CCTV & Alarm or neither - Detached garage workshop security

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How about don't be seen, leave no trace of what you do, and hide so they never know if you're in there or not.
They are smarter than you give em credit for.
 
Good detterents are making sure the area is fully illuminated so any would be scum have nowhere to hide and security hardware that looks like it means business and to get past will create a lot of noise. Concealed locks and hinges make things harder and quality padlocks and clasp are essential, look at products from Abloy. Security is a process of applying layers of measures, anything to slow the scum from getting your goods. Think of using Smartwater on all your power tools and make sure you have notices that you are using Smartwater clearly visable as this can deter. Also look at access and egress points around your property, scum like to have an easy getaway if they are disturbed, one way in/out is not good and here the right plants can help.
 
we need to view our security situation as a potential thief or vandal would. Imagine viewing your property as a thief would. You're looking for a building that might house desirable valuable items and assessing what the risks might be of being caught and apprehended .
Having security equipment on show might tell a thief that you are protecting something valuable .......but it also tells a thief that you take security of your possessions very seriously. A thief can see your cameras etc but will also weigh up the probability that you might also have other unseen security . If it looks like hard work or too risky they will move on

I have a simple system of Tapo C100 1080 HD Wireless cameras which I can monitor at any time with my mobile or Samsung Tablet using a free downloaded APP. The cameras cost around £25.00 each and you start with one camera and can add up to 5 x more I believe. I can open the APP and view my cameras one by one or all together from my armchair whilst watching tv or in bed at night. They have built in 2x way audio , motion detection and alarm and can store video and still images to a Mini SD card inserted into each camera.

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Thanks for that Johnny! I have been pondering on getting the camera/app version but, due to total ignorance, keep procrastinating as I'm not sure how important the upload speed is (think <1)! Could you enlighten me please? There seems to be no mention in the specs. Cheers!
 
Best thing is not to let them get in in the first place. I have beam alarms, and narrow beam pir. Just position them to cover the approaches to the building. if you get within about 8 feet of the building all he'll breaks loose with a large airhorn going off. If you are worried about false alarms then you can get versions where two beams are used, and have to be broken simultaneously, saves it going off if a bird flies through the beam. Having said that the only false alarm I have had is when I forgot to turn it off and set it off myself! I have a red flashing led, and a very prominent Chubb battleship type padlock on the door. As others have said the trick is to simply make your premises less attractive to have a go at than someone else's. It's a brave burglar who is going to hang about when an alarm is already going off before they have even reached the building.
 
If you don't want to pay the silly prices for purpose made narrow beam pir then you can easily make your own. Buy a regular pir, oblong black box with a hemi -spherical detector. Now go to screw fix or similar and buy some black 25mm straight plastic conduit joiners. Make a former with a right angled corner and as thick as you want the slot to be, about 8mm works well. Now heat up one end of your conduit joiner with a hot air gun until it becomes soft and insert your former, so you turn it from round to a fishtail shape. Once it has cooled simply glue it on the pir and you now have a narrow field of view. In practice I find they have a range of between 8 and fifteen feet, and about fifteen feet wide. I place these horizontally at about waist height. My dogs can run around under the beam without setting it off, but a person walking past will do. My buildings are clad in shiplap, so I just put the sensors below the overhang of the board above, they are not noticeable even in daylight.
 
Thanks for that Johnny! I have been pondering on getting the camera/app version but, due to total ignorance, keep procrastinating as I'm not sure how important the upload speed is (think <1)! Could you enlighten me please? There seems to be no mention in the specs. Cheers!
not sure what you mean about upload speed ?
These cameras store the video and still images on their own Mini SD card just like your mobile phone so there is no uploading to Cloud or any online storage facility . The video image that you see is sent wirelessly through your WiFi router to your mobile or tablet in real time with a slight lag of about +- 1 second .
I'd imagine you could probably record the video on your mobile or tablet too but its so much more convenient to let the camera store it on the SD card then just retrieve the SD card and insert in your mobile or tablet to download.

At £25.00 or so for a stand alone full 1080 cctv camera system with built in recorder, PIR, Alarm, notifications to your mobile and 2x way audio its a fantastic solution
 
I really just want a loud af horn to go off if the door is open without being disabled first. Like a car alarm.
 
not sure what you mean about upload speed ?
These cameras store the video and still images on their own Mini SD card just like your mobile phone so there is no uploading to Cloud or any online storage facility . The video image that you see is sent wirelessly through your WiFi router to your mobile or tablet in real time with a slight lag of about +- 1 second .
I'd imagine you could probably record the video on your mobile or tablet too but its so much more convenient to let the camera store it on the SD card then just retrieve the SD card and insert in your mobile or tablet to download.

At £25.00 or so for a stand alone full 1080 cctv camera system with built in recorder, PIR, Alarm, notifications to your mobile and 2x way audio its a fantastic solution
Sorry, I'm thinking about notifications and viewing what the camera sees when I'm away from home?
 
I really just want a loud af horn to go off if the door is open without being disabled first. Like a car alarm.
Just get an airhorn like the ones on trucks, a plunger switch and a latched relay, so if it goes off it can't be stopped by just shutting the door again. Then you will need a power supply and a way of turning it on and off, which can be a key operated switch, a remote blipper or whatever. But as I said earlier why let them get in in the first place. By the time they have opened your door they've probably already wrecked it, and you have all the cost and aggro of repairing it.
 
Sorry, I'm thinking about notifications and viewing what the camera sees when I'm away from home?
you don't want much for twenty five quid do you !? 😁 😁 ;)

I haven't looked into that aspect yet but it is something I would find useful too. Presumably as it sends video and alarms wirelessly to your devices via your router it must be possible I should have thought.

I used to use the BT100 (open reach) cameras which you could view on a Windows laptop or PC so remote internet viewing was easy but BT cancelled their online support for the camera and switched to Android instead leaving me with 6x completely useless cameras barstewards
 
All security controls are technical, administrative, or physical.

Regardless of the class, any specific control is either preventative, detective, corrective, or compensatory.

A CCTV system or an alarm are a technical detective controls.

You should consider any investment along those lines.

Preventative Physical Controls including bright lights, big locks, visible bars on windows, and a safe or cage to keep tools in overnight.
Administrative Physical controls would be securing or removing tools every evening.
An administrative compensatory control would be an insurance policy - a policy for a workshop where all the preventative physical and administrative controls are in place should not be a prohibitive cost.

My honest opinion is that physical preventative controls offer the best return on investment. Big bars, strong doors, bright lights, loud horns... Deter the thief from entering your property and secure your property better once they are in.

What physical preventative controls can you implement inside the workshop? Can you build a cage or safe to keep your expensive small tools? Can you bolt larger-yet-movable tools to the floor? I'm thinking P/T, drill stands. etc. Can you spray all your tools with microdots and put a notice up saying you've done so?

After that, you're into administative preventative controls - putting expensive tools away. Not leaving them in the workshop overnight. Don't leave the workshop unlocked when you go for lunch.

Follow that with administrative compensatory controls to address the residual risk - assume that someone will in fact break through your other controls and cause financial damage, what level of insurance do you need to cover that? By specifically excluding the risks of leaving tools lying around unsecured, or leaving the doors unlocked, you should be able to bring down the cost.

Technical dectective controls such as CCTV and Alarms are not very useful in the absence of a response. In commercial premises this would be a private security contractor who is paid to respond to these things. In the public domain, this would be the police, who usually have better things to do than respond to alarms at workshops at night where there is limited to zero risk to life and limb.

Wow bit of an essay, but hope that helps.
 

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