Home Security and Smart Homes for Western Springs, IL
Western Springs is a village of family homes. Nearly every household owns its house, almost all of them are single-family, and most were built from the 1940s through the 1960s, with older homes near the water tower and the train and plenty of houses that have been added onto since. We plan monitored security around the way your family uses the house, then add the Control4 and theater pieces you want, all from our office in Forest Park.
A local Forest Park team serving Chicagoland and the western suburbs since 2009. Real people answer the phone, and we plan every system with you in person.
Planning security for a Western Springs home
In a family house, the alarm has to fit the routine. Kids come in through the garage or the back door, not the front. A dog may have the run of the main floor. Someone is often up early or home late. So before we pick sensors, we ask who uses which door, when the house is empty and where you want to arm the system at night. Then the plan follows: keypads by the doors you really use, a motion sensor placed or set so a pet does not set it off, and sensors on the openings that matter.
Many homes here have been added onto, so the newer part and the original part can be built very differently. We cover both, and if you are planning an addition now, we run wire while the walls are open.
What we install in Western Springs
- Burglar alarms: Contacts on every exterior door, including the garage entry, glass-break detection for family rooms with lots of glass, and motion coverage that suits a house with pets. We use 2GIG for clean wireless installs 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 and a view of the back yard or driveway, 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 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 family room built for movies and games, or a TV and speakers in the main family room with the equipment in a closet.
- Pre-wire: For additions, rebuilds and full remodels, we run wire for keypads, sensors, speakers, TVs and the network while the walls are open.
Local considerations in Western Springs
Western Springs was settled along the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy line, and early residents included a group of Quakers led by Thomas Clarkson Hill. The village incorporated in 1886. Its most familiar landmark, the limestone water tower built in 1892, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and now houses the historical society's museum. The village sits between Ogden Avenue, the Tri-State Tollway, 55th Street and Willow Springs Road, with a Metra station in the center of town.
The latest five-year census estimates count 13,446 people in 4,471 households, and about 96 percent of households own their home, one of the highest shares in the area. About 89 percent of homes are detached single-family houses. The median home was built in 1961. Nearly half of all homes date from 1940 through 1969, and about 23 percent predate 1940. Four bedrooms is by far the most common size, and the median home has about eight rooms.
So most of our planning here is for a family home of a certain age: a house from the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s, often updated, sometimes with an addition, with a basement and an attached or detached garage. Older wiring and finished basements are common, and so are families who want to check the house from work or from a game across town.
For Western Springs shops
Downtown Western Springs is small and walkable around the train station. For a shop or office there, 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: 60558
Questions from Western Springs homeowners
We have a dog. Will it set off the alarm?
Not if we plan for it. We choose and place motion sensors with your pet in mind, and the doors and windows stay protected either way.
Our kids come home before we do. How do they get in?
Each family member can have a user code, and the app shows you when the system was disarmed and by which code, so you know they got home.
We added on to the house. Does the addition need anything special?
Only that it gets covered too. The newer part of the house often has more glass and different construction, so we plan it on its own and tie it into the same system.
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 are about to remodel. 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.
You are in Forest Park. Do you come out to Western Springs?
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.
Raising a family in Western Springs, or planning an addition? Phone 708-705-9665, tell us how your household uses 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 · Hinsdale · Brookfield