Its not about cost its about what you are being offered for your money.
Value is what you want, not cheap and nasty?
Value is what you want, not cheap and nasty?
wireless alarm questions
- Thread starter masamune
- Start date
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How much do you expect for a professional installation with monitoring then, £200?.............................
Someone quoted me £600 for installation! I had to give up on the call
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How much do you expect for a professional installation with monitoring then, £200?.............................
Someone quoted me £600 for installation! I had to give up on the call
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I sense some frustration from your end?
To clarify, it was £600 for the installation only, a couple of PIRs and door sensor with the siren. I still believe that is expensive.
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Not in the slightest, I've been in this industry longer than most, if not all, that are are here. Over that time I can safely say that every customer, all the time expects to get something for nothing.
That's not quite right, but not far off.
For some reason or another the alarm trade is seen as a necessary evil, after all we do is fix a couple of little boxes on the wall.
If an installer approached me this manner I'm sorry to say but I would stir clear. People expect value for their money. Some people may have no clue about high end electronics, others may expect more information for what they are buying and why they should pay more. I can't agree with a generic assumption that consumers perceive alarms as "the little box on the wall".
I had a look at the pricing of some recommended systems here (Texecom, Scantronic, Honeywell) and a decent kit is around £200, say close to £300 if you need to prop it up with some more sensors.
So forgive me if I am underestimating, but does it cost £300+ in labour to fit 3-4 wireless sensors and program a panel in say two hours?
Perhaps you could offer better advice on the installation cost expected or the system to go for?
Just buy a Galaxy G2 system and install yourself. You'll have an excellent hybrid system with expansion capabilities and you'll be able to support it yourself for evermore. You'll still get 5% off any standard domestic insurance premium V's 10% for an approved install.
For a 4 sensor Galaxy G2-12 with RF Portal, Keyprox keypad, Internal Speaker, 7Ah battery and External Texecom Odyssey 2E you will pay around £250.
I would expect a small local installer to charge about £600 (all in) for installing such a system if wireless. The panel power, keypad, speaker and external sounder still need to be wired in and it's likely to still take around half a day to complete and commission.
For a 4 sensor Galaxy G2-12 with RF Portal, Keyprox keypad, Internal Speaker, 7Ah battery and External Texecom Odyssey 2E you will pay around £250.
I would expect a small local installer to charge about £600 (all in) for installing such a system if wireless. The panel power, keypad, speaker and external sounder still need to be wired in and it's likely to still take around half a day to complete and commission.
Well £50 of that could be VAT, so £250 I think is reasonable. There's wages for the trained engineer, vehicle and fuel cost's, traveling costs, liabilty insurance costs, equipment useage (ladders, laptop etc) profit for the actual company, potential future visits or support calls due to customer error, costs to run office staff maybe, it all adds up. I take it you've never run a small business.
You forgot to add their lunch
We are way off topic lol, no never ran a small business but, aren't travel/petrol/vehicle costs part of the business "expenses" and the equipment will be used over a long period of time so should be added to "capital allowances" as it depreciates?
Thanks for the suggestion and the feedback. When you say "wired" for the external sounder?
I forgot to mention the house is wired with Cat6 all around, which I may use for PTZ cameras eventually, though separate to the alarm.
No not way off topic, you asked if it cost £300 for a few hours labour at your home.
Yes the above are part of busness expenses but what do you think pays for them, the customers via work does, come one its not rocket science.
My point was that it depends what you wish your profit margin to be, it doesn't mean you can rip off the customer to make up for all your business costs.
That said it may well cost around the figure above for the average installer. I don't know.
If the customer didnt pay towards the cost of running the business then there would be no business.
Simple maths say if you have less coming in than it costs going out you will go bust eventually.
Theres more to Profit Margin, than you think, it isn't based on whats charged for a job minus the cost of parts installed on that job.
Simple maths say if you have less coming in than it costs going out you will go bust eventually.
Theres more to Profit Margin, than you think, it isn't based on whats charged for a job minus the cost of parts installed on that job.
I had a plumber come round to put a radiator back on the wall.
Could do this myself, but if I get it wrong I could end up with water everywhere. (stop cock off but theres water in the system).
Done correctly by a professional took about 10 minutes max at minimum wage I would pay about £1 for the time on the job. Travelling time and fuel probably cost more than that.
But his rate was reasonable but much much much higher than the £1 though. Given how much he charged I suspect his profit would be a couple of quid if he made any profit at all, it would probably of paid towards his wage and costs of running the business that week.
The plumber apologiesed for the cost, probably because most of his customers dont undertand the concept of costs of a business just to operate but he needs a minmum rate to just to be able to function.
Got a heating engineer to do the boiler service a job I can't do legally at all, and don't have the equipment for, cost more money than fitting the radiator probably took similar time, but he probably made a little more profit but still probably didnt make much as he had VAT to take into account.
Could do this myself, but if I get it wrong I could end up with water everywhere. (stop cock off but theres water in the system).
Done correctly by a professional took about 10 minutes max at minimum wage I would pay about £1 for the time on the job. Travelling time and fuel probably cost more than that.
But his rate was reasonable but much much much higher than the £1 though. Given how much he charged I suspect his profit would be a couple of quid if he made any profit at all, it would probably of paid towards his wage and costs of running the business that week.
The plumber apologiesed for the cost, probably because most of his customers dont undertand the concept of costs of a business just to operate but he needs a minmum rate to just to be able to function.
Got a heating engineer to do the boiler service a job I can't do legally at all, and don't have the equipment for, cost more money than fitting the radiator probably took similar time, but he probably made a little more profit but still probably didnt make much as he had VAT to take into account.
I understand where you are coming from and a lot of times people assume someone is making profit, where they actually don't. As you said, a business exists to make profit otherwise it is not a business. In reality a lot of businesses make profit, otherwise they wouldn't exist or people wouldn't be willing to run them. In some situations though it may be a case of break even, just to maintain the business in hope for better days.
Back to the quoting, I got another one with Secom. Similar to ADT but a little cheaper, start up kit £160, £49 per extra PIR and they use Pyronix. There is both interior and exterior siren.
The monitoring/maintenance fee is £23/mo for three years, after which the system belongs to you. Pretty standard I think.
I am also going to have a couple of local installers visit for further quotes.
Back to the quoting, I got another one with Secom. Similar to ADT but a little cheaper, start up kit £160, £49 per extra PIR and they use Pyronix. There is both interior and exterior siren.
The monitoring/maintenance fee is £23/mo for three years, after which the system belongs to you. Pretty standard I think.
I am also going to have a couple of local installers visit for further quotes.
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