A New Alarm for an Old House

[Securitas]

I am planning on adding a burglar alarm to my home and have found this site to be a wealth of information. The house is a single story, sixty year old home with a crawl space, attached garage and single pane metal framed casement windows. I currently have 15 operable windows, but was thinking of securing nine that I really do not need to open, leaving six operable windows. I have 2 outside doors and a garage door and an interior door to the garage that I am planning on wiring. I think that I can do most of the sensor wiring from the crawl space but was planning on a hybrid system for future expandability. I had a DSC system in one of my previous homes and was going to go with DSC:

3 doors
garage door
6 windows
3 motions
1 heat rise sensor

DSC 1832 Control Panel
DSC 8 zone expander Module
RFK5500 Keypad
DS835i  Motion(1)
DS820i  Motion(2)
DSC 15W Indoor Siren
SSX-51S Amseco Armored Siren/Strobe
WS4939 DSC Key Fobs (2)

I was thinking of putting the DS835i motion in the open dining /living room which will pick up a little of the kitchen as well. I was thinking of using the DS820i's for two back bedrooms that are used as an office and have my computer equipment. These rooms are about 10ft by 12ft. I could place one of the DS820i in the hallway outside of the door, which I can leave open and it would catch the back hall as well as most of one back bedroom (I wonder if that is a good idea?). I also have a long hallway that has an evaporative cooler blowing out of the ceiling in the summer, which I had thought to put a motion on but was wondering if the air movement would give me grief, so I was inclined not to put a motion there.

I was thinking of putting the exterior siren/strobe in plain sight above the garage door.

As I have Comcast VOIP for my telephone service, I was thinking of going with a cellular service for my primary. I have seen an add-in DSC board for cellular or the Universal Uplink 2500. Do any of you have a recommendation for a cellular setup?  Do these need their own power/battery backup?

I was thinking of using a heat rise sensor for fire protection.  Is that a good idea?

I welcome any feed back that you have.

[SixStringMadness]

I have to admit first off, I'm a bit out of touch with Residential Security.

With that said, I use a lot of Telguard Databurst for cellular communication.  It's GSM technology, and would operate on the respective GSM cell phone provider in your area.  (quite possible AT&T)  The do require their own power and battery back up.  However there is a DSC model, but I am not familiar with it.  More than likely it would also require it's own power and battery back up.

The TG4 is the model to use as a primary residential communicator.

[Securitas]

Thanks for recommendation on the Telguard TG4. I will check it out.

[SixStringMadness]

DSC also has a unit, I'm not sure of the part number GS3060 or something, but I'm not sure if it can be setup as a primary.

[Security101]

DSC GS3060 is correct - it can also be primary (if your central station supports/approves of that - most do). I use them regularly...

They come with a backup battery and can be configured to be powered from the alarm control aux power.

Jim

[Securitas]

Thanks for the information. The Telguard is about twice the price of the DSC GS3060, so I am thinking of going with GS3060. I will post back once I get it set up.