Straight answers about low-voltage, security and IT work in Virginia

If you have nothing on the wall today, the Qolsys IQ Panel 4 on Alarm.com is what we fit most often, because PowerG sensors reach further than anything else and the panel photographs whoever disarms it. If you already have 2GIG or GoControl gear, the 2GIG Edge keeps your existing sensors. If you already have Honeywell or Resideo gear, the ProSeries panel on Total Connect 2.0 keeps yours. The package price is the same whichever you choose.

They are competing platforms that do broadly the same job: arm and disarm from your phone, sensor history, camera clips, smart locks, lights and thermostat. Alarm.com has the stronger video analytics and the wider third-party device list. Total Connect runs on Resideo's own AlarmNet network and is the natural fit if your existing equipment is Honeywell. Cameras have to match the platform, so the choice is made once, at the start.

When the sensor is a long way from the panel or there is a lot of building between the two: a detached garage, a shed, a gate, a pool house, or a brick and plaster house where the panel sits at one end. DSC PowerG on the Qolsys panel and the 2GIG E+ Series 900 MHz line on the Edge both reach much further than standard sensors. We work out on the site walk whether you need them, and they are priced per device in the add-ons.

Yes, and it moves with you. Every sensor talks to the panel wirelessly and nothing is cut into the structure, so there is no drilling through studs and no cable in the walls to leave behind. Two things do need power: the panel plugs into an outlet, and a video doorbell needs the existing bell transformer or a plug-in adapter, which is worth clearing with the landlord first. You own the equipment outright rather than financing it inside a monthly, so there is nothing to leave behind or buy out. When the lease ends we take it down, patch the few holes, and reinstall and retest it at your new address for the move-and-reinstall price in the add-ons. Your account, codes, app history and clips all carry over.

They are real starting prices for the equipment listed, on a normal house, and they are subject to change without notice. What moves them is the building rather than the sales call: more openings than the package covers, a panel location with no power near it, masonry that has to be drilled, or a long run out to a detached garage. We walk the property before we quote, and the written proposal is the number you pay, held for 30 days.

Yes, and the add-on prices are published on this page. Almost every job adds a few contacts or a camera. Anything added during the original install is charged at the add-on price listed, and anything can be added to a live system later without rebuilding it.

You pick the term: one, two or three years. It renews for the same length at the rates current at renewal unless either side gives written notice at least 30 days before the term ends. Ending it early is chargeable at 75 per cent of the payments remaining on the term, so pick the length you actually want rather than the cheapest monthly. Residential customers also get three business days after signing to cancel outright, and the notice form comes with the agreement. Read the term and the cancellation clause before you sign, here or anywhere else.

Equipment ownership. At $0 down the equipment is not free, it is financed inside the monthly, which is why the monthly is higher and why leaving mid-term costs so much. Here you buy the equipment outright at the install price and it is yours from day one, listed on a schedule attached to the agreement. What you sign for is the monitoring service, not the hardware.

Tell us what is on the wall and we will price the takeover instead of a rip-out. A 2GIG, Qolsys or DSC panel already on Alarm.com can usually keep its account and its sensors. Honeywell 5800 sensors carry over to a ProSeries panel. Older hardwired systems can often be kept too, with the existing contacts brought into a new panel through a wired-to-wireless translator. Takeover is listed in the add-ons.

Yes. The panel signals over cellular as its primary path, with Wi-Fi as the second, so an internet outage does not take the alarm offline. The panel has a backup battery that carries it through a power outage, and it reports the power failure to you and to the central station.

Both are banned under section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which rules them out on federal, E-Rate and federally-grant-funded work. Rather than carry two standards we do not install them anywhere, on any job. The cameras in these packages are Alarm.com or Resideo, and our commercial camera line is Hanwha, all compliant.

Yes. Small commercial sites often fit the Whole Property package as written. Anything larger, anything with more than a handful of doors to control, or anything needing a monitored fire alarm gets a designed system rather than a package, because the code requirements and the inspection path are different.

Complete. It is the one that contacts the whole ground floor rather than two doors, and it is the cheapest of the three that puts cameras outside, which is where a system does most of its work. Essential suits apartments, condos and smaller homes where there are only a few openings to cover. Whole Property is for long perimeters, outbuildings and waterfront.

No, and the package price is the same for all three, so there is nothing to trade off on price. The differences are range, which sensors carry over from what you already own, and whether you end up in the Alarm.com app or the Total Connect app. We pick with you on the site walk.

For a small apartment you might, and we will say so. What a kit does not give you is a monitored central station response, a permit filed, sensors placed by someone who has seen how break-ins actually happen in this area, or anyone to call when it stops working. Virginia also requires a DCJS registered business for monitored electronic security work.

Nothing is wrong with it as long as you know what it is. The equipment is not free, it is financed inside the monthly, and the total across the term usually exceeds buying outright. The part that catches people is the buyout if they move or want to cancel. We publish the price instead so the arithmetic is in front of you.

No. It is an accurate total for the equipment you selected at our published prices, which is enough to budget with, but it cannot see your building. What moves the number is the number of openings, the construction, where the panel can go and how far the outbuildings are. We establish that on a free site walk and the written proposal is the number you pay, held for 30 days.

We read it, call or email you to agree a time, and walk the property. You get a written itemized proposal, usually within a few business days. Sending a build does not commit you to anything and there is no charge for any part of that.

Because a price for a panel on its own is not a price anyone can stand behind. The panel is the cheapest part of a working system and quoting it alone would be misleading. Each package is a real, complete system, and the add-ons price honestly on top of it.

No. All three panels carry the same package price, so the choice is about range, which of your existing sensors carry over, and whether you end up in the Alarm.com app or the Total Connect app. Picking one here only records your preference for the site walk.

CMS, or Criticom Monitoring Services. It is a wholesale central station that runs 24/7 and handles signals for a large number of independent alarm companies. We are the dealer you call; CMS is the station that receives the signal and dispatches on the call list you set. It is worth asking any alarm company this question. Plenty will not name theirs, and the answer tells you whether your signal reaches a staffed operation or somebody's phone.

For central-station dispatch, yes. Monitoring runs on an initial term of one, two or three years, whichever you pick, billed monthly, and it renews for the same length unless either side gives written notice at least 30 days before the term ends. Ending a term early is chargeable. What we do not do is bury the equipment cost inside that monthly: you buy the equipment outright and own it from day one, so the monthly is monitoring and nothing else.

Often, yes. Many existing panels can be taken over and re-programmed to our monitoring rather than replaced. We check the panel, sensors and communicator first and tell you plainly whether takeover or replacement is the better spend.

Yes. Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk and most Hampton Roads cities require an alarm user permit and charge fees for repeated false alarms. We tell you which permit applies and how to file it as part of the handoff.

The panel runs on its battery and reports over cellular. That is the whole reason we build systems that way.

Yes. That is one of the most common HOA and condominium requests we take. Pool enclosures, fitness rooms, mail rooms and clubhouse doors can all run on one credential per resident, with scheduled hours and a record of every entry.

Either. Most systems we install support cards, fobs and phone-based credentials at the same time, so you can issue whichever fits the resident without changing the hardware.

Only when it is done to code. Any opening on an egress path is built for free egress, so a person inside always gets out without a credential, and magnetic locks release on fire alarm and on loss of power. We design to NFPA 101 and the Virginia USBC and note the egress strategy on the proposal.

Credentials and schedules are cached at the controller, so doors keep working. You lose remote administration and live events until the connection returns.

Single-mode (OS2) for anything between buildings or over about 300 meters, and increasingly as the default because the optics have gotten cheap. Multimode (OM3 or OM4) still makes sense for short, dense in-building runs, especially where the existing plant is already multimode.

Yes. We install, terminate, splice and test OM1 (62.5/125 µm) as well as OM2, OM3, OM4 and OM5. Plenty of Virginia buildings still have an OM1 backbone, and matching the existing plant is usually cheaper and cleaner than a partial replacement. We will tell you honestly when OM1 has run out of headroom for what you are trying to do. It carries 1 Gb to about 275 meters but only 10 Gb to about 33 meters, and we will tell you what upgrading would actually cost.

LC, SC, ST, FC and MTP/MPO, in both UPC and APC polish. Patch cords in whatever pairing the equipment needs: LC-LC, LC-SC, SC-SC, LC-ST, ST-ST, or MPO-LC breakout, simplex, duplex or armored. If your switch takes one connector and your panel takes another, that is a normal day, not a change order.

Yes. We survey the route, handle conduit or direct burial, install the entrance protection and grounding, splice and terminate both ends, and test the link end to end.

Yes, on request for any run where it is warranted, and always on outside-plant and spliced links. You get the trace itself, rather than a pass/fail.

Yes. That is the standard way we do it. Power goes to an in-wall rated recessed receptacle and the signal cable runs inside the wall in a rated pathway. Running a standard TV power cord inside a wall is a code violation and a fire risk, so we do not do it.

Yes. Brick, block, stone and tile are all normal for us. Above a fireplace we will tell you honestly whether the heat and the viewing angle make it a good idea for that specific room.

Yes. Display, camera, ceiling microphones, speakers and a control system, cabled and commissioned. We also do multi-room distributed audio for restaurants, retail and offices.

Yes, using a weather-rated outdoor display. A standard indoor TV outdoors in coastal Virginia humidity will fail, and its warranty will not cover it.