Strathpine is the next suburb over from Brendale and shares our postcode, so it is a short run for a quote or a service call. No travel surcharge, and cameras wired properly rather than stuck on with plugpacks.
Strathpine splits into two kinds of work. There is the housing either side of Gympie Road, mostly lowset brick and tile from the sixties through the eighties on blocks around 600 square metres, plus a growing number of townhouses and unit blocks closer to the station.
Then there is the retail and office side around the shopping centre and the Gympie Road strip. Those jobs want a camera over the counter, one on the rear door, one on the staff car park, and a recorder that holds enough footage to go back a month when someone finally notices something is missing.
The older brick and tile houses are straightforward. Tiled roof, decent cavity, timber trusses, and a manhole somewhere central. That combination is what lets us run every cable through the roof and drop it down where it is needed, with nothing visible outside except the camera itself.
Townhouses and units are the awkward ones. Shared walls, body corporate rules about drilling and external fixtures, and often no roof access of your own. They can still be done well, but the camera positions get decided by what you are actually allowed to touch, so that conversation happens before we quote rather than on the day.
Every camera gets its own Cat6 run back to the recorder. No cameras chained off each other, no power packs hidden in the roof, and no flat ribbon cable stapled along a fascia board. The Cat6 carries both power and video, so a camera playing up means one cable to test instead of two to hunt down.
In a shop or office the recorder goes in a lockable cabinet, not on a shelf behind the counter. The first thing anyone who knows what they are doing goes for is the recorder, and footage of someone walking off with the recorder is not much use to anybody.
On a standard Strathpine house, four cameras covers it. Driveway and street, front door, the side gate where the bins go, and the back patio. The side gate one earns its keep more than people expect, because side access is how most people get into a back yard.
For a shop the count is usually a little higher. One on the entry looking at faces rather than the tops of heads, one over the register, one on the back door, and one on the loading area or staff park. Getting a usable face shot is about mounting height and angle, not megapixels, which is why we set the entry camera lower than people assume.
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.
Usually within a couple of days, and same week almost always. We are based in Brendale, which is the next suburb, so there is no travel charge.
Usually yes, but the body corporate decides what you can fix to the outside of the building and where cable can run. Check with them first. Once we know what is allowed we can tell you what coverage is realistic.
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.