Decided to upgrade the burglar alarm from our diy version to a proper professional installed one. Anyone any ideas on reasonable budget? We’re after 6 sensors and a couple of door sensors along with the usual main box and sounder.

I can sell you a texecom system for not much over £100.
ring me if you are interested. daytime 01132633500

Thanks for the offer ton, but is that a ‘proper’ pro level sort of one? We bought our current alarm was 150-200 self install job and it’s just not up to the job.

it is indeed mate. I work at a trade place, we supply chubb amongst others.

I always recommend the Honeywell Galaxy or their newer Flex alarms.
The are grade 2 rated, so a notch above the common house burglar alarms. They can be DIY fitted, but, it would take you a long time to get them working, as there are so many options in the set-up.
It takes me around a hour to set up the Galaxy, 10 minutes the Flex, as you can program via a computer.
The Galaxy alarm boxes are £30-45 on ebay new, the keypads are £30ish, and sensors are £9ish each, add the cable (re-use the old?), and it can all be bought for £150 or less.

They are excellent bits of kit, with so many options, it can do whatever you want, I have mine set so that only the back living room and shed are armed at night, so we can go down and get a drink without resetting the alarm.
You can have it bleep whenever someone opens a door, useful if you are out the back and leave the front door unlocked etc.
I’d be wary of setting it up without relevant training, some things are not obvious, and they only supply an Install manual via their own training scheme, but versions are available online.
I did an upgrade similar to yours just before Christmas for a customer, £300 all in to replace an old system, re-using the cables. Most of the hard work is running the cables in, so re-use the old if possible.

alani – if you are an installer where are you based please? For the OP, I had two quotes middle of last year for complete new system. It did include more PIRS than you are quoting, 13 I think, but I was quoted not far short of a grand by both. One was wired, replacing existing wires (something about 2 core or 4 core) and the other wireless. Looked both up on web and equipment pretty cheap – perhaps 300 all in with the PIRS. Left 700 quid to fit it which seemed steep to me.

Get 3 local alarm companies to quote. Forget what people say on the forums, go with a professional opinion.
Anybody in the game looking at the above post by cb would steer clear, as he obviously knows everything.

and get ‘cb’ s phone number for out of hours calls ‘cos he obviously knows everything

I’m in Leicester.
Most of the hard work is running the cables, and more importantly, doing a neat job of it.
If you have the old cables in situ, then great, re-use them.
Honeywell do a good wireless system, not a great deal more cost than the wired version, and certainly cost-effective if you do not have any wiring in-situ.

Some alarm companies do charge too much. It is a smaller field than general electrical work, so some doing it think they can charge whatever they want. It isnt that hard.
I’d steer clear of the big alarm companies, ADT are far too expensive for what they supply.

And, if you are the householder, I’d make sure that I was given the Engineer Code. Without it you are stuffed. Paying the Installer every time you want to take a sensor off to decorate can get rather annoying.

In a our last house there was already a professional system installed along with a service contract (local-ish company), which we continued.

We had it serviced/checked every year (we lived there for 10) and never had a problem with it, no false alarms or anything.

By the time we left only us and next-door (they also used the contract) were still using their alarms, everyone else had stopped as they’d failed (mostly due to not replacing the back-up battery).

The contract was about £50, and included a yearly visit plus call-out.

If I was worried enough to want to have a new system put in, I’d do this again. Where we are now we’d need an air-raid warning for any ‘neighbours’ to hear it. 🙂

mark d – are your Y fronts a bit tight…

Where did I say I know everything? Just recounting the two local quotes that I received, which in comparison to alani’s £300 job were damned expensive. The kit was detailed on the quotes and I looked it up. Are you suggesting £700 to fit is reasonable?

sadly no existing wiring to use so its either a full wiring job or wireless. I’ve got a few quotes in, but they’re higher than i expected – approx £1k seems the norm for both wired and wireless.

Spudly, feel free to pm the spec. I can’t quote but can give you an informed opinion.

Cb, yes my pants are a bit tight, £700 is maybe depending on type of house, install time, number of engineers on site etc etc etc

A diy customer can have the engineer code and do what he likes.
The amount of times I’ve turned up at a site where a detector has been removed by a decorator then refitted upside down, or covered in paint by the homeowner, then wonders why it is not detecting?
Would insurance cover them? With an engineer code you could easily render the whole system useless without realising.

Mark d, thanks for the offer – specs are:

wired – Scantronic system
wireless – Pyronix or Visonic Powermaster

all for 6 PIRs and 3 door sensors.

What do you reckon? For some reason the budget figure in my head was £600-700 installed, so obv circa £1k seems high, but the budget figure is utterly without basis!

A wireless Honeywell system can be put in in less than a day by one person. In fact I reckon I could do it in no more than 5 hours.

Lets says they are taking a view that they will get called out twice in the next year, so are adding £100 onto their day rate. Around here, the day rate is £150, so say £250 for labour.

Add up the cost of parts. Flex 20 Board and keypad – £170, 6 x IR800 PIRs – £180, 3x door – £85, bell box £30.
Total parts price, less than £450.
Labour £250,
Total £700.

Which just about equates to your ball park figure. Parts prices can be cut, a fair bit on sensors – they go on ebay for £15 or less, so that’d be a £100 saving. I just did a quick google to find the prices, shopping around will lower them.

Depending on where you are, there must be a high labour charge in there at £1000 supply and fit.
Ring around to get more quotes.

texecom r8 panal £39.99
texecom replex pirs £6.99
texecom bellbox £19.99
battery £2.99
door contacts £2
extra texecom keypad £19.99
cable £8.00

leaves a spare bit of cash for a install eh? 😆

Spudly, The installing companies will all have a prefered brand of equipment to then becoming expert at
install it, servicing software etc. Being given prices for equipment that the alarm co doesn’t install or support is fine if you wish to purchase and then get a one man band to install then get them to service it every couple of years. Which is fine if your insurance co do not need it to be certified to NSI or SSAIB.
The hardwired Scan panel is probably a 9651, 6 Pirs and 3 contacts probably quoted for 2 days labour, I would say £1000 was a bit steep nowadays, but I haven’t obviously seen your house.
Wireless, Pyronix Enforcer most likely, I would do that at around £700, half a day if thrown in, allow a day to do properly. Visonic similar but no direct experience with.
I guess go with the expert opinions of the companys that have quoted, but maybe haggle the price.
Good luck