We have a few spots left for our next home security seminar which will be held on Wednesday, May 28th at 7:00pm.

The seminar covers, with lots of pictures, exactly how burglaries occur on Vancouver’s Westside. More importantly, we will show you exactly what you can do (both high and low tech) to ensure that you minimize your risk of becoming a victim.

The seminar will be held in our new Kerrisdale showroom (click here to see what it looks like) where we have almost every conceivable home security device installed and ready to demonstrate that you can have high security without ruining the look of your home…

If you are interested in attending, please let us know via email at seminar@providentsecurity.bc.ca

We will also be offering brief tours of our state of the art Operations Centre… we will show you where all Provident alarm signals are received and automatically dispatched, how we can guarantee our five minute response time as well as show you how our unique BLINK monitoring service works.

Our showroom is located at 2309 West 41st Avenue…. which is at 41st and Vine Street.

Many media outlets throughout Canada are reporting on a sad story in Calgary where an 18-month old boy died after waiting more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. The boy’s Aunt called 911 immediately upon recognizing that her nephew was in distress, but because the family was using VoIP telephone service, the call for help did not go to Calgary EMS… instead it went to a different call centre, somewhere else, and help never arrived. It wasn’t until the neighbour called 911 on a regular analog telephone (after 15-20 minutes of waiting) that Paramedics were actually dispatched.

The VoIP service in this case was provided by a company called Comwave who are similar to companies like Vonage who provide unfacilitated VoIP.

I’ve talked about this issue for a long time in dozens of seminars, in media interviews and on this blog. I think that the marketing of these VoIP services is incredibly misleading… Many people only find out after a burglary, or in this case, after they try unsuccessfully to call 911, that there are very real risks of using VoIP service.

The quick explanation of the issue, in my opinion, is this:

VoIP service can be broken down into two different ‘types’… Facilitated VoIP and unfacilitated VoIP… ‘facilitated’ services are provided by cable companies like Shaw (with their Shaw Digital Phone service) who have their own network, whereas providers like Comwave and Vonage are ‘unfacilitated’ and send data over the internet.

The important distinction is that with ‘unfacilitated’ VoIP providers NEITHER 911 OR YOUR ALARM SYSTEM WILL WORK. In terms of marketing talk to try and gloss over that fact, Comwave refers to ‘Enhanced 911′ service on their site…. when you read the FAQ section, it’s clear that the ‘enhancement’ that they refer to is that when you call 911, your call will not go to 911, but instead to their (or someone’s) 3rd party monitoring station who will then try to re-route your call to the local 911. Rather than spelling out the very real risk that their service provides, they instead refer to that risk as an enhancement. Unfortunately, that is typical in the VoIP industry. Obviously, the family of the boy who died did not know about how this ‘enhancement’ could impact them.

I’ve written a lot about Shaw Digital Phone, enough so that they sent me a C&D letter to stop using their logo… but at least 911 will work with their service. The main issue that I have raised with Shaw is the inconsistency of the speed of alarm signal transmission over their network… and also that they market their ‘facilitated’ VoIP as not being VoIP… which is completely untrue. Although it is understandable why they would try to distance themselves from the Comwave and Vonage’s of the world, the fact still remains though that their service is a form of VoIP.

The bottom line is that if you use any form of VoIP, you need to test your alarm and, more importantly, know exactly where your 911 call will end up. With respect to your alarm system, some form of wireless communication should be used… either cellular back-up, or for our clients, BLINK mesh radio.

Your security is in your redundancy … and if you are looking to save a few dollars on your monthly phone bill, make sure you know exactly what risks might come along with a lower price tag.

To read more about what I’ve written on this topic, click on the following:

Does anyone know that your alarm isn’t working?

Shaw Digital Phones and Alarms

Shaw Digital Telephone Services Affect on Alarm Systems

Rogers Home Phone vs. Shaw Digital Phone

Clear as a bell one day, fuzzy and garbled the next

I’ve written about how ‘five minute proofing’ is the most effective tactic that can be used to reduce your risk of loss in a burglary in several posts.

Here is an excerpt from a recent home security seminar where I spoke about how you can apply some specific five minute proofing strategies in your home. The lighting isn’t very good… but you’ll get the idea.

This video was filmed a couple weeks ago at the Arbutus Club where I spoke, along with Constable Ray Gardner of the Vancouver Police Department, for about an hour and a half about how burglaries actually happen, how alarms work, why most alarms are completely useless… but most importantly, what you can do about it.

We have a few more seminars scheduled over the next few months. The next one that is open to anyone will be held on Wednesday, May 28th at 7:00pm in the Provident showroom in Kerrisdale. I’ll post more information about it soon, but if you would like to register to attend, please send us an email to reserve a spot.

Recently, ABC7 News in San Francisco ran stories about a Utah-based security firm, Firstline Security, using a new version of an old and wide-spread, security industry sales tactic/trick. The pitch has a few variations, but is typically some version of a salesperson offering homeowners a “free” alarm system in exchange for allowing the company to put a sign in their front yard.

Not satisfied with simply scamming clients, Firstline also looked to scam their own employees… by creating a fake reality show called ‘The Prodigy’. The company recruited on University campuses throughout the United States.

By offering a $1,000,000.00 prize, Firstline ‘hired’ several thousand college students to compete by selling ‘free’ security systems to homeowners throughout the United States.

Of course, not only was the supposed reality show a scam, so were the actual system ‘installations’. If you watch the video clips by following the links below, you may recognize that the equipment that Firstline was selling is the exact alarm that I discussed in my post ‘Why Millions of Home Alarms are Useless‘. Independent of the equipment itself being suspect, based on hundreds of consumer complaints, it appears as though many of the systems were never even connected for actual monitoring.

ABC7′s first story talked about the fake reality show and can be seen by clicking here. After it aired, they received enough complaints from viewers that they did two follow-up stories.

The other segments are:

1. Consumers get faulty alarm systems
   
2. Reality Show Producer talks to ABC7

Apparently, Firstline is back recruiting on campus again for their next summertime assault.

Although the reality show spin was unique, the pitch of “we’ll give you a free alarm system if you let us put our lawn sign up” is used by hundreds of companies all over the US and Canada. The companies who offer the ‘free’ system are most often selling the signed contract to a third party, normally ADT, Monitronics, or another large security firm that purchases bulk accounts. In this case mentioned above, Firstline was selling the contracts to Monitronics in Texas.

It sounds like Firstline figured that in order to really ramp-up sales, they were going to need to simultaneously scam consumers as well as the employees selling to them.

At about 3:00 Sunday morning, a smoke alarm in a clients’ home tripped after a pot containing baby bottles, rubber nipples and a sippy cup had been left in boiling water on the stove. It took a few hours, but eventually all of the water boiled off and then the plastic and rubber contents started to melt, creating a significant amount of smoke. Thankfully, the smoke detectors on both the main floor and upstairs were tripped… creating enough noise to wake the occupants of the house who were able to turn off the stove before an actual fire started or smoke damage occurred.

This was the third identical incident that we have responded to in the past 18 months… baby bottles put in a pot to boil, and then being forgotten. In each case, it has been surprising to the homeowners how little time it takes to fill a house with smoke.

The Vancouver Building By-Law requires every dwelling to have smoke detectors installed on each floor. The Vancouver Fire Department recommend that smoke detectors are installed in the following locations:

• Inside of every bedroom
• mechanical/electrical room
• utility rooms
• hallways
• attics
• garages

Having smoke detectors connected and monitored through your home security system offer several very important advantages:

1. it ensures that we know that there is a problem at your house… and we will get help on the way within seconds. You, your kids, babysitter or other occupants do not need to call 911 in order to generate a response;
2. in the event that a fire starts while you are not home, our Operations Centre will immediately dispatch the Fire Department… as opposed to your having to wait until your neighbours can see smoke;
3. monitored smoke detectors will work through a power failure… if the alarm back-up battery is getting low, a signal will be sent to our Operations Centre well before power is lost. With a monitored smoke detector, you do not need to worry about remembering to install a new battery.

How old are your smoke detectors?

Most manufacturers recommend that smoke detectors be replaced every five years. The National Fire Prevention Association reports that up to 30% of smoke detectors older than 10 years will fail. Is it time to replace yours?

Other posts that mention smoke detectors:

Renovating? Put your smokes on test
Detecting water damage early. Is your fire alarm loud enough?

Honeywell has a cool plug-in module that allows you to control any device with a standard two-prong plug by pressing a button on your alarm keyfob.

In our new house, we do not have nearly as many electrical outlets in each room as we did in our old place, and some of the ones that we do have are not in the most convenient spots. As a result, over the past few weeks, we have been climbing behind furniture to turn our Christmas tree lights on and off.

Last night, I plugged all of our Christmas lights into one of these modules and programmed it into the keyfobs
that my wife and I use to arm and disarm the alarm. It took no more than 10 seconds to set-up and now all of our Christmas lights can be turned on or off by any of our keyfobs, from inside or outside the house.

In the vast majority of new homes that we are wiring, the lighting system is fully integrated with the security system (as well as just about every other system in the home). However, in older homes, this product is an easy way to add a convenient feature without having to mess with your wiring at all. It literally took less than 10 seconds to get working and can be controlled by up to seven different keyfobs. In addition, you can have multiple modules all set to turn on or off at the same time, throughout your house.

Beyond creating the ultimate lazy persons’ automatic Christmas tree lighter, this product actually does offer some security and safety features. For example, if there are a number of lamps throughout your house that you would like to automatically turn off every time that you arm the alarm in stay mode when you go to bed, or turn on every time that you come home and disarm your alarm, this module will allow you to do that. You will need one module per lamp or other device that you wish to control.

The limitations?

This module is only designed to control devices that can be plugged into it… so it won’t be able to turn off room lights.

Another feature is that you do not need to have an actual alarm to use this product. All you need is the module itself and at least one keyfob… either one that fits on your keychain or as I described in an earlier post, that can be mounted on a wall.

Now that we are two days into the tap-water warning in the Lower Mainland, everyone has been given a small glimpse of how well we would do in a real emergency like an earthquake. It’s not looking so good.

Given that there were reports in the media of people getting into pushing matches at stores over the last cases of bottled water (in the middle of a rain storm no less), it seems to be a safe bet that, collectively, we are not very prepared at all. In the event that we were forced to look after ourselves and our families during a real emergency where power, water and communications were unavailable, most people would be in a lot of trouble.

In looking at my own home, I realized we are ill prepared for any type of emergency. As a result, we have finally started building our own disaster preparedness kit at home to include basics like water (about 4 litres per person, per day is the recommended amount… with a 3 day supply), flashlights with spare batteries and non-perishable food.

Here is a link to the Public Safety and Emergency Canada website which has a number of checklists and articles showing you what you need to do to be able to survive for 3 days after a disaster without having to rely on emergency services. The site provides a lot of useful information including what items should be a part of your home disaster preparedness kit.

(The photo above is from Kate’s blog on Vancity’s Change Everything site)

At approximately 6:00am on Saturday morning, a fire broke out in one unit of a townhouse complex located near Yew Street and Nanton Avenue. We provide alarm monitoring and response service for one of the other townhouses that are part of the same building.

Although we do not yet know what caused the fire, we do know that the fire traveled through the walls of the structure and smoke was detected inside our client’s suite a few doors away where we have a monitored smoke detector. As a result, we immediately called the Fire Department as well as sent members of our mobile response team to the house. When we got on-site, we met with the client and confirmed that everyone in his home was safe.

As our client is hard of hearing, he slept through the initial noise and commotion of the Fire Department arriving to his neighbours suite (someone else noticed the flames at the other suite and called 911 prior to the smoke making its way into our clients home) and only woke up as a result of the two sirens that we had installed inside his suite to ensure that he could hear the alarm in the event of an emergency such as this.

This incident serves as a good reminder about the importance of having monitored fire detection devices in your home… as well as ensuring that everyone in your family would be able to hear the alarm sounding should it go off.

Do you have anyone in your home who is hard of hearing or might need special assistance in an emergency?

If yes, call us to arrange for a test of your alarm to ensure that they can hear the siren when the alarm sounds. For most clients who have advised us of this special consideration, we have added both an additional siren in that person’s bedroom as well as a strobe light that will also flash any time the alarm is sounding. It is also very important that we are aware of any residents with special needs so that we can advise the Fire Department during our initial dispatch so that they know that there might be someone on-site who requires special assistance and/or may not be aware of the alarm in the first place.

Pets?

Likewise, we should also know about any pets that you have so that we can also have that information available in the event that there is a fire at your home.

When was the last time you replaced your smoke detectors?

Most smoke detector manufacturers will recommend that the devices get replaced every 6-10 years. This is because of the natural accumulation of dust and dirt that will eventually clog up the detector and inhibit its ability to detect smoke in the event of an actual fire. Our recommendation is that all smoke detectors get replaced every 3-5 years to ensure that they are clean and operating at peak performance. How long has it been since you last replaced your smoke detectors?

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