As the calendar turns over into the warmest months of the year, travel plans also begin to heat up. The advent of beach season and the end of the school year both work to get families out of the house for extended periods of time. Of course, this in turn can lead to security concerns. Comfortable weather, long days, and empty homes work to make summer peak burglary season as well as peak vacation season. In this post, we share some valuable security tips for travelers to help you secure your home during your own travels this year.
First, we’ll share some overall best pracitices to exercise while away from your home. Then, we’ll show you how we can add security system-based equipment to increase your security. Specifically, we’ll review the role of monitored fire and carbon monoxide detection to secure your home against these emergencies in your absence. Additionally, we’ll explain the uses and advantages of installing environmental sensors. Finally, we’ll also detail some smart home products that you can use to keep you connected to your home while you are away. Now, let’s dive in with a look at some overall security tips for travelers!
Travel Security “Best Practices”
Sometimes, the best security comes from those who can keep an eye on your vacant home. Telling your trusted neighbors about your travel plans allows them to stay extra vigilant in watching your home for you. Additionally, consider asking neighbors to occasionally park a car in your driveway. Doing so will give the house less of an “abandoned” look during an extended absence. Furthermore, ask anyone you’d trust with a key to occasionally stop inside the house as well. This adds both security and valuable peace mind during your travels! If you have someone checking in on the house, you can rest assured that “no news means good news.”
No matter where your warm-weather travels take you, we recommend waiting until you get home to share your adventures on social media.
In addition to inviting trusted neighbors to help you out, we also recommend keeping your travels off of social media until you return. Putting up pictures of your adventures in real time also advertises an empty home, sometimes to more people than you mean to. Finally, holding your mail during any trips you take also goes a long way towards avoiding that “empty house” look that can invite security issues. Next up, let’s look at how installing monitored fire detection can increase security in your absense.
Install Monitored Fire and Carbon Monoxide Detection
Adding monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detection creates tremendous security benefits. However, you may be asking yourself, “What exactly does it mean to add ‘monitored’ smoke and CO detection?” Well, glad you asked! Just as we can add burglary-related security sensors to your existing home security system, we can also install devices that detect smoke, excessive heat, and carbon monoxide, or “CO.” These devices can quickly catch the presence of these threats and create a siren response.
Moreover, for our moniotored security system customers, the activation of these devices also creates a fire department dispatch. This can save your home in the case of an emergency during a vacation or extended absence! Furthermore, you will also receive notification of the emergency. The extra security these devices provide makes installing them an easy decision for many homeowners. Additionally, having monitored life safety devices also triggers a home insurance discount from your insurnace company. Therefore, over a little time, these devices often pay for themselves! In this instance, the decision to install this security becomes a true no-breainer. Next up, let’s look at one more alarm-related vacation security tip.
Take Advantage of Environmental Sensors
Most alarm customers think of their security system as a tool to lower the risks posed by break-ins and sometimes fires. Obviously, these threats deserve addressing when we design any alarm system. However, we surprise many people by offering alarm sensors that offer security above and beyond burglary and life safety equipment. We also offer sensors that create alerts for environmental disasters that have the potential to cause a home major damage. These sensors can help you detect and address these issues before they create a mess that takes a significant amount of time and money to repair.
For example, our “hi-lo temperature” detectors can create a central station response if your home experiences dangerously hot or cold conditions. This can help alert you to frozen pipes or HVAC equipment failures. Additionally, we offer flood sensors that can detect the presence of water wherever we install them. As snow melts and we begin to see rainier, warmer weather on a regular basis, these sensors certainly increase in value.
As an added bonus, some of our alarm manufacturers even create sensors that detect both extremely cold temperatures and the presence of water! These contacts provide a huge amount of environmental security in one compact piece of equipment. Finding out about weather-related emergencies as soon as they occur can help you minimize the cost and effort that would go into cleaning up a potential catastrophe. Now, let’s turn our attention to one of our newest security tips for travelers in the form of adding smart security equipment.
Smart keypad locks, such as this model by Yale, allow you to use codes or a mobile device to operate your home’s locks.
Add Smart Home Security Products
For the past several years, we’ve championed adding smart home devices to enhance home security. In particular, our Alarm.com doorbell camera comes in handy this time of year. This camera sends a live video clip to your phone when it detects motion. This means that the arrival of packages — or both invited and uninvited guests — will prompt this live video feed. Furthermore, you can talk and listen through the doorbell camera as well. This allows you to give instructions to those delivering mail. Of course, it also lets you convince anyone who might take your packages that you are inside and don’t need their assistance!
We offer additional security-related smart home appliances as well. For example, smart locks allow you to grant entry to house sitters without the use of a key. Smart lights provide the ability to make it look like you’re at home by having lights turn on using either consistent or randomized schedules. Smart cameras even allow you to efficiently monitor the interior and exterior of your property. For more ideas on adding smart home security, check out our 7 Important Security Add-Ons for Your Smart Home.
Putting Our Security Tips for Travelers to Work for You
We hope that this post helps you see how we can help you secure your home during your vacations this year. Moreover, we encourage you to contact us with any questions this post may raise. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. Additionally, we also invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We offer both new and existing customers alike the opportunity to have one of our security consultants stop by and evaluate your security needs. While on site, we can address any and all of your existing security concerns. If desired, we can also make suggestions of our own based on our observations of your property.
Perhaps you already have some security measures in place, but wish to take advantage of some of the equipment described here. Or, maybe you have very little in the way of security now, and wish to get started from the ground up. Either way, we are here to help! We’ve worked with over a thousand local homes and businesses to create and implement effective and efficient security plans. Together, we can design a full system using an array of security equipment to keep you and your family as safe as possible during this travel season and all year round!