Congratulations! You’ve secured your residence with a state-of-the-art EPS Security home security system. You saw the statistics on how security systems both deter and detect intruders, protect from fire, and alert homeowners to everything from leaking pipes to broken furnaces. You researched security providers and found that EPS Security is local, family-owned and operated, and highly experienced. (In fact, they’ve been providing Michigan families with home security systems for 65 years!) You’ve come to rely on the convenience of your hi-tech smart home security solution utilizing devices from industry-leading manufacturers.
Now what?
One of the many benefits of a home security system is that it’s largely self-sustaining. Once it’s programmed, it’s mostly a matter of setting the system when you’re not home or ready for bed. However, much like any electrical appliance in your home, there are a handful of routine tasks you can perform to help extend the life and efficacy of your alarm system. By performing these tasks regularly, you can help to ensure your system protects and provides for you on day 1000 as well as it did on day 1.
Perform regular communication tests
Communication with a local monitoring center is the central tenet of a professional home security system. If the EPS Security Monitoring Center is not receiving your signals in an emergency, our operators will be unable to dispatch police, fire, or medical personnel to your location.
EPS Security’s monitored customers have their systems programmed to send test signals to our Monitoring Center regularly—usually daily. If we do not receive a signal at the appropriate time, our operators will call and let you know that there may be something amiss with your system so we can find a way to fix it promptly. If you’re heading out of town for an extended period of time or just want to check the general health of your system, it doesn’t hurt to send a test signal yourself. Our operators in the Monitoring Center can work with you to put your system in a test mode, which allows you to send signals to them without alerting emergency services. By doing this, our operators can tell you if we’re receiving alarm signals from your system—and you can see for yourself how quickly we receive them.
Much like your alarm panel sends a signal to our Monitoring Center, your field devices—door contacts, motion sensors, and more—communicate with our alarm panel. If a glass break senses a shattered window, it sends a signal to the alarm panel, which sends a signal to our Monitoring Center. Thus, it can also be beneficial to test the individual devices on your system as well. By calling our Monitoring Center and putting your account in test mode, you can go around your house and set off every device individually and check to make sure our operators receive the signal. Doing so ensures your system will function properly in the event of a true emergency and can help to prove your system is still functioning as it should.
Switch out batteries
Modern home security systems often utilize wireless field devices for less invasive installations and more adaptable mounting options. Like all wireless devices, wireless security sensors run on batteries that need to be changed out every so often. While manufacturers estimate batteries to last three to five years in such devices, some devices that draw a lot of power or are sensing continuously may drain faster. Your EPS Security alarm panel will alert you when a battery in a device is nearing the end of its life cycle and, eventually, when the device has stopped communicating because the battery is dead—an alert that displays as “loss of supervision” or simply “LOS.”
Nipping the battery issue in the bud can save you from heartache in the future—say, when you’re on vacation and you receive a call from the EPS Monitoring Center informing you that your front door contact is no longer communicating. While you may be able to get away with replacing batteries every few years, switching the batteries out regularly every year—low battery or not—can help to prevent device communication loss from occurring down the line.
Note: Changing out devices sends a signal to our Monitoring Center indicating that someone is tampering with your system. Be sure to call our operators before changing batteries out so they can put the system in test mode so we know to temporarily ignore these signals.
Check for wear and tear
When you’re changing out the batteries in your field devices, it doesn’t hurt to inspect the state of the sensors themselves. Are they still mounted properly? Are they overly dirty or dusty? Are they damaged in any way? If a device is looking worse for its wear, it might be time to have an EPS technician out to repair or replace it. Your home’s security solution operates under the assumption that every device will function properly to provide proper coverage, and if even one device isn’t sensing properly or was damaged by environmental factors, it’s essential that the problem is addressed promptly.
Keep it professional
Performing routine maintenance can go a long way in getting the most out of your security system. At the end of the day, however, the best way to maximize your system’s longevity is by entrusting routine maintenance to those your entrusted to install it. EPS Security fields an entire team of preventative maintenance technicians whose job it is to inspect, test, and maintain both residential and commercial EPS security systems. Signing up for preventative maintenance ensures a visit from one of our technicians to check general communication, change out batteries as needed, and inspect your devices to determine if there are any repairs needed. For large properties or home systems with dozens of field devices, a preventative maintenance often pays for in battery changeouts alone and can help detect device malfunctions or damage that may have otherwise gone undetected.
By investing in a top-notch EPS Security system, you’ve created an environment of safety and convenience for you and your family. Secure your investment with a maintenance plan by EPS Security and let our 65 years of security expertise help protect your household long into the future.