Alarms and Smart Homes for La Grange, IL

Planning security for a La Grange home

In an older La Grange house, the work starts with the woodwork. Original doors, thick casings and plaster walls are worth protecting, so we use wireless contacts and detectors wherever they do the job, and when a wire is needed we look for a path through the basement, an attic or a closet before anything else. A lot of these houses have a front porch, a side door to the driveway, a back door off the kitchen and windows at ground level in the basement, and each of those goes into the plan.

If the house has a detached garage, we talk about whether it needs its own sensor. And if you are planning a kitchen, an addition or a full remodel, that is the moment to run wire for keypads, speakers and TVs while the walls are open.

What we install in La Grange

• Burglar alarms: Contacts on every exterior door and the windows that matter, glass-break detection for rooms with lots of glass, and motion coverage on the main floor. We use 2GIG for clean wireless installs, which suits older houses, and DSC or Honeywell when the house is wired. If you want cameras, we add them as part of the security system: a video doorbell on the porch and a view of the driveway or garage, with clips in the same app.
• Monitored smoke and carbon monoxide: Smoke and heat detectors that report to a monitoring center, with carbon monoxide sensing near the furnace or boiler and the bedrooms.
• Alarm monitoring: Professional monitoring through Alarm.com over a cellular link, so a signal still goes out if the internet or the phone line drops.
• Control4 smart home: Control4 runs the music, TVs, lighting and shades. Security stays on its own Alarm.com system beside it. The two are separate, and each has its own app.
• Home theater: A basement media room, or a living room TV with the equipment hidden in a cabinet and the wires kept off the old trim.
• Pre-wire: For additions and full remodels, we run wire for keypads, sensors, speakers, TVs and the network while the walls are open.

Local considerations in La Grange

La Grange began in 1870, when Franklin Cossitt bought about 600 acres along the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy line and laid out a town around it. He named it after La Grange, Tennessee, and the village incorporated in 1879. The La Grange Village Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It covers more than a thousand buildings, most of them houses built from the 1870s to about 1930, in Queen Anne, Victorian and Prairie styles, including houses by Frank Lloyd Wright. The village has two Metra stations on the same line, at La Grange Road and Stone Avenue, and its downtown runs along La Grange Road.

The latest five-year census estimates count 15,998 people in 5,816 households, and about 82 percent of households own their home. About 68 percent of homes are detached houses, and about one in five sits in a building with five or more units. The median home was built in 1953. About 36 percent of homes predate 1940 and another 36 percent were built from 1940 through 1969, so more than seven in ten homes are over fifty years old. Four bedrooms is the most common size.

That age shapes how we work. Older houses can have doors and windows that do not close square, mixed generations of wiring and basements that were finished more than once. We test every door and window we put a sensor on, and we keep the install as quiet as the house deserves. In the apartment and condo buildings near the train, we keep everything inside your unit and follow the building's rules.

For La Grange shops and restaurants

Downtown La Grange is full of local shops and restaurants. For a storefront, we plan around closing time: an alarm the last person out can arm, monitored smoke detection, and a user code for each employee that can be shut off the day someone leaves. See business security.

ZIP code: 60525

Questions from La Grange homeowners

Our house is well over a hundred years old. Will you have to cut into the plaster?

Rarely. Wireless contacts and detectors cover most older homes, and when a wire is needed we look for a path through the basement or an attic first.

Some of our old windows and doors do not close tight. Can they still get sensors?

Usually, yes. We check how each one closes and place the sensor where it lines up every time. If a door or window needs a carpenter first, we will tell you.

We are planning an addition. When should we call you?

Before the drywall goes up. That is the time to run wire for the alarm, speakers, TVs and network, so nothing has to be fished through finished walls later.

Can Control4 run our alarm too?

No. Control4 runs your music, TVs and lighting. Your security system works alongside it in its own app. They sit side by side, so a problem with one never takes down the other.

We live in a condo near the train. Can we have a monitored alarm?

Yes. A wireless alarm for the unit, a monitored smoke detector and a camera on your own door are common choices, and we follow the association's rules.

You are in Forest Park. Do you come out to La Grange?

Yes. We plan every system in person, so we come to the house, walk it with you and go over the plan before anything is installed.

Living in one of La Grange's older homes, or planning a remodel? Phone 708-705-9665, tell us about the house, and we will set up a visit.

Call 708-705-9665Send us a message

Our office is at 7340 Harrison St, Forest Park, IL 60130. By appointment only, no walk-in visitors.

Illinois Private Alarm Contractor 124.002139. Founded in 2009.

Nearby towns we serve: La Grange Park · Western Springs · Brookfield

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