As long as you have been around the electronic security industry you have used the terms “Tip” and “Ring”. So what do they really mean – and why are they used?

At a recent industry event, several veteran technicians were asked the question. Surprisingly few knew the correct explanation, so we thought we should offer some insight for those of you who might be curious. No fair peaking now. Think about it – then click below to reveal “The Answer”.

ELECTRONIC ENTRANCE GATES

Right across the country, city folks are building elegant homes with acreage, horses, corrals etc. Long winding lanes are frequently part of the landscape, and near the road electronic gates equipped with intercoms and remote control devices discourage unwanted visitors from coming too close.

But insurance companies have discovered that such gates are costly to replace or repair. This reality became a problem when fire departments were dispatched in response to a reported fire alarm. Firefighters know that every second counts once a fire has started – and it became “normal” for them to simply ram their way through, ruining the gate and causing significant damage to their truck at the same time! Insurance companies, as is their way, were not long in excluding such damage from their insurance coverage.

CLAIMS PERCENTAGES

This is where the statistics could be slightly off – but be assured, it’s not by much!

We were advised that for the most recent calendar year, only 23% of the claims paid out by Chubb Insurance to homeowners were for burglary related incidents. 27% were for fire damage, and a remarkable 47% for water damage! That’s right – 47% for water damage! Recently, at CANASA’s Monitoring Station Symposium in Toronto I had a private chat with Pam Petrow, president of the Central Station Alarm Association in United States and also president and CEO of Vector Security, a very significant player in the American alarm industry. Ms. Petrow was kind enough to advise me that Vector has a sister company in the insurance business and they have advised Vector that the percentage has now grown and represents more than half the property claims paid out to homeowners! “They don’t care at all about the burglary numbers,” she declared.

So for me, that’s the perplexing part! Are we really doing ourselves and our customers a disservice when we talk so much about crime and burglary statistics? When did you, as an electronic protection specialist, last talk to your customer about protection against water damage? When did you last seriously consider water detection devices throughout strategic areas in a home when designing a protection “package”?

Perplexing? Food for thought? Or will we all just carry on as if we didn’t know?

• Someone trips the breaker or removes the fuse for the electrical circuit feeding the alarm control panel.
• Someone unplugs the transformer feeding AC power to the alarm control panel.
• Someone disconnects the AC power for the entire electrical panel (perhaps to perform work on a circuit).
• Someone who is planning to be away for an extended period orders their hydro supplier to discontinue service in order to save money (don’t laugh – it happens).
• A hydro pole near the affected site is damaged in an accident and hydro is disrupted.
• A storm moving through the area causes hydro outages.
• An accident…you get the idea!

Experienced monitoring station operators will tell you that few (if any) types of signals will lead to more aggravation than “AC Failure”. It’s one of those thankless situations we force on people. Some of the more common responses operators hear are:

• Okay, so it’s 3:30 in the morning. You woke me up to tell me my power is off. What do you expect me to do about it?
• Oh we are quite aware that the power is off. That would explain why we are sitting here in the dark, wondering whether anyone scored in overtime! Did our team win? Do you happen to know?

These are rather tame examples. The sarcasm can be much more caustic than shown here.

Now let’s look at other mitigating factors. If we go back far enough, we might remember the ice storm of 1998 that knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses throughout Quebec and Eastern Ontario. In 2004 most of Ontario lost power when something went wrong with the power grid in northern US, Ontario and elsewhere. Christmas week of 2014 saw a large portion of Southern Ontario with power lines being knocked out, once again by freezing rain. Even a lightning and thunder storm can cause havoc and power outages over a wide area. In some of these instances it took over 3 weeks before service was fully restored! Of course it is not unusual during such events, for power to be restore for a period of time only to disappear again – and again – and again!

The time required for an actual operator to handle each signal is an absolute minimum of about 10 seconds, so each operator can clear about 6 such signals every minute, or somewhere around 180 per hour. It’s simple enough to do the arithmetic and discover that over 50 operators would have to be working at top speed just to clear these somewhat meaningless signals – with others committed at the same time, to handle burglary, fire, medical, panic or other alarm traffic at the same time!

Obviously something has to give! Since computers can clear signals at a much faster rate than people, and given the information provided earlier in this article, the choice is a no-brainer. AC Failure signals will be forced into a log-only mode, thus permitting alarm signals to be treated more quickly and accurately. This procedure is referred to by some as Priority Processing Mode where priority is given to signals other than AC Failure.

Think about it for a moment. Would any of your customers have purchased an alarm system simply to monitor for AC Power Failure? Of course not. What they purchased was an alarm system to protect them against burglar and/or fire and/or medical emergency or hold-up. Their main concern might even have been environmental, such as a potential flood or a failure of their refrigeration system – but their primary consideration was certainly NOT to have the electricity supply monitored.

When such circumstances arise, you, as the responsible alarm dealer, must ensure that your monitoring station is properly informed IN WRITING so that continuous notification service can be made available, even when the station is operating in Priority Processing Mode. To avoid any nasty surprises, we recommend that you review your customer list now. Take note of those accounts that fit the “Continuous Service Required” category and send the list to your station.

There seems to be considerable confusion as to the issuance of ULC Certificates, particularly for Fire Alarm monitoring. We will attempt here, to clarify things and to help dealers understand their obligations and rights, as well as those of the monitoring station.

Underwriters’ Laboratories of Canada (ULC) is a “Standards” organization that performs testing and establishes guidelines that help insurance companies and “Authorities Having Jurisdiction” (AHJ) to determine the relative performance expectations of an alarm system based on its design, the quality of the installation, the capabilities of the installing company, the method and type of signal transmission, the construction and performance protocols of the monitoring station etc.

Large alarm companies that do their own installations and operate their own monitoring stations can, upon meeting ULC’s requirements, have certificates issued in their company’s name. Alarm companies that use the services of a wholesale third-party monitoring company can, upon meeting the requirements, have a “Shared Listing” certificate issued. This Shared Certificate will be issued in the names of both the installing company and the monitoring station.

1.  INSTALLATION: All equipment must be ULC-approved and installed according to ULC specifications
2. INSTALLATION COMPANY: Must be ULC-listed; must have a maintenance contract in effect with the customer; must have a monitoring contract in effect with the customer and must have a monitoring contract in effect with a ULC-listed monitoring station; must pay an annual fee to ULC to maintain their listing and undergo an annual inspection by ULC of certificated systems; must pay an additional fee for each certificate issued.
3. SIGNAL TRANSMISSION: All signals must be sent using ULC-listed equipment and protocols. The installation of all signal transmission equipment must be according to ULC specifications.
4. MONITORING STATION: Must be ULC-listed. In order for this to happen, the station must meet certain design and construction criteria; must agree to and use established ULC protocols in handling of data and alarm signals; must have passed a rigorous initial inspection by ULC engineers; must maintain certain records as required by ULC; must undergo annual inspections and examinations by ULC; must pay an annual fee to ULC for its listing and to cover the costs associated with the annual inspection; must pay an additional fee for each certificate that is issued. Of course there must also be a satisfactory contract in place between the monitoring station and the installation company.
   

The procedure for an alarm installation company to obtain an ULC listing involves the completion of at least three projects according to ULC standards and specifications, then applying to ULC. Upon receipt of your application ULC will contact you and will provide a quotation for the cost of obtaining the listing. This quotation will include any travel, meal and accommodation costs associated with their inspectors visit (if applicable). Upon your acceptance of their quotation, arrangements will be made for an inspector to attend at each of the three initial projects. The visit to each project will entail an examination of the installation to ensure it is done to ULC standards and specifications, and a full test of all potential signals to the monitoring station. Reports will also be requested from the monitoring station.

As you can see, the decision to become an ULC-listed installation company is not to be taken lightly. There are costs involved, both initially and ongoing. Those costs however, can and should be recovered from your subscribers in the form of increased monthly monitoring fees that reflect the cost of providing ULC service.

Mark Twain was one of America’s most prolific humorists. Best known for such classics as Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mr. Twain was also famous for his insightful tales about the experiences faced by peoples they lived their daily lives.

By this time the “annunciator” had grown to formidable dimensions. It had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the names of the various rooms and chimneys, and it occupied the space of an ordinary wardrobe. The gong was the size of a washbowl, and was placed above the head of our bed. There was a wire from the house to the coachman’s quarters in the stable, and a noble gong along side his pillow.

We should have been comfortable now but for one defect. Every morning a five the cook opened the kitchen door, in the way of business, and rip went that gong! The first time this happened I thought the last day was come sure. I didn’t think it in bed – no but out of it- for the first effect of that frightful gong was to hurl you across the house and slam you against the wall, and then curl you up and squirm you like a spider on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen door. In solid fact, there is no clamour that is even remotely comparable to the dire clamour which that gong makes. Well, this catastrophe happened every morning regularly at five o’clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you, when the thing wakes you, it doesn’t merely wake you in spots; it wakes you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of wide-awakeness subsequently – eighteen hours of the very most inconceivable wide-awakness that you ever experienced in your life. A stranger died on our hands one time, and we vacated and left him in our room overnight. Did that stranger wait for general judgement? No sir; he got up at five the next morning in the most prompt and unostentatious way. I knew he would; I knew it might well. He collected his life insurance, and lived happy ever after, for there was plenty of proof as to the perfect squareness of his death.

Well we were gradually fading toward a better land, on account of the daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the expert up again, and he ran a wire to the outside of the door, and placed a switch there, whereby Thomas, the butler, always made one little mistake – he switched the alarm off at night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at daybreak in the morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and enable that gong to slam us across the house, sometimes breaking a window with one or the other of us. At the end of the week we recognized that this switch business was a delusion and a snare. We also discovered that a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole time –not exactly to steal, for there wasn’t much left now, but to hide from the police, for they were hot pressed, and they shrewdly judged that the detectives would never think of a tribe of burglars taking sanctuary in a house notoriously protected by the most imposing and elaborate burglar alarm in America.

Sent down for the expert again, and this time he struck a most dazzling idea – he fixed the thing so that opening the kitchen door would take off the alarm. It was a noble idea, and he charged accordingly. But you already foresee the result. I switched on the alarm every night at bedtime, no longer trusting Thomas’s frail memory; and as soon as the lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door, this taking the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do it in the morning. You see how aggravatingly we were situated. For months we couldn’t have any company. Not a spare bed in the house; all occupied by burglars.

Finally, I got up a cure of my own. The expert answered the call, and ran another ground wire to the stable, and established a switch there, so that the coachman could put on and take off the alarm. That worked first rate, and a season of peace ensued, during which we go to inviting company once more and enjoying life.

But by and by the irrepressible alarm invented a new kink.

To be continued…

Mark Twain was one of America’s most prolific humorists. Best known for such classics as Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mr. Twain was also famous for his insightful tales about the experiences faced by peoples they lived their daily lives.

The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from weather to crops, from crops to literature, from literature to scandal, from scandal to religion; then took a random jump and landed on the subject of burglar alarms. And now for the first time Mr. McWilliams showed feeling. Whenever I perceive this sign in a man’s dial, I comprehend it, and lapse into silence, and give him the opportunity to unload his heart.

Said he, with bit ill-controlled emotion: I do not go one single cent on burglar alarms, Mr. Twain – not a single cent – and I will tell you why. When we were finishing our house, we found we had a little cash left over, on account of the plumber not knowing it. I was for enlightening the heathen with it, for I was always unaccountably down on the heathen somehow, but Mrs. McWilliams said no; let’s have a burglar alarm. I agreed to this compromise. I will explain that whenever I want a thing, and Mrs. McWilliams wants another thing, and we decide upon the thing that Mrs. McWilliams wants – as we always do – she calls that a compromise.

Very well: The man came up from New York and put in the alarm, and charged three hundred and forty-five dollars for it, and said we could sleep without uneasiness now. So we did for a while – say a month. Then one night we smelled smoke, and I was advised to get up and see what the matter was. I lit a candle, and started toward the stairs, and met a burglar coming out of a room with a basket of tin ware, which he had mistaken for solid silver in the dark. He was smoking a pipe. I said, “My friend, we do not allow smoking in this room.” He said he was a stranger, and could not be expected to know the rules of the house; and he had been in many houses just as good as this one, and it had never been objected to before. He added that as far as his experience went, such rules had never been considered to apply to burglars anyway.

I said, “Smoke along then, if it is the custom, though I think that the conceding of a privilege to a burglar that is denied to a bishop is a conspicuous sign of the looseness of the times. But waiving all that, what business have you to be entering this house in the furtive and clandestine way, without ringing the burglar alarm?”

He looked confused and ashamed, and said, “I beg a thousand pardons. I did not know you had a burglar alarm; else I would have rung it. I beg you will not mention it where my parents might hear of it, for they are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization may all too rudely sunder the frail bridge that hangs darkly between the pale and evanescent present and the solemn deeps of eternities. May I trouble you for a match?”

I said, “Your sentiments do you honour, but if you will allow me to say it, metaphor is not your best hold. Spare your thigh; this kind of match lights only on a box, and seldom there in fact, if my experience may be trusted. But to return to business; How did you get in here?”

“Through a second story window.”

It was even so. I redeemed the tin ware at pawnbroker’s rates, less cost of advertising bade the burglar good night, closed the window after him, and retired to headquarters to report. Next morning we sent for the burglar alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm did not “go off” was that no part of the house but the first floor was attached to the alarm. This was simply idiotic; one might as well have no armour on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs!

The expert now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred dollars for it, and went on his way. By and by, one night, I found a burglar in the third story, about to start down a ladder with a lot of miscellaneous property. My first impulse was to crack his head with a billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this attention, because he was between me and the cue rack. The second impulse was plainly the soundest, so I refrained, and proceeded to compromise. I redeemed the property at former rates, after deducting ten percent for the use of the ladder, it being my ladder, and the next day we sent down for the expert once more, and had the third story attached to the alarm, for three hundred dollars.

To be continued…

So you have made the decision to run your own business – congratulations, although at times the path may be rocky, you will be able to set your own hours of operation, and you get to make the decisions on how your company will move forward.

Your first item of concern may be, do I need office space, or should I work out of a home office? What are the pros and cons of each? Here are some questions you will want to answer for yourself. There are also many articles on this subject on the web and in business publications that will provide further information.

This is your starting point before you jump in to any major decision. In the past, starting a business often involved rental or purchase of a physical location, but in today’s business world, working from a home office or rental office is becoming more common and accepted.

Do you need staff? Will you be selling product or doing repairs? Are standard working hours important to you or do you prefer a more flexible schedule? Are you rooted in your community or are you considering a move in the future?

Spend some time thinking and envisioning what your ideal situation would be and what environment would provide the most satisfaction to you before you move ahead with your plan.

Depending on where you are located, investigate what kind of space options you have, and the costs involved for each option.

Ultimately, the final decision is up to you, and for a start up business, there can be multiple advantages to at least start with a home office, as it is easier to move up to office or storefront options, rather than shift back if things are not working out quite as planned.

As with any major decision, the more research into options you can do before you make your move increases your chances of success. Get solid financial advice before you proceed in any direction, the tax implications of each option should be explored before you make your first steps.