another garage alarm thread
 

My wife went out to the garage yesterday morning, and noticed the door to the 911 was open. Then she noticed her wagon door was open. Scumbags had rifled thru our cars. They stole our bikes (mine was a 20 yo litespeed Tellico.... irreplaceable). About $3500 worth of stuff. anyway. I am lucky they didn't damage the cars.

I am looking for input from anyone who has installed an unmonitored alarm system for their house/garage. I have searched quite a bit, but haven't found the info I am looking for. I want a simple and cheap system that alarms on motion, maybe door & window triggers.

I have searched online and have found things like this:

SkyLink Wireless Security System Alarm Kit-SC-100 Security System at The Home Depot

Sabre Wireless Home Protection Alarm System Kit - Gen I-WP-100 at The Home Depot

All I need is a loud siren that goes off. I live in an extremely urban area with neighbors' houses 15' from mine. Anything that makes a lot of noise at the right time would work.

~Chris

I had a car alarm wired up in my old garage, had a small battery like the backup ones in home systems and a small 12v power supply. .....
Magnetic pin switches on the doors, and one radar sensor.
Also had it wired to open the garage. ...
Sirens I had 2 high pitch ear bleeder types lol

-Start with motion activated spotlights at any possible entry point.
-Window and door activated sensors and a loud horn can be purchased at Walmart.
-Make sure your garage door opener is a newer one that revolves the code and consider removing the drop down cord that releases the door from the opener (a coat hanger and a little time and you can get to it from the outside through the gap at the top of the door).
-If the walk in door has glass, make the deadbolt require a key on the inside. This way the perp can't but the glass, reach in, and turn the thumb lock.

P.S. have you considered moving to a better section of town?

A while ago, garages in my area were being entered through back doors, since most alarms do not cover garages. Since our garage has a back door that is rarely used, I mounted a piece of angle iron that, if the door was opened a couple inches, would press the button of an air horn.

Massive decibels would wake the neighborhood, and make the bad guy pee his pants as he runs away.

My home alarm (Honeywell) covers the garage as well, both the big car doors and the man door. Only issue with it is that the door must be closed to enable the alarm (no biggie, I can also set the alarm via my iPhone, and when I drive up and open the door, the alarm starts its countdown and I have 99 seconds to disable before it calls the cops. I also have overheat (fire), CO and freeze sensing in the garage.

I am getting a new feature installed that senses garage door position, will automatically close the door 120 seconds after the alarm is set and allows setting the alarm to "Away" with the door open. Honeywell is just dicking around with it at the moment as it is so new. It will also give door position to my iPhone and allow for me to close it remotely if needed.

Basically I view the garage as part of my home protected area, what with all the tools, parts and valuables. Wouldn't do it any other way.

Dennis

chrisf,
A quick, inexpensive, and possibly just an interim solution is for one of the Ryobi motion sensing alarms. I purchased one for my shed a few years back. Unfortunately, when I looked at this today it showed that it is discontinued (Ryobi Tek4 4-Volt Motion Sensing Alarm RP4300-DISCONTINUED-RP4300 at The Home Depot). However, your local Home Depot may still have some in stock. Granted, this is not going to alert your neighbors to the alarm, though it will (hopefully) scare off any potential unwanted visitors. If nothing else, it could serve as a temporary measure until you obtain a 'true' alarm system... plus, it might allow you to sleep feeling a little bit safer.

On a side note, most of my father's family lived in Chattanooga/East Ridge. I grew up on Sand Mountain and most of our shopping was done in Chattanooga. My older brother and his friends often cruised up and down Brainerd Road endlessly on the weekends... this was back in the early 80's. I wonder if that still goes on there.

I installed an IP camera with IR motion sensor at a vacation home. Sends a pic to my email/phone whenever it senses motion.