Your Guide to Alarm System Environmental Hazard Sensors

Criminals aren’t the only threat to your home or business. Environmental hazards like fire, water, and carbon monoxide can also pose a danger to your property and anyone inside. But unlike burglars, you can’t stop these threats from breaking in. The only way to prevent catastrophic damage is to catch environmental hazards early, before they can do much harm.

Integrating environmental hazard sensors into your alarm system is an effective way to continuously monitor your property and prevent extensive damage.

Types of Environmental Hazard Sensors

Because there are so many types of environmental hazards, there are just as many sensors to detect them. Here are the most common environmental hazard sensors that home and business owners use to protect their properties.

Smoke Detectors

There’s no reason that you shouldn’t have smoke detectors already installed in your property. They’re affordable, simple to install, and also mandatory. All Queensland households are required to have interconnected smoke alarms in bedrooms, hallways and throughout each level of the home.

There are two different styles of smoke detectors:

• Photoelectric smoke detectors: a light is aimed into a sensing chamber at an angle away from the sensor. When the sensor detects light that's reflected by smoke getting into the chamber), it trips the alarm. Photoelectric smoke detectors are best for smoldering fires with lots of smoke. These are the smoke detectors required by law.
• Ionization smoke detectors: two electrically charged plates have a slight amount of radioactive material between them, which causes the air in between to be ionized and create a current. When smoke enters the chamber, it disrupts the current and trips the alarm. Ionization smoke detectors are best for detecting flaming fires.

While you might (should) already have smoke detectors installed in your home, you can have them integrated with your existing alarm system and monitoring service for faster response times in the event of a fire.

Water Sensors

Water damage from leaks or broken pipes is one of the biggest dangers to your home or business. It can destroy your floors, walls, and ceilings; lead to dangerous mold growth; and even cause structural damage to your property. All of that adds up to one expensive repair bill. According to Chubb Australia, the average water damage claim is a whopping $30,361.

The best way to avoid costly water damage is to catch it early. Water sensors can be placed on the floor of the most at risk areas of your home or business such as the basement, kitchen, and/or bathroom. If water pools enough to reach the sensor, an alarm is triggered, and you can react accordingly before too much damage is done.

Gas Monitoring Sensors

Gas monitoring sensors are designed to detect the presence of toxic and combustible gasses like carbon monoxide and natural gas. Carbon monoxide is a highly toxic gas that’s odorless and tasteless, which makes it impossible to detect without a sensor.

Natural gas is extremely flammable. If it builds up enough inside your home or business, it has the potential to explode. Installing sensors to detect these gasses is a smart way to protect your property and those inside.

Temperature Monitoring Sensors

Some homes and businesses have items that are sensitive to extreme temperatures. Installing temperature sensors will allow you to constantly monitor the temperature of specific spaces even when you’re not around.

You can program the sensors to send an alert whenever temperatures go beyond a minimum and/or maximum. They’re great for protecting sensitive items and preventing frozen pipes (although that’s typically not a problem in Brisbane). They can also help with detecting fires that don’t produce much smoke.

Integrating Environmental Sensors with Your Existing Alarm System

Most environmental hazard sensors can be integrated with your existing residential or commercial alarm system. When an alarm is triggered by any of the sensors in your system, the alarm sounds for the entire property, ensuring that everyone can evacuate quickly and that emergency responders can arrive in a timely manner to limit the damage.

If you use an alarm monitoring service—which is always a good idea—security professionals will be able to watch over all aspects of your system, even while you’re away, to protect your property from any type of security risk. When an alarm is triggered, they’ll be able to immediately notify the proper authorities and solve the problem quickly to limit damage and expense.

Total Property Security from Four Walls

Burglars aren’t the only threat to your home or business’s security. Installing environmental hazard sensors can help to prevent damage from fire, water, and gasses as well. If you’re looking for total property security, consult the experts at Four Walls Security. We can design a customised security solution to fit your property and give you unmatched peace of mind. Contact us for a free, no obligation quote today.