IMPORTANT NOTICE
In 2026, contacting your alarm company remains a critical part of maintaining home security and preventing unnecessary emergency dispatches. You should call your alarm monitoring company in the following situations:
- Routine Maintenance and Testing
- Before system testing: Always notify your company before performing a self-test of your sensors, smoke detectors, or panic buttons to prevent accidental police or fire dispatch.
- After testing: Call again to confirm they received the signal and to take the system off “test” mode.
- Low battery or beeping: If your keypad is constantly beeping or showing a “trouble” status, call for professional troubleshooting.
- Changes to Your Home or Lifestyle
- Renovations: Inform them if you are remodeling, as dust can trigger sensors or wiring may be affected by construction.
- Travel and vacations: Provide temporary “vacation mode” instructions, including specific dates and a revised call list of neighbors or local contacts who can respond while you are away.
- New household members: Notify them of new authorized users, such as roommates, houseguests, or housekeepers, and ensure they are trained on disarming procedures.
- New pets: Adding a pet may require adjusting motion sensor sensitivity to avoid frequent false alarms.
- Managing False Alarms and Dispatches
- Immediate cancellation: If you trigger a false alarm, disarm the system and wait for the company to call you. If they don’t call within a minute, call them immediately with your passcode to cancel the dispatch.
- Post-incident follow-up: If police or fire services were dispatched to your home (even if it was a false alarm), call your company to review the event log and identify which specific sensor triggered the alert.
- Technical and Administrative Updates
- Changing phone or internet service: If your system uses a landline or home Wi-Fi to communicate, notify your provider before switching carriers to ensure your monitoring isn’t interrupted.
- Updating contact info: Call at least once or twice a year to verify that your emergency call list and keyholder phone numbers are still accurate.
- Insurance proof: Contact them if your homeowner’s insurance provider requires a “Certificate of Monitoring” for a premium discount.
CAUSING A FALSE ALARM CAN CAUSE YOU TO BE CHARGED BY
THE RESPONDING FIRE HALL!
