In today’s blog, we’re going to be talking about maintenance contracts with alarm systems and helping you to decide whether having a maintenance contract with your alarm system is the right thing for you. It’s not something I can definitely say yes, you need a maintenance contract or no, don’t have a maintenance contract.

What’s right for one person is completely wrong for another. So rather than giving a definitive yes or no, I’m going to be trying to give you the pros and cons of each option and let you weigh them up for yourselves and decide what’s right for you.

So what is a maintenance contract?

Well, typically you’ll pay a monthly fee, sometimes an annual fee and for that, you’ll get maintenance call outs. If something goes wrong with your system, you can call up your company and they’ll send an engineer out to fix it. You’ll typically get spare parts included in the contract, and more often than not, you’ll get one or maybe two visits a year to check that your system’s working correctly.

So what are the pros of having a maintenance contract?

The main one is peace of mind. You’ll always know know that if something does go wrong, you’ll be able to call on someone. They’ll be there as soon as they possibly can. They’ll get it sorted out and you won’t get landed with a hefty bill because it’s included in your maintenance contract. That’s good for some people, it gives them peace of mind that they’re covered. They’ve got help at hand whenever they need it.

Obviously the downside to that is the monthly fee that you have to pay. Whatever happens, even if you don’t use the service, even if you don’t have any problems, you’ve still got to pay that monthly service fee.

So why would you not have a maintenance contract?
Well, more often than not, actually it turns out in the long run to be cheaper if you don’t because of those months where you don’t have any call outs and the months where you don’t have the maintenance visit. You’ll save money in the long-term, but you’re then gambling on whether something does go wrong and you need a new detectot, or maybe even a new siren or a new control panel, then that’s going to have to be paid for, assuming that the system’s out of warranty.

Hopefully that will help you decide whether a maintenance contract is a good idea for you or not.

And if you need any more assistance, give us a call.