A quote written from a phone call is a guess. It is usually wrong in one of two directions: too low, and the job grows once someone is on a ladder, or too high, because whoever wrote it padded it against surprises.
A survey removes the guessing. Ours is free, and this is what it involves.
What we are actually looking at
The approaches. Where can someone get in? Not just the doors, the whole boundary, including the way people actually walk rather than the way the plan says they do.
What has to be identified, and what only has to be seen. These need different cameras in different places. A camera that watches a whole yard cannot also describe a face at the gate, and specifying one camera to do both is how systems disappoint.
Light, at the time of day that matters. A scene that is easy at noon can be very hard at seven in the evening. Where the light is poor, that changes the camera rather than the price of the same camera.
Cable routes. Frequently the largest variable in the whole cost. What is already in the walls, what can be reused, where a run has to cross an obstacle.
Power. Where it is, and where it will have to be brought.
Where the recorder lives. Somewhere ventilated, somewhere secure, and somewhere it can be reached to service. A recorder in a hot cupboard is a drive failure waiting to happen.
Network and remote viewing. If you want to see the cameras from your phone, we look at what the site's connection can carry.
What is useful to have ready
None of this is required, and the survey happens without it, but each one saves time:
- Any plan or drawing of the building
- Whether you have had a break-in or a specific incident, and where
- Who needs to see the footage, and from where
- How long you need footage kept, if you already know
- Any existing cameras or cabling, working or not
What you get afterwards
A specification with a reason attached to each part of it: what goes where, and what it is covering. A written quote. If anything in it is a choice rather than a requirement, we say so, along with what the cheaper option gives up.
Why we do it for nothing
Because a system specified without seeing the site is the main reason people end up disappointed with CCTV, and a disappointed customer is not a customer twice.
It also makes the conversation shorter. Somebody who has walked their own site with us asks better questions than somebody comparing two prices from two phone calls.
Book one, or bring your questions to the showroom in Kariakoo.
