A Little Tip

We here at ICU just wanted to give out a couple quick tips when it comes to surveillance system maintenance and use.

For a majority of people when a surveillance system is installed it provides a sense of relief and security (which is exactly what it should do), but the unfortunate truth is that a lot of the time that relief then turns to blind confidence and neglect; this is a pitfall that needs to be avoided.

When we speak of blind confidence it is in reference to peoples sudden lackadaisical attitude towards their basic security procedures.  This can include making sure doors are locked, employees are still held accountable through checks and balances, and other routine security measures that would have been taken prior to the installation.  These are still very critical measures that should always be taken and adhered to for the best possible security and safety of your home or business.  Basically a surveillance system is there to help protect you after something occurs or when you have the need to monitor your facilities.  It is not meant as a supplement to your other security practices, but rather as a companion that works in conjunction with those systems.

Now as far as neglect is concerned, this relates to the attitude of install and forget.  People tend to get surveillance installed and then completely neglect the system until they need to review footage.  This occasionally can be met by a failure within the system that leads to an inability to retrieve said footage.  This can be avoided through simple awareness and maintenance.  The easiest way to avoid this downfall is to simply check your surveillance system periodically and ensure it is functioning normally.  This can be achieved by just looking at every camera to make sure a video feed is present and then checking that your recent files have been recorded, cataloged, and stored properly.  This then can lead into the maintenance aspect.  Now let’s make it clear we are not expecting your average consumer to perform complicated maintenance of any kind, but rather very basic maintenance that will help avoid problematic scenarios.  This includes making sure your camera isn’t covered in spider webs, dust, or other debris.  Keeping the area your DVR is stored in clean and dust free or just doing a visual inspection of the system to make sure nothing looks out of place or degraded.

By keeping all of this in mind and doing the various checks of your system, you can easily help avoid 90% of problems you might face down the road.  Additionally should you denote a problem or issue within your system that you can’t solve on your own, it will allow you to contact your installer to get the problem resolved before it becomes a critical issue.