The first thing you need for a home security system is smoke alarms, and carbon monoxide detectors: You can prevent tragedies simply by testing and maintaining your smoke alarms and practicing a fire escape plan. Although most people do not consider this a part of a home security system, it is essential to have. All smoke alarms in your house should be tested once a month, and their batteries replaced annually, and every family should develop a fire escape plan and practice it at least twice a year. Every year in the United States, about 3,000 people lose their lives in residential fires. Having properly installed and maintained smoke alarms in the home is considered one of the best and least expensive means of providing an early warning of a potentially deadly fire. So, start with your basic smoke alarm. Then, if you should choose, you can include features in a home security system such as automatic calls being placed to the fire department should the smoke alarm go off, special types of detectors, etc. the options are limitless, but for those on a budget, the basics are essential.

A carbon monoxide detector is very inexpensive and can save lives. It would be wise to spend a little for this protection against a deadly gas.

Locks and home security

The next thing you need as part of a home security system is locks. This may sound trite, but locking your doors, windows, and any other sort of entrance, and reinforcing those locks provide a measure of safety and security that you can't get without locks. Besides your basic door locks, you should install dead bolts, and interior locks that cannot be accessed from the outside. Your windows should have locks, so that they cannot be pried open from the outside, and you could even spend a few dollars on some metal or heavy wood rods to place behind the window so that even if the lock fails, the window cannot be forced open. From there, your home security systems get fancy. You can have automatic key pad locks installed where you need codes to get in. You can have sensors on the windows and doors that monitor when they are opened and alert the owner of such. You can have all sorts of levels of security, and monitoring.

Home security systems vary greatly. You can be all over the map when it comes to cost and sophistication. You could have a very basic system that simply alerts you of doors being opened by a beep, or you could have a very technical system with cameras, 24 monitoring, and codes to enter and exit the premises. You must assess your budget, and what the minimal level of security you are comfortable with, and go from there.