We’re big fans of Banham as a London alarm company (as a competitor of their’s!), however their monitored house alarms do tend to be on the expensive side, and also don’t necessarily provide as good security as an AMCO monitored alarm. So if you’re looking to buy a Banham house alarm in London, as an alternative we’d recommend you check out the AMCO system first – as we’d expect you’ll get better security for less money – which is always a good thing ;-)
To give you a quick run down of why we think the AMCO monitored alarm is a better low-cost alternative to the Banham house alarm for people living across London, here are 3 key points to consider:
Advanced monitoring package: all our systems come with our *immediate audio response* monitoring, meaning that whenever the alarm is activated our monitoring team can immediately listen-in and talk into the property. If our monitoring staff can hear a burglary or emergency scenario taking place, they’ll then call the police or the emergency services (e.g. an Ambulance). Our *immediate audio response* monitoring is much more effective than standard monitoring, and gives you 24/7 response.
Low cost monitoring: our standard monitoring charge is £17.95 which is extremely good value.
Low cost installation and call out charges: because we run a low-cost operation, the installation charges for our alarms tend to be low-cost and offer great value for our customers.
To get a better idea of how our systems work, check out this video of one of our London customers giving a demonstration of her alarm:
Burglar alarms have a shelf-life from a technical perspective, and ultimately break and need fixing. Increasingly we’re being approached by people who live in houses with old Thorn or Modern Alarm systems, who ask us to help fix their old alarm system.
Fixing alarm systems – especially really old one’s like Thorn or Modern Alarms – is often quite difficult and mostly pointless, when the best thing to do is to replace the key components.
In most cases, the best thing to do to fix a Thorn or Modern Alarm system is to replace the central control panel, as this is the bit that tends to go faulty and need fixing. In general the rest of the alarm system – e.g. the PIRs and sensors – should generally work and be OK, however we would recommend our engineer checking them over to see if they’re working.
The one good thing to consider in updating your alarm system is that the wiring of your system has already been completed, meaning that if you want your old Thorn alarm or Modern Alarm updating / replacing, our installation engineers won’t have to rewire your whole house, which is often the bit that takes the longest.
For more information on how to fix / update / change your Thorn or Modern Alarm in a cost-effective way, get in touch with our team who’ll be happy to assist ;-)
Banham alarms are undoubtedly good burglar alarms, and are a good London-based alarm company, however we’d argue that they’re not necessarily as good value or provide as good security as AMCO monitored alarms. So if you’re considering buying a Banham alarm, we’d definitely recommend having a look at AMCO alarms as a great alternative to Banham.
The main reason why the Banham burglar alarm isn’t as good as the AMCO monitored alarm is because AMCO provide *immediate audio response* with all our alarms. *Immediate audio response monitoring* means that when an alarm is activated our monitoring staff can immediately listen in and talk into a property, allowing us to check if everything’s OK and alert the police or ambulance is there’s been a break-in or an emergency.
You can find out more about our Immediate audio-response monitoring below in this video, or you can check out more on our website here.
Of course there are many competitors to Banham in London, and therefore many alternatives, however of course we’d argue that we’re the best – as we’re monitored alarm specialists and have engineers across London.
A couple of days ago we received the following email from an AMCO customer detailing the amazing (and real) story of how his AMCO monitored alarm system saved his life.
Huge thanks to the AMCO monitoring staff who dealt with this emergency, and also to the Preston Emergency services who reacted so quickly to save Mr A’s life. [client email copy below]
Re- ‘Life saving fire & ambulance services alert on 1/12/11
Having returned from the local leisure centre on a cold evening and with unbeknown low blood sugar (I have had IDDM type 1 for over 30 years and now experience diminished awareness of impending hypoglycaemic states). I managed to disarm the security alarm in order to enter my house and turned a halogen heater on in my front room.
I began trying to make a phone call whilst sat close to the heater. Within minutes I was rolling about on the floor having fallen into a quite severe hypoglycaemic state. I think this was exacerbated by my previous workout at the leisure centre. Normally the halogen safety ‘cut off’ should have turned the heater off when I fell but the fire service believe a thick rug had prevented this. Quite possibly I may have actually been holding the rug against the ‘cut off’ switch. In these low blood sugar states whilst I can usually retain some awareness my actions can be totally incapacitated. The heating elements began scorching the thick rug and within just minutes the AMCO smoke alarm (located upstairs on the landing) must have been triggered.
Though my mind during this episode was a blur I realised that the house had filled with a dozen or more people. i.e the ambulance and fire brigade services. The whole incident from me returning to my house and been taken to the hospital took less than 30 minutes. As previously stated my incapacitation during hypoglcaemic attacks meant that without the prompt actions of monitoring service intervention, despite whatever alarms had been sounding, it was unlikely that the emergency services would have been notified.
I am truly indebted to AMCO monitoring service. I hope the above can be used to promote public awareness of what to me has proven to be a highly commendable service. If I can provide any further explanation please let me know.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. A [full name not disclosed]
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For more information on how you can get an AMCO immediate response system installed, check out our information site.
We’re always really pleased when our customers give us great feedback for our burglar alarm installations, so we were particularly pleased when we got this review from Group Captain DE North (ret’d), who we recently installed a system for in the South East of England:
“The AMCO engineer was excellent and worked incredibly hard, making the standard of the installation first class. Based on the quality of work and reliability of the system, I’d be very happy to recommend AMCO’s security systems to friends and associates.”
The Group Captain had one of our advanced *immediate audio response* monitored alarms installed. If you’re interested in finding out more about these kinds of systems, then check out our *How our alarms work* page.
