Fall Home Security Checklist: 12 Jobs to Do Before the Clocks Change

Nothing about your house changes in September. What changes is how long it stands in the dark. In early September the sun is still up past 7:30 in most of southwestern Ontario. By the time the clocks go back on the first Sunday in November, it is dark before five. That is roughly three extra hours of darkness on your driveway, your back yard and your side door, every single evening, and most of it lands during the hours people are still out.

Almost everything on this list takes a few minutes and costs nothing. A couple of items are worth booking a technician for. We run through the same points on service calls from Labour Day onward, so here it is in full.

Outside the house

1. Cut back everything that grew all summer

Shrubs and cedars put on a lot of growth between May and September, and the thing they usually grow over is the thing you installed to see with. Walk the property and check two things: that nothing blocks a camera's view, and that nothing gives someone a place to work on a window unseen. Anything above window-sill height beside a ground-floor window is worth trimming.

2. Watch your own camera footage after dark

This is the single most useful ten minutes on the list, and nearly nobody does it. Pull up each camera at nine at night and actually look. Can you make out a face at the front step? Can you read a plate at the end of the driveway? A camera aimed perfectly in July can be useless in November, because the light it was relying on came from a sun that is no longer there, or because a new porch light is now blasting straight into the lens and blowing out everything behind it.

3. Fix the exterior lighting before you need it

Burned-out bulbs are easy to ignore in summer when you barely use them. Replace them now, and while you are at it, check that motion floodlights still trigger from the right distance and are not so sensitive that they fire all night. Good lighting does two jobs at once: it makes the property less appealing to walk up to, and it gives your cameras something to work with.

4. Check the garage and the side door

Front doors get the attention. Garages get the break-ins. Check that the overhead door seals fully, that the emergency release cord cannot be fished through the top of the door with a coat hanger, that the door from the garage into the house locks and is treated as an exterior door, and that the garage door opener still reverses properly on an obstruction. If you have a detached garage or shed, this is the moment to think about whether it is genuinely protected or just closed.

5. Put the summer gear away where it cannot be seen

Bikes, trailers, patio heaters, pressure washers, tools. Anything visible from the road through a bare hedge in November was hidden by leaves in July. Store it out of sight, and photograph anything valuable with its serial number before it goes into the shed. That photo is what makes an insurance claim or a police report actually go somewhere.

The system itself

6. Walk-test every sensor

Put the system into test mode, then physically open every protected door and window and walk through every motion detector. Sensors fail quietly. A contact that stopped reporting in June will not announce itself, it will simply never trip, and you will not find out until the night it mattered. If your system is monitored, call the station first so your test does not become a dispatch.

7. Change wireless sensor batteries before the cold

Cold weather is hard on batteries, and the sensors in the worst spots for it are the ones on unheated garages, sheds and porches. A battery that reports fine at 20 degrees can drop out at minus 20. If a sensor's batteries are more than a couple of years old, replace them now rather than at the end of a January driveway.

8. Reprogram anything that runs on a schedule

Lights on timers, automated locks, camera recording schedules and arming schedules were all set for summer daylight. Push them earlier. A lamp that switches on at 8:30 is doing nothing useful when the house has already been dark for three hours.

9. Update who the monitoring station calls

Your call list is only as good as the last time you looked at it. Phone numbers change, kids move out, the neighbour with the spare key moves away. Make sure the people on the list are reachable, still willing, and know the passcode. If nobody answers a verification call, the response is slower and false alarms cost more.

Winter risks that are not break-ins

10. Add freeze and water detection

The most expensive thing that happens to Ontario homes in winter is not a break-in, it is water. A pipe in an exterior wall, a failed sump pump during a February thaw, a hose bib nobody drained. A monitored freeze sensor and a water sensor cost very little next to a flooded basement, and most modern panels take them without any other changes. If you travel over the holidays, this is the upgrade to make first.

11. Test smoke and carbon monoxide detection

Furnaces come back on, fireplaces get lit, and people close their windows for six months. Test every alarm, and if your smoke detection is not monitored, ask what it would take to make it so. A monitored smoke alarm brings the fire department whether or not anyone is home to hear it, which is the entire point.

12. Book service before everyone else does

Technician calendars in our part of Ontario tighten up from late October, partly because of holiday travel and partly because the first cold snap finds every weak battery and every marginal connection at the same time. If something on this list needs a professional, book it in September or early October and you will get the appointment you want.

If you would rather we just did it

A seasonal check on an existing system takes a technician about an hour: full sensor test, battery replacement, camera aiming and night review, schedule updates and a look at whatever has changed around the property since the system went in. We will also tell you plainly if the answer is that nothing needs doing.

If your system came from another company, that is fine. Our takeover service covers exactly that, and we can usually keep the equipment you already have.

Common questions