.
• All parts and labor are warranted for as long as you are having your system monitored.
• Their monthly charge is $33/month for the standard monitoring, and $41/month with the cellular added. This requires a 3-year contract. This is a special price and won't be continued past about November - December time frame. After that, the monthly charge on cellular monitoring is $46/month.
• He also indicated that an external siren was not desirable.
• He suggested that the motion detectors would work well for us - despite the animals. He did not recommend the glass break sensors as they don't always work that well.

• The one drawback with these guys is that after the first year, any service calls that you may have would go to ADT corporate, not to Guard Pro.
• This is the issue we had previously with ADT and would probably not go with them because of this.

They provided me the following estimate for labor & materials for the installation:

• Vista 20 control panel
• Honeywell receiver
• Inside siren
• 8 transmitters for windows/doors
• 2 motion detectors
• smoke alarm
• keyfobs
• cellular monitoring

$552 with a 3-year contract

My overall impression:

Mr. Palin was by far the most personable of the bunch. He is extremely accommodating and gives his clients his personal cell #. He is very interested in client satisfaction. I wish he worked for Young Alarm! I would love to give him my business because he's really interested in his clients. I just don't feel like we want to go with ADT again, but that is a very personal decision. They are clearly the most reasonable in terms of installation costs.

ESM., Inc.: 790-8992

Contact: Curtis Ziemba 349-3273 (cell)

• ESM is a local company
• They use a national monitoring system called COPS, out of Phoenix
• They have about 15 employees.
• They do primarily commercial security systems, and only have about 200-300 residential accounts.
• They have recently done systems for Walgreen's nationwide.
• He recommended using a wireless system - they typically only do wired for new construction.
• These guys had some very different hardware that is less obvious than all the others. They had sensors that could be mounted into doors such that nothing really showed.
• Mr. Ziemba was very well prepared and had a briefcase full of hardware to show me.
• Their monthly charge is $29/month, with no contract. He felt that cellular coverage was to be used only if you have specific items (i.e. a Renoit) that somebody would be targeting. Otherwise he felt that it was overkill.
• The monthly charge with cellular coverage is $49/mo.
• He also indicated that an external siren was not desirable.
• He suggested that the motion detectors would not work well for us - although we could create the "pet corridor". He did not necessarily recommend the glass break sensors either.
• Not sure what direction we will ultimately go with this.

They provided me the following estimate for labor & materials for the installation:

• GE Concord 4 Alarm
• Control panel
• Inside siren
• 8 transmitters for windows/doors
• 0 motion detectors
• smoke alarm
• keyfobs
• $1,380

My overall impression:

Mr. Zeimbe was very personable and very well prepared - extremely professional. He is also very interested in client satisfaction. I was most impressed with ESM during the phone conversations, but have become increasingly concerned that they do primarily commercial monitoring. I don't think you could go wrong with these guys, but I don't think we will go with them.