Tag Archives: Smoke

1. Often a new home will come with 120 Volt Smoke alarms with 9V battery backup and normally these are installed in the bedrooms and just outside each bedroom. These smoke alarms do not report to a central station and do not dispatch the fire department when activated.

2. New smoke alarms that have a battery life of 10 years can be purchased and these smoke alarms are made just to wake you up. These do not report to a central station. These smoke alarms normally do not interconnect and allow other smoke alarms to sound simultaneously.

3. Security system wireless or hardwired smoke detectors that tie to your alarm panel often are installed in addition to the ones listed above since they report to a central station and the fire department can be dispatched. When you have system detectors they can wake you up and they also report to the central station even when your not home so the fire department can be dispatched in the event of a fire.

4. For new construction it is recommended to install system smoke detectors in the bedrooms and outside the bedrooms to meet fire code so you can avoid having 2 or 3 different types of smoke alarms or detectors. With system detectors you only change out the large battery or batteries at the panel location not at each smoke detector for hardwired detectors.

5. Quite often your insurance company will request that system detectors be installed and if your home has fire sprinklers, insurance will also want the flow switch monitored. Quite often we can do this with a wireless system.

6. When dealing with existing homes often we will install a DMP wireless option with UL listed wireless smoke detectors. This allows us to give you the protection without the high cost of drilling or installing wiremold in an existing home. DMP high power wireless receivers are also listed for commercial fire alarm and you can install wireless pull stations, smoke detectors and other devices after a building is built.

7. Main panel batteries for system smoke detectors are normally changed every 3 to 5 years and with the wireless system smoke detectors often they will last 5-10 years depending on the batteries and model number. For the 120V smokes with 9V backup it is recommended to change the batteries every 6 months.

8. In our high altitude here in Utah it is best to use photoelectric detectors rather than ION since they work better in this environment.

Call Larry Love with Peak alarm (801) 428 1384 Larry@peakalarm.com

Larry has over 20 years in the Fire Alarm industry, he has served on a State Fire Marshal committee, is NICET II Fire Alarm certified and is a Master Fire Alarm Tech with the State Fire Marshal’s office. Larry welcomes suggestions and corrections. This article is meant as a short informative article and not all inclusive when concerning smoke alarms and smoke detectors.

When you need details about alarm systems don’t go with a cookie cutter business that does mostly wireless systems. Peak Alarm does over 50% of it’s business in the commercial field and we also do quite a bit of high end residential. We have deals for quick installations and low monitoring rates although I can get you details on high end security systems with a design team and experts that can help you with your design for a UL2050 installation or a higher end project with quality products from DMP, Bosch and other manufacturers.

Call Larry Love to set up an appointment for your detailed no cost site visit. We do it right and Peak is the only alarm company in Utah that has a full service guard and patrol division and a UL listed Central Station. Other companies third party out either the guards or the monitoring and Peak Alarm keeps it all in house.

Depending on the brand of fire alarm you have installed in your facility the cost of parts and service will vary. When you choose a proprietary many times you may end up paying higher costs.

Peak Alarm offers ongoing training programs to their 300 plus employees at four offices in Idaho and in Utah. This week the sales teams were trained on what flexibility is available to us regarding contracts, the different options and customization that our Central Station can offer to the customers and we were trained on our new initiative WHITE GLOVE TREATMENT OF CUSTOMERS AND EACH OTHER.

Peak Alarm continues to train all their departments and the new WHITE GLOVE initiative is to help step up our customer service and also treat each other with more respect. Peak also puts all their employees through FBI background checks and even local police department checks.

Some of the other important points of the training were as follows:

All 22 of those in the training answered various questions and had to get answers from others in the group to complete the surveys.

1. What do you dislike most in a sales rep? Being Pushy, High Pressure, Late and Dishonest were the top four answers.

2. When a salesperson is talking to you, what interactions make you feel uncomfortable? Lack of knowledge, talking too much without listening

3. How do you as the customer define value? Bang for your buck. Not everyone will buy the most expensive product and most won’t buy the least expensive product but customers want quality and a fair price. Many are willing to go with a solid company like Peak Alarm even if the prices are a bit higher because Peak offers a whole package of same day or next day service, UL Listed Central Station, Guard and Patrol Service and top notch sales teams that are knowledgeable.

We discussed some of the tried and true principles of sales such as A.Preliminaries (Hello etc…) B. Investigating stage – What do they want, what do they need and what is their budget? C. Demonstrating – What is the capability of the products that Peak Alarm offers and D. Obtaining Commitment in the form of a signed proposal or agreement.

We learned about the research done between larger dollar sales and smaller items and how high pressure sales techniques actually hurt your possibility of getting a commitment when dealing in larger dollar amounts. The smaller purchases that can be related to impulse buying don’t cause as much buyer remorse. Getting a bad deal on a larger product such as a car can affect more people than the customer. Often other security companies hire very young people and teach them these high pressure sales techniques so they can go out and get quick sales. These are the same companies that are being sued in several states and that have thousands of complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau.

Peak Alarm is proud that we have only had one complaint filed with the Better Business Bureau in the last 3 years as of 9/22/16 and zero complaints in the last two years.

We had a session on contracts and learned quite a bit about the ins and outs of these agreements and why we need them to protect the company and the customer.

We made long lists of items that we can improve on and among the list of items we determined that some of the most important things we all should be working on are: Being Honest at all times, Showing up early to each appointment and if we cannot then making sure we call ahead of time to let our customer know what happened and when we will arrive. Another skill that we all need to work on is COMMUNICATION. One of the most important parts of this skill is LISTENING so we learned some techniques associated with listening, body language and personalities. Product knowledge is important although we have a large team of people that can help with that and learning what our customers need and getting them pricing in a professional timely manner will make all the difference in the world. We also went over the importance of sending out hand written thank you cards.

We had a training during our two day training sessions where the sales team actually programmed a DMP security system so we could learn what the techs go through and have a better understanding of how the technical side works. Hands on training We also had a class about customer service and the options our Central Station can offer the customer. Well that is short recap of this training and then we ended with several of our team members getting awards for their efforts.

Thank you to Peak Alarm management for feeling that ongoing training is important enough to spend this much time and effort on. Call Larry Love to get more information about Peak Alarm, Pricing or to set up a tour of Peak Alarm in Salt Lake City. (801) 428 1384 Larry@peakalarm.com

BEWARE of the TOP ALARM company lists on the Internet. Many of them are just PAID advertisements.

On a recent TOP ALARM company list for Salt Lake City these are the results:

They listed a company in the number one position that is an out of state company that also provides out of state monitoring and that has over 70 complaints filed with the BBB in the last 3 years.

In number two position they listed a company that also has out of State monitoring and has over 4,000 complaints with the Better Business Bureau http://www.bbb.org

In number three position they listed another out of State company that has over 450 complaints against them on the Better Business Bureau in the last 3 years.

In fourth place they listed a Local company that has over 3,600 complaints that have been filed against them on the Better Business Bureau and they are not even BBB accredited.

Two companies that were not even listed in the Top Positions were:

Mountain Alarm which has an A+ rating with the BBB and only 2 complaints filed in the last 3 years.

Peak Alarm which has an A+ rating with the BBB and only 2 complaints filed in the last 3 years.

So to figure out why two of the actual best alarm companies in Utah were not listed is easy because they did not pay for the advertizing but if you have thousands of complaints you can still be on the top 10 or top 5 companies in Utah or Salt Lake City.

News release about Peak Alarm in Salt Lake City

Peak Alarm is on Fire and now ranked number 58th in the country by SDM Magazine in 2016. Last year Peak ranked #61 so we have moved up three spots in a year.

Contact Larry Love Larry@peakalarm.com at (801) 428 1384 for more information about Peak or pricing for your projects in Idaho and Utah.

Peak Alarm is one of the few alarm companies that also owns their own Central Station
Peak Alarm AV Division was ranked number 18 in the country last year.
Peak Alarm is the only local company of it’s type with a UL listed Central Station that is also 5 diamond certified.
Peak Alarm also has a Guard and Patrol Division and we have over 270 employees and four offices.

Peak Alarm has the ability to large commercial projects and is UL2050 listed for high security SCIFs and Secure facilities. Larry Love is trained in designing UL2050 projects and holds UL training certificates and factory training as well as NICET and State Certifications and has been in the business for over 20 years. ###

When a neighbor passes away or moves away and they are on your security emergency call list please call us right away to update your records. If you change your cell phone, or if employees have left your company and your call list is not updated please call us today to get those names, addresses and phone numbers changed.

Be aware that we have a new TEXT program where we can text those on your list at no extra charge instead of calling you. When we have specific troubles such as a low battery we can send you a text and you can decide to send us a message indicating that we should ignore the trouble signal or you can ask us to call you and we will do that too.

Peak Alarm strives to keep our records updated and we send out flyers and reminder papers for our customers to call and update their records but often we will have an alarm at someones home or business and we will be wasting time calling someone that should not be on the list or we will be wasting time trying to call a number that is no longer in service.

Normal 120 Volt smoke detectors with battery backup do not send signals to a central station that dispatches the authorities. System smoke detectors will notify the central station rather than just making noise. Normally the smoke detectors are set up just to wake you up. Sometimes people do not wake up but are overcome by smoke and they die. I like designing a security system in a home with at least one smoke detector up and one down that is tied to the system and will send signals. If you are on vacation these detectors will also notify dispatch who in turn can call the fire department.

Call Larry Love Larry@peakalarm.com (801) 428 1384 for more information and a free site visit