North Belfast
North Belfast asks for two quite different kinds of work in the same afternoon. The streets running off the Crumlin Road, the Oldpark and the lower Antrim Road are dominated by red brick terraces and inter war semis with solid walls, rear yards and entries behind them. Further up towards Cavehill and Fortwilliam the houses get larger, sit in their own grounds and often have outbuildings, garages and long driveways that the original alarm never covered.
A lot of the big Victorian and Edwardian villas along the Antrim Road corridor have been subdivided at some point, into flats, offices or shared accommodation. Those conversions are where fire detection questions usually surface, because the detection that suited one family home is rarely what a building with several separate households needs, and the original wiring routes were not planned with that in mind.
The practical detail that comes up most often here is the rear of the property. Entries and back yards are where a lot of houses are actually vulnerable, and they are also where cameras are most likely to overlook a neighbour. Getting the coverage useful without pointing it at somebody else's back door takes a bit of thought at the survey stage rather than at the end.
What can be installed here
Each of these links back to the full description of the service. What is below is how it tends to play out on North Belfast property specifically.
In a terrace the vulnerable points are rarely the front door. Rear kitchen doors, yard gates, single storey returns and the flat roofs above them come up again and again, and an alarm that only watches the hall misses all of them. Part setting is worth discussing too, so the downstairs can be protected while people are asleep upstairs without the system being a nuisance.
More about intruder alarm systemsCamera work in north Belfast splits between the tight rear entries behind terraced streets and the longer driveways and detached garages further up the hill. Both need positions chosen for a useful image at the point that matters rather than a wide view of nothing in particular, and both need care about what falls into frame beyond your own boundary. Lighting at night is usually the deciding factor.
More about cctv installationA period villa split into flats, or a house in multiple occupation, is a different fire detection problem from the single family home it started as. What is appropriate depends on the building, how it is occupied and the fire risk assessment held for it. If you own or manage a converted property here, say how many separate households there are and how the escape route works, because that is what drives the answer.
More about fire alarm systemsWhere one front door serves several flats, managed entry saves a lot of grief with keys that were never handed back. The work is in the door itself as much as the system: how it closes, how it releases in an emergency and whether it has any part to play if the fire alarm sounds. Tell Martin how many units share the entrance and whether the door is original.
More about access control systemsMK Fire & Security NI works across north Belfast from the lower Antrim Road up to Cavehill, and the same person who looks at the property is the one who quotes for it. There is nowhere to visit and nothing to collect. Describe the house or the building and Martin will tell you what is realistic.
Questions
These are the questions that come up on North Belfast properties. If yours is not here, call and ask it directly.
Not necessarily. Solid walled terraces are one of the reasons wireless and hybrid systems exist, and the choice usually comes down to how many detection points are wanted, where the panel goes and whether there are existing routes worth reusing. Martin can explain which approach suits your house once he has seen the layout.
Frequently yes, and rear entries are one of the more useful places to put one. The care needed is in the angle, because an entry is shared and the neighbouring yards and back doors sit right beside yours. A position that covers your own gate and yard, rather than the length of the entry, is usually both more useful and easier to justify.
That is decided by the building and by the fire risk assessment held for it, not by a rule of thumb. The number of separate households, the escape route, whether it is licensed and how the floors are separated all matter. Describe the property when you enquire and Martin will tell you what he would want to look at before quoting.
Yes. The whole of north Belfast is covered, from the terraced streets around the Oldpark and Crumlin Road up through Fortwilliam to the properties below Cavehill. The type of property changes a lot across that ground, so it is worth describing yours rather than assuming.
They can often be brought into the same scheme, though a detached outbuilding raises questions about power, how the signal or cable gets there and how the building is used. Say whether there is a supply already in the garage when you enquire, because that is usually the deciding detail.
It is worth describing. False activations usually trace back to a detector in the wrong place, a fault developing in an ageing system, or a system that was never set up for how the house is now used. Whether that is a repair or a case for replacement depends on the age and make of the equipment.
Part setting is a standard idea in alarm design and it is one of the things worth agreeing before the detection is positioned rather than afterwards. Where detectors go depends on which areas you want live overnight, so mention it early if it matters to you.
No. Small commercial units are a normal part of the work, and the questions are the same as for a larger premises: what you are protecting, who needs access, what happens out of hours and what the building will allow. Describe the unit and what is in it.
Sometimes, and sometimes the existing recorder or cabling makes it a poor idea. It depends on the make, the age, how the current cameras are connected and whether the recorder has capacity. Photographs of the recorder and one of the existing cameras usually answer it quickly.
That depends on what the job involves and what is already booked in, so it is discussed when the quotation is agreed rather than promised in advance. Nothing on this site commits to a call out window or a start date, because those depend on the week.
A description of the property, your postcode, whether it is a home, a let or a business, and what you want the system to do. Photographs of the rear of the house or of any existing panel help. Call 028 9600 5164 or use the form on this page and it goes straight to Martin.
Request a Quote
Send the postcode, the type of property and a short description of what you need. Martin will use that to discuss the requirement and the next appropriate step.
