Re: New Home Alarm Security Questions

["Jim" <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

Crash Gordon wrote:
> Stick with glassbreaks, screens can be a PITA.
>
> Only time I put screens in is if someone really (really) wants to have a
> window opened with system armed. They're a pain to get in and out when you
> want to wash the windows, and if you have dogs that like to jump up on the
> windows...you'll be joining the "screen of the month club". Personally...I
> wouldn't attempt at making an alarm screen myself.



I'd kind-a agree.

In my opinion, screens are OK for some windows, if a client
really-really wants to leave a window open with the alarm on. But I'd
never install outside alarm screens. Some companies do and they say
they last but I just would put my self in the position of telling my
clients that they'd last and then find out I was replacing screens at
no charge because I'd told them they'd last and they didn't. But ......
again, in my opinion screens leaves the opportunity for the homeowner
to leave the house and forget to close the windows. An open window is
an invitation for someone to try to get in. Even if the intruder
doesn't notice the screen and attempts to break in, and the alarm
trips, at that point they may very well decide to grab and run.
Whereas, if the window wasn't open in the first place, they wouldn't
have even tried.

Secondly, anyone who wants to, can cut a screen between the "loops" and
depending upon how the window is wired, possibly short the wires or
bypass the magnet. Once, long ago, someone slit the alarm screen of a
casement window by the bedside table of one of my clients (who had
insisted I install them) and took jewelry they had left there. They
presume that they weren't home at the time and had gone out and left
the window open. They had no idea how long the jewlery was missing.

I've used them and probably will in the future, but it's not something
that I'd ever recommend unless there was no other choice or unless the
client wanted them ....in spite of the warnings. I put a note in the
bill of sale "alarm screens in bedroom, at clients request" etc.