In today’s society you will require more and more security equipment to ensure your property and family members are safe, for every family and home owner this is a top priority.

Installing a CCTV system could assist you in gaining control and feeling more at ease at home.

There are many types of CCTV systems you could choose from. Having external cameras in housing that are very obvious to any passer by could be a great deterrent for criminals. Should they try to break in or do damage to your property despite the system being in full view, you would at least catch them in action and this would be invaluable assistance for the police.

There are also many types of covert (hidden/spy) cameras available, they come as PIR cameras, in smoke alarms, clocks etc. They are very discrete and nobody could possibly know they are being recorded unless they knew in advance about the hidden cameras.

The dome shaped camera is a very popular and can be installed both internally and externally, although some dome cameras are specifically designed for indoor use. They come both as colour cameras and day/night cameras. The day/night cameras are able to record footage even when it is dark. They images are then appearing black and white.

Once you have selected the camera types of your choice, you would have to consider which type of DVR (Digital Video Recorder) you would require. Most people would like the LAN DVR which enables you to set up the DVR on a network. You would then be able to log on from anywhere using an internet browser to view the CCTV System.

The DVR units also come with different sizes of hard drives, this determines how many days recording you would have saved on your DVR. If you set the DVR unit to motion detection, ie it only records when there are movement in front of the cameras, then you would save hard drive space. Most common sizes for a home CCTV system is 500GB – 1TB hard drive.

Finally when you have selected all the relevant equipment you require for your CCTV system you would need to decide if you have the relevant knowledge and skill to carry out the installation yourself or if you would call on an experienced CCTV installer company. I would in most cases (unless you have extensive experience of installing these systems) recommend to get quotations for having the system installed. All reputable CCTV installer companies offer a warranty period of their installation and you have somebody to call on should there ever be any questions or issues with the system you had installed.

To further extend on your security set up of your home you could also consider installing other security equipment such as Video Door Entry systems, or an alternative is the Audio Door Entry system. However the Video Door Entry has the clear advantage of actually seeing who is at the door without even having to answer. There are many ways to secure your home and I feel CCTV is a highly recommended way for anybody in the UK.