Admittedly, I'm more interested in a solid house than in bells and whistles that can break down and become outdated, but a security system isn't something upon which I'd spend money. Consider: A security system won't stop burglars from breaking into your house. It'll just alert the police that it has happened. Most burglaries happen FAST, and by the time the police arrive, the crooks are already gone. You MIGHT have pictures of the thieves, but more likely they'll have been smart enough to cover their faces. The biggest thing a security system is likely to give you is a discount on your insurance. Do the math and see how long it'll take you to "make back" the upfront cost of installation, and make an informed decision. And I would NEVER go for the type of system that has visual monitoring inside my house. Do I want the people at ADT (or whatever) knowing when I'm home? If I were a thief, I'd get myself a job at ADT and call my thief-friends, saying, "Hey, the Johnsons are gone. Here's their address." The poster who commented that everyone lives in a "safe neighborhood" . . . until something happens is right. Anyone can ride through your safe neighborhood -- even if it's gated. My oldest child was good buddies with a kid who lived in a gated community, and I never had any trouble driving her over to the friend's house . . . and getting in without help from her friend's grandparents. If I can do it, certainly a dishonest person can figure it out. Instead of spending on a security system, I'd look into the low-tech methods of home security, which are more likely to PREVENT the burglary: - Focus on a good, solid front door: Not too much glass and a deadbolt lock. Though they're lovely, avoid sidelights; they open you to danger in two ways: 1) a thief can break them, reach in and open your deadbolt. 2) if you have only a 2x4 between the door and the sidelight, a strong thief with a ram of some sort can break it and enter your house. Also choose a door that's visible to the road -- avoid plans that place your front door "deep" in a cave-like entry, and avoid landscaping that hides your door from the street. Though you want a strong front door, it's not the place the thieves are most likely to break in: They don't want a nosy neighbor to see them busting down a door, and they don't want the damaged door to sit there all day declaring, "A crime has been committed here!" - Don't neglect the back door. Thieves like to ring the front bell to see if you're home, but they're then likely to go around the back (where it's more private) to break in. Plus your back door is more likely to be a sliding glass door or a French door. Sliding glass doors are pretty thick, and it takes a strong thief to put a piece of firewood through them -- though it is possible. French doors tend to offer less security. Lots of people have good, solid deadbolts on the front door . . . but less security on the back door. And if you have a privacy fence (or a deep covered porch) in your back yard, the thief can probably go about his business in comfort, knowing that the neighbors aren't going to see him breaking your windows or back door. No matter what you do, your back door is probably your weakest point -- and we have to balance comfort and light with security concerns. - If you have an attached garage, put effort into that entrance. An experienced thief LOVES to get into a garage (probably through a man-door that has only a piddly little lock) because then he can take his time breaking in through your kitchen door. No neighbor will see him in the privacy of your garage! No lie: My in-laws bought a house that had ONLY an interior door -- yeah, just like your bedroom door! -- separating their kitchen from the garage. They changed that before they moved in. The point: Be sure your garage is just as secure as your house, and you have a deadbolt on your kitchen entrance door. - If your doors are secure, the thieves are likely to go on down the road to someone else's house, but don't neglect your first-floor windows -- especially if they're the tall type that a person could potentially step through easily. Be sure they're locked. Plant sticky-bushes like Holly or roses under them to make thieves reconsider entering that way. Or consider decorative bars, though that could constitute a fire hazard. - Do you own a ladder? Be sure it's locked up in your shed or garage. Don't offer thieves a way to get to your (often less protected) upstairs windows. - Try to plan your house so that your big-screen TV isn't visible from the front door (i.e., through sidelites or to a person who might be delivering packages). Don't give thieves a reason to choose you. - A safe inside the house will deter even experienced robbers. They want to get in and out of your house quickly. They're wise to ideas like hiding your money in the freezer, and they know that if you have a safe, it's probably in your master closet . . . but they're going to grab your electronics, guns, medicines . . . and GET OUT rather than wasting their time with a safe they probably can't enter anyway. A safe set into the floor or built into the wall can't easily be carried away to be opened later at their leisure. A safe is relatively inexpensive, and it's a one-time cost. - Automatic lights are inexpensive to install (the one in my pantry cost about $15, though exterior quality would cost more) and don't require monthly fees. No thief wants lights, and a light coming on suddenly inside the house and outside the house might convince the would-be-thief that someone is in the house (even if they aren't opening the door). Most thieves want in and out of the house FAST, and they don't want to meet any homeowners. - Plenty of studies have shown that a dog is the best deterrent to a break-in. Not everyone is interested in owning a dog and not every dog is a real deterrent, but just the presence of a dog will make many thieves go on down the road to another house. - If you have lots of nice steal-able stuff, increase your insurance. It's all replaceable. Most of the time people who rob individual homes are small-time crooks who are looking for things that're easy to sell: Electronics and guns. And drugs. LOTS of home burglaries are committed by people who are on drugs, and they'll clear out your medicine cabinet. But few home robberies are personal: That is, few robbers specifically know that you have ______, and they're going to come steal it. - Consider putting up fake cameras or fake security system stickers. You can buy some fairly good fake things that'll deter the thieves, and that's the real goal. Remember: Most robberies are crimes of opportunity. Most of us will never be targeted specifically; rather, the thieves will look at a row of houses and pick the one that looks easiest. If you offer some solid resistance, they'll move on to easier pickings. And most robberies are FAST -- less than 10-15 minutes.

We, too, have had an ADT system for about 17 of the 20 years we've lived here. It is monitored 24/7, but not by the police -- it's monitored by the ADT folks. I don't know how much it costs per month because Hubs pays that bill, but I know it's not bad. (Of course, peace of mind and security are worth any price they'd charge.) As for keeping windows open -- the way that a window is monitored is that there is a contact point on the inside of the frame, and a corresponding contact point on the part of the window that moves. When the two points are in contact with each other, everything is fine. When they lose contact with each other, it sets off the alarm. So, if you want to have a window open, the alarm installer can put the inside-the-frame contact point high enough to allow the window to be open enough to allow air/breezes in, but not high enough that someone could crawl through the space and into your home. Motion detectors can also be set so that the beam is low enough to catch a human going, for example, up the stairs, but high enough that your animals can roam through the house without being caught by the motion detector's beam. As Lynn just mentioned, if for some reason our alarm goes off (say, for example, Hubs opens the door from the breakfast nook to the back deck, but forgets to turn off the alarm), and we enter the proper code to turn off the alarm, all is well. If the wrong code is entered, ADT will immediately call us and ask for a preestablished code word. If we say the right word, all is well. If not, the police/sheriff are notified. If we don't answer the home phone, ADT will call our cell phones. We have two control pads for the system -- one is near the front door, and the other is upstairs in the master bedroom. When you enter the house when the alarm is on, you have a preset amount of time to enter the code to turn it off. We have plenty of time to come into the house from the garage and get to the keypad by the front door. We wanted the extra keypad in the master bedroom in case, Heaven forbid, we thought someone was attempting to break into the house during the night. We don't want to have to go downstairs to enter panic codes into the system. We live in an unincorporated area of Sacramento County, so in our case, the Sheriff's Office would be notified. And, we have to pay $75 to them every other year for an "alarm permit."

Is that not the norm? Depends who the builder is, who actually owns what and local business practice. As a builder, when I built custom houses on my land, in fact, not a single cent of the buyers went into the build. The deposit was kept separate in trust until the house was completed and title changed hands. So, when I got smart, buyers were restricted to a few set times. That was the common practice of infill builders and of all the subdivision builders I knew of. When I acted as a hired gun to build the house with the buyer's money on their land, a different story. I only asked that they direct any issues to me, not to the individual subs, let alone the tradespersons onsite. I used to hear stories about how people who had contracted for subdivision homes would visit "their home" under construction hoping to "help" paint, cleanup or some such. That some builders seem to go along with this still boggles the mind. (I once toured a chicken breeding operation. And despite all the KFC I've consumed, before I was allowed into the barn, I had to undress, shower and don the provided suit and high boots.)

7.1 was interesting when Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio came out as they were the first seemingly lossless audio codecs that came out for movies. Practically speaking only about 3-5% of a typical movie soundtrack uses these surround back speakers as they are called so you won't miss much if you don't put them in. Those were back in the days before video streaming really took off. Once it did, high end multi-channel audio has taken a back seat to the convenience of downloading video ever since. 5.1 surround sound is all we put in the majority of spec homes we wire up, and honestly it is more than enough for most folks. There are new audio Codecs out there like Dolby Atmos, DTS X and Aura 3D that are most commonly found on 4k discs. They add a few more height and/or overhead channels to the surround sound experience, immersing you in sound. If you did want to be completely current on your home theater setup and use it all the time, these new codecs would be worth exploring. Otherwise stick with 5.1. It's a good idea to wire back your audio, surveillance, structure wire, network wire and whatever other low voltage wiring you have in your home to one central location regardless of the system you ultimately chose to hook up. That gives you the ability to repurpose wiring as your needs change. Beware of ABUS audio systems-- they are tempting as they are cheaper than traditional audio systems. However the speaker wire is run to and powered by the keypad instead of an amplifier so once you install one, you can only go with other ABUS systems in the future. That will severely limit your equipment choices. Don't spend much on speakers for distributed audio zones (a.k.a. , zones where you are listening to music while doing something else) as you will be distracted when you are listening most of the time. Additionally, unless you are the type of person that will sit down and absorb an entire album of high-res multi-channel audio, you won't notice the difference. On the cameras you do have to define what you mean by "better." For example, both analog and HD cameras have 1080p offerings for an HD picture-- is that what you mean? For all locations between equipment location and TV location, run conduit for Low voltage cabling-- 1"-1.5" in size. AV cable types and standards do change so running the conduit will allow you to easily fish in new cables when they are needed. It is tough to bury a cable bundle between equipment and TV that will last awhile. 16AWG is fine for most contractor grade distro audio speakers unless you have a huge house. I would run 14AWG just for the theater as it will give you more options for speakers when it comes time to install them. Given this, running a bigger gauge wire is not going to hurt anything and will likely marginally improve performance. The main downside is that it costs more. However, a $600 increase based on what you described is excessive-- the labor is the same to install either. Also I would also spend a bit more on your home theater speakers than you do on your distro audio speakers if you are into the surround sound thing. If not then +1 on the Sonos Playbar and Wireless sub. Sounds great, easy to setup and easy to control.