Security insights to help you make an informed choice
MAINTAINING GOOD SECURITY DURING WINTER
Now more than ever you should treat the winter months as a time to do maintenance on your security systems at both your home and your place of work. Why, you may ask? Load shedding is more consistent during the colder months and is putting undue stress on your hard drives and batteries. But that’s not all because the dry weather can wreak havoc with your electric fence security and alarm system, too.
Here are the 10 most vital things you should do to maintain good security during the winter months:
1. Check your electric fence for dead twigs, branches and leaves. During the winter months dry debris falls from the trees and collects on the fence which can then set off false alarms.
2. Cut back all foliage around the perimeter of your property to prevent it from tangling with your electric fence. Besides, overgrown shrubs and trees make for great hiding places when criminals want to ambush you. It also could indicate that you are slightly careless when it comes to your security system’s maintenance, an easy target for possible intruders.
3. In Gauteng our winters are dry and dusty, and this can cause a build-up of dirt on the alarm’s motion-detector sensors’ lenses causing them to be less sensitive to movement so give them a good clean. Test your alarm once your sensors have been dusted but let your response company know you are doing so first.
4. The same applies to your CCTV camera lenses – give them a good clean so that they can provide crisp images of any criminal activities.
5. While checking your CCTV system do make sure the hard drives are working – these don’t get checked often enough (which should be at least once or twice a month) and then when footage of a robbery is required you discover that there is none because the hard drive was damaged by the constant power outages.
6. Invest in a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) unit – it costs less than R2000 and will save you in the long run. It protects your computers and CCTV hard drives from being damaged during the constant power outage ups and downs. The UPS literally gives you enough power to save and shutdown properly. It also gives you about 2 extra hours of recording time on your CCTV system.
7. Do regular checks on all your back-up batteries for alarms, electric fencing and even the gate and garage motors – batteries are drained with every power outage and before you know it your batteries die leaving you without decent security when you need it the most. Batteries should provide you with at least 4 – 6 hours of back up.
8. Reset your time-delay light switches to come on earlier as it gets dark quicker in winter and you’ll most likely be arriving home from work at nightfall.
9. Make sure all your outside motion-detector lights are working so that you don’t find yourself entering a dark property when arriving home from work.
10. Call your security company out to double-check your security system.
At 6th Sense we offer comprehensive maintenance checks on your security system and can advise you on where your premises may be lacking in security. Our maintenance check includes making sure your alarm and electric fence works and that your back-up batteries still have decent power. For a consultation with one of our reputable consultants call 011-482-9957 or visit us at www.6thsensesecurity.co.za. We’ll provide you with all the credentials.
