Eatons Hill is larger newer homes on hilly ground. Bigger houses mean more cameras and longer cable runs, and the slope changes where a camera has to sit to see anything useful.
The housing here is newer and bigger than the older suburbs down the hill. Two storey brick and render on blocks that are often 700 square metres and up, with double garages, and a fringe of larger acreage style properties toward the edges.
Bigger houses are not just more cameras. The distance from the far corner of the house back to wherever the recorder lives starts to matter, and on a two storey home on a slope the useful camera positions are rarely the convenient ones.
Two storey with a modern truss roof over the top floor. Cameras on the lower level generally need a wall cavity drop rather than an eave exit, which is slower work but keeps the cable out of sight, and out of sight is the whole point of paying someone to do it.
The slope is the local complication. A house sitting well above its street gives a front camera a view of car roofs instead of faces and plates. We either drop the camera lower down the driveway or set a second one closer to the street, depending on what you actually want to capture.
Cat6 per camera back to one recorder. On a larger two storey home we plan the recorder position first, because putting it at the wrong end of the house adds twenty metres to half the runs for no reason.
Runs are labelled at both ends and left with a service loop. On longer runs we keep well inside the distance Cat6 will carry power reliably. Pushing that limit is how you end up with a camera that drops out intermittently and takes a day to diagnose.
Five or six is common. Driveway and garage, front entry, both side accesses, rear yard, and often the pool gate or the shed.
On acreage style blocks the boundary is too long to cover completely and trying to is a waste of money. We cover the ways in instead. The gate, the driveway, the house approaches and any shed. That gets you the footage that is actually useful afterwards.
The same standard applies whether it is a four camera house or a sixteen camera site. Individual Cat6 runs back to the recorder, weatherproof cameras mounted and sealed properly, the recorder set up with your retention period, and the app running on every phone in the house before we leave.
Installing cameras you already own starts at $490. A four camera 4K wired system with the recorder, drive and cabling starts at $1,690 installed, and the active deterrence package with siren and strobe cameras starts at $1,890. Larger blocks, two storey homes and long cable runs add to that, which is why the quote is itemised rather than a single number.
We quote before we start and the price does not move unless you change the scope. If something on site turns out to be harder than it looked from the driveway, you hear about it before any work happens. For the full breakdown of what drives a price up or down, read what CCTV installation costs in Brisbane.
Installing security cameras in Queensland requires a security equipment installer licence, and running the cabling that connects them requires ACMA cabler registration. We hold both: QLD Security Provider Licence 4930731 and ACMA Registered Cabler A058225, with $20 million public liability cover. Ask any other quote you get for the same two numbers.
Only if it is positioned for the slope. Mounted at normal eave height on a raised block it looks down at car roofs. We either drop it lower down the driveway or add a second camera closer to the street, depending on whether you want plates or general coverage.
Usually five or six, and not spread along the boundary. Covering a long fence line properly costs a lot and rarely earns it back. We cover the gate, the driveway, the house and the shed, which is where things actually happen.
We work across Brendale and the surrounding Moreton Bay suburbs, with no travel surcharge anywhere in the area.
Worth reading if you are still deciding what to install or who to install it.
What a four camera system really costs installed, what drives the price up, and where the cheap quotes make their money back.
PlanningFour covers a standard suburban house. Here is how to work out whether yours is standard, and which positions matter most.
Buying adviceBattery and wifi cameras suit some jobs and fail badly at others. The honest comparison, including what nobody tells you about battery life.
Buying adviceThe three brands we install most, what separates them, and why the badge on the camera matters less than the sensor and the lens.
Tell us the property type and what you want covered. You get an itemised written quote, usually the same day, with the camera positions written down rather than decided on the day.