How to Test Your Alarm System

Test­ing your home secu­ri­ty sys­tem is some­thing that you should do at least once a month. It isn’t a com­mon occur­rence, but there have been cas­es where peo­ple have been bur­glar­ized even when their homes are pro­tect­ed with mul­ti­ple secu­ri­ty fea­tures, sim­ply because they let their bat­ter­ies die or their phone line is no longer active. If you don’t test your alarm sys­tem, you put your­self at risk not be pro­tect­ed by a mon­i­tored sys­tem any­more.

Test­ing your alarm sys­tem doesn’t take very long and it can save you from becom­ing vic­tim­ized. It’s impos­si­ble to pre­dict when a crim­i­nal will break into your home, but typ­i­cal­ly crim­i­nals will watch their vic­tims for weeks or months before ever mak­ing a move. If they notice you test­ing your secu­ri­ty sys­tem, they will more than like­ly leave your home alone.

Why Secu­ri­ty Sys­tems Fail

• Dead bat­ter­ies or Pow­er Surge
• Sen­sor Fail­ure
• Phone Line Fail­ure
• Change in Phone Ser­vice
• Fail­ure to Recon­nect Com­po­nents Prop­er­ly

Before Test­ing your Alarm Sys­tem

It’s impor­tant that you con­tact your mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion before run­ning any tests on your alarm sys­tem so that the author­i­ties aren’t dis­patched to your home. You will need to pro­vide a pass­word or account num­ber to your provider once you get in con­tact with them.

Your alarm com­pa­ny will test your secu­ri­ty sys­tem for you on the day of instal­la­tion. While doing so, ask if they can show you how to prop­er­ly do it to ensure you’ll have the abil­i­ty going for­ward.

Test­ing your Alarm Sys­tem

After you have con­tact­ed your mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion, pro­vid­ed your pass­code and asked them to put your sys­tem on test, make sure that all of the doors and win­dows in your home are closed secure­ly. As if you were leav­ing your home, arm your sys­tem and wait for the exit delay to expire. Once you have done this, go around your home and open each door and win­dow with a sen­sor attached to it. Your alarm will sound and sig­nals will be trans­mit­ted to the mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion.

After you wait about five sec­onds, close your win­dow or door and move onto the next one. Dis­arm your sys­tem after you have checked each sen­sor and then con­tact your mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion again to let them know you have fin­ished test­ing the sys­tem. After the test, ask your alarm com­pa­ny if all of your sen­sors are work­ing prop­er­ly!

They will be able to tell you which sen­sors were acti­vat­ed dur­ing the test. If there were any prob­lems, call your alarm com­pa­ny ser­vice line to resolve any issues. If you haven’t checked your alarm sys­tem in over 30 days, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you test it as soon as pos­si­ble to keep your home, your­self, and your fam­i­ly safe!