Working with your central monitoring station: passcodes, keyholders, and what operators can do

I spent more than ten years in a UL/ULC-listed central station handling residential, commercial, and fire accounts. Most frustrating calls, for customers and for operators, came down to the same few things. Getting them right before something happens makes every alarm, trouble signal, and service call go more smoothly.

Have your passcode ready, and give everyone their own

When you call the central station, or when an operator calls you about an alarm, the first thing they will ask for is your passcode (sometimes called a verbal password or code word). It is not your keypad code. Operators can only discuss the account, cancel an alarm, or make changes with an authorized user who gives a valid passcode. Without it, they cannot help you, even if you are standing in the house.

• Every person on the account should have a unique passcode. When everyone shares one word, the station cannot tell who cancelled an alarm or asked for a change, and you cannot remove one person's access without changing it for everyone.
• Keep it somewhere you can find it under stress, not only in your head. People forget their passcode most often in the middle of an alarm.
• Do not use a word a stranger or an intruder could guess from what is around them, such as a pet's name on a food bowl or the street name.
• If someone moves out, leaves the company, or should no longer have access, call and have their passcode removed.

Choose keyholders who will actually respond

Keyholders (also called the call list or emergency contacts) are the people the station calls when an alarm comes in, in the order you give. Their job is to answer, verify the situation, and go to the property if needed. Pick them carefully:

• Choose people who are responsible and reachable, who live or work close enough to respond, and who have agreed to do it.
• Make sure each keyholder has their own passcode and knows what to do when the station calls: answer, give the passcode, and decide whether the alarm is real.
• Keep phone numbers current. A keyholder whose number changed is the same as having no keyholder.
• Tell your keyholders if you are travelling, so they expect a call.

If the station cannot reach you or any of your keyholders, the authorities will be dispatched. That is the purpose of a monitored system, and operators will not skip it because nobody picked up. Unanswered calls are a common way an innocent trigger, such as a pet, a draft, or a forgotten code, ends up as a police or fire response.

False fire dispatches are costly

A fire alarm signal is handled as a life-safety emergency. If it cannot be verified as false through the call list, the fire department is sent. Many municipalities charge for false alarm responses, and a false fire dispatch can be especially costly. You can avoid most of them:

• Make sure the station has accurate contact information and that your keyholders answer.
• Put the account on test before anyone works on the system, especially smoke, heat, or CO devices. See how to put your alarm system on test.
• Have nuisance smoke detectors (near kitchens or bathrooms, or past their replacement date) looked at instead of living with them. See common causes of false alarms.

The station will not ignore alarms without written authorization

When a sensor keeps tripping, customers often ask the operator to just ignore it, or to put the system on test until they can get it fixed. The station will not automatically put your system on test or stop responding to alarms, even if the same zone goes off again and again, unless you have given written authorization ahead of time. A repeating alarm can be a real break-in or fire, and the station has to treat it that way until you have taken responsibility, in writing, for it not doing so.

If you have a faulty zone, the better fix is to bypass that zone at the keypad until it is repaired, so the rest of the system stays protected and monitored.

How the station decides which alarm comes first

When your alarm goes off, the signal does not go straight to whichever operator is free. It is placed in a priority queue with every other signal coming in:

1. Fire and life-safety alarms take precedence over everything else.
2. Burglary alarms come next.
3. Lower-priority signals, such as troubles, power failures, and low batteries, follow.

UL-rated systems always get priority. An account with a UL-certificated system, common for commercial and fire installations, is handled ahead of a comparable signal from a system without that rating.

During severe weather, the queue gets long

Storms, ice, and widespread power outages can flood a station with signals all at once: power failures, low batteries, communication troubles, and alarms from wind and lightning. Operators still work them in priority order. Fire alarms, life-safety situations, and freezer or temperature alarms come first. Many low-priority signals, such as AC power loss and most trouble conditions, are just that: low priority. They will be handled, but it may take longer than usual.

If your system is showing a trouble rather than an alarm during a storm, you usually do not need to call. See what happens to your alarm in a power outage for what to expect while the power is off.

A quick checklist

• Every authorized user knows their own passcode and can find it quickly.
• The keyholder list is current, in the right order, and everyone on it has agreed to respond.
• You know how to put the account on test, and you do it before any work on the system.
• If you want the station to handle a zone differently, you have arranged it in writing in advance.