Home Security Systems

During an extended power failure most people want their security systems to remain fully functional.

Security systems are also often prioritised when people are selecting which parts of the home should be converted to solar power, to become completely self reliant in that regard.

Luckily, most security systems do not consume a lot of energy each day, so their energy supply requirement is not very onerous.

Becoming More Resilient

Most alarms systems and automatic gates have batteries installed that will last a few hours without mains supply. The simplest thing you can do to become more resilient is to increase the size of those batteries so they can last a few days instead of a few hours. You also might then need to install larger battery chargers to charge the bigger batteries (although the existing battery chargers may be adequate).

Converting Security Systems to Solar Power

You could also use solar power for your security systems. You could incorporate your security systems into a larger home solar system that supplies power to large portions of your home, or, alternatively you could just use a small solar system to charge those individual batteries used by your security system only.

In that case, all you will need is a solar panel large enough to recharge the alarm battery in a single day (try using our small solar system calculator for this – a “normal” home alarm system and electric gate each use about 300 Wh per day). In addition to the solar panel, you will need a charge controller to regulate the power received from the solar panel.   This may be a very simple system that might not be very expensive.

Designing  Your Home Security System

Effective home security needs to be systematically designed to provide adequate defence against intrusion. Like many things at one’s home, your home security systems may be the result of an evolution process which may not have been holistically planned, but rather just grew in stages as the need occurred. This may mean that your home security could benefit from a review.

One should design your home security system around The Basic Elements & Principles of Home Security.