Home Security Systems in Orange, CA
Installation, 24/7 UL-listed monitoring, and a city that asks for your call list instead of a permit fee.
Anaheim office, fifteen minutes away
UL-listed monitoring, every day
Serving Southern California
Licensed by the State of California
Orange is about 139,000 people across twenty six square miles, and its protected districts change what you are allowed to fix to the outside of a house depending on which street you live on. Old Towne is a protected historic district with its own design standards, three Eichler tracts were given their own standards in 2018, and roughly six in ten households own the home they live in. The alarm rules are unusually straightforward as well. There is no permit to buy and nothing to renew. What Orange asks for instead is more useful to everyone: the names of the people who can actually get into your house.
Orange asks for your call list instead of a permit fee
Orange is the only city we cover that asks you to file a contact list with the city instead of buying a permit.
Orange runs no alarm permit scheme at all. Chapter 9.04 of the Orange Municipal Code is titled False Alarms rather than Alarm Permits: nothing to apply for, nothing to pay, nothing to renew. What the code sets out instead is a short list of conditions, and the two that matter most are about how quickly the city can reach you.
“Emergency cards shall be filed with the Police Department. The Police Department shall be notified immediately of any changes in persons responsible for operating the alarm system” (9.04.030C). And if your system is monitored, as ours are, you must “provide a current list of at least three names with addresses and telephone numbers of individuals who have access to the business or residence protected by the alarm system” (9.04.030D). The department also asks residents to complete an Alarm Registration Form, which is how that information reaches its Alarm Unit.
Worth ten minutes of anyone’s time. Keeping those three names current is the single most useful thing you can do for your own response, because it is what lets an officer reach a real person fast. It carries weight formally too: the conditions in 9.04.030 are among the grounds the code lists for discontinuing response, so a current list protects the service as well as speeding it up.
Orange writes to you twice before it charges you once
And the clock starts with you, on your own first alarm, rather than on a date the city picks.
The city warns before it bills. A first false alarm brings a warning letter. A second, “within a 365 day period from the first false alarm”, brings a second letter that sets out the rules and what happens next (9.04.060A1). Only from the third does a penalty arrive, payable within thirty days of billing and set in the City of Orange Master Schedule of Fees and Charges (9.04.060A2).
That window is worth understanding, because the way it is counted is unusual. It is not a calendar year and it is not a window that rolls backwards from each new alarm. It is a fixed 365 days that begins the day of your first one, so a bad night in March sets the clock for the following twelve months.
Three ways a city can handle this, and Orange uses the third
The paperwork across the cities we cover falls into three groups.
Most cities issue a permit. Irvine, Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Long Beach all do, with terms running from one year to three and fees that vary. Yorba Linda sits at the other end and issues nothing at all: no permit, no registration, no record of you until a charge appears. Fullerton does require a permit, and there the permit is what buys you the free alarms. Placentia is the outlier on term: a twenty four month permit, and a service contract required to operate the system at all. Brea runs the same chapter as Placentia but on a permit that expires every June 30.
Orange is the middle case. There is nothing to buy and nothing to renew, but the city still wants you on file, and it asks for something more useful than a fee: the names and numbers of three people who can get into the property. That is a registration duty rather than a permit, and it is the only one of its kind among the cities we cover.
Warning letters
The first false alarm brings a letter. So does the second, if it falls within 365 days of the first, and it explains what happens from here.
A penalty
The third and any subsequent false alarm inside that window brings a penalty, payable within thirty days of billing and set by the city’s fee schedule.
Response can pause
Left unaddressed, repeated alarms, an unpaid penalty or a breach of the conditions are grounds for discontinuing response. It is reinstated by the Chief of Police, and you have fifteen days to appeal before any of it takes effect.
On the allowance itself Orange is middling. Irvine gives three at no charge, Garden Grove and Yorba Linda give two, and Anaheim, Santa Ana and Long Beach stop at one. Orange also gives two before a penalty, and Huntington Beach runs its programme through an outside contractor against your registration year.
What sets Orange apart is the process, not the number
Two letters before a bill, and a clock that starts on your first alarm rather than on a date the city picks. You can see the rest of our coverage on our service areas page, and our guide to alarm permits covers the wider region. Costa Mesa is the outlier of the set: no alarm permit at all, and thirty days exempt from new. Tustin allows three on the burglary side but charges panic alarms from the very first one. Buena Park allows three, and requires your alarm to sound for thirty seconds before it transmits a silent signal. Every city we cover is compared side by side here.
Three provisions that work in your favour
Orange has written more forgiveness into its code than most.
A thirty day settling-in period
New users, and existing users who can show they have upgraded or replaced a system, get a thirty day adjustment period that starts the day the alarm becomes operational. Up to three false alarms are permitted inside it before the penalty provisions begin. It is the most generous settling-in provision we have found so far.
Faults you could not have known about
If a false alarm resulted from conditions beyond your control, or from a defect you neither knew of nor should reasonably have discovered, the code says it is not deemed a false alarm at all. Keep the service record that shows what failed.
Fifteen days to appeal, and response continues
Anyone whose alarm service is ordered discontinued may appeal to the City Council within fifteen days, and the order does not take effect until the Council has ruled. The Council can affirm, modify or overrule the Chief of Police.
What Old Towne and the Eichler tracts change
In Orange, where you live changes what can go on the outside of the house.
Here the outside of a system is a planning question as well as a security one, as it also is in the historic districts of Long Beach. Four things account for most of it.
Old Towne design standards
Any change to the exterior of a property in Old Towne has to comply with the Historic Preservation Design Standards. Cameras, sirens, conduit and exterior contacts are exterior changes, so placement and finish are worth settling early rather than after a survey.
Eichler glass is a different problem
The Fairhaven, Fairhills and Fairmeadow tracts got their own design standards in 2018. Eichler homes are largely glass with flat roofs and atriums, which changes where perimeter detection actually works and makes glass break sensing and interior coverage matter more than usual.
Your siren has a time limit
The code requires an automatic shut off. A residential audible alarm may sound for a maximum of fifteen minutes, a non-residential one for thirty. An automatic shut off is part of a compliant install and one of the easiest things to get right at fitting.
Your signal reaches a person first
The code keeps residential systems off the police trunklines, which is exactly what monitoring is for. The signal comes to our centre, someone looks at it, and the call to Orange PD is made by a person who can say what is actually happening rather than by a machine.
What we install for Orange homes
Six systems, fitted and monitored across the city
Nine years and counting on the east side
Nine to eleven years each, and not one of them has left.
Our Orange book is a small one and a remarkably steady one. The households we monitor here are in the 92867 and 92869 ZIPs on the eastern side of the city, towards the hills and Santiago Canyon, and every one of them has stayed.
What they have in common is age. They came on between 2015 and 2017, so the newest has been with us nine years and the longest eleven. They are on equipment we own and monitor rather than customer owned hardware, they are billed monthly, and they run on a mix of cellular and interactive service.
Every household we have taken on in Orange is still with us, and even the newest has been on service for nine years. That is the record we would rather be judged on.
Service and response in Orange
Our office is in Anaheim, about fifteen minutes away.
Epic Alarm installs and services security systems across Southern California from our office in Anaheim, and our monitoring runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year, through a UL-listed centre we own and operate. We are licensed by the State of California, ACO #7125. Orange is one of the closest cities to us on this list.
Alarm matters in Orange go to the police department directly rather than to a separate coordinator or an outside contractor. The Orange Police Department Alarm Unit is at 1107 N Batavia Street, and the Alarm Registration Form goes there. Keep the three names on that list current, because the code makes it your duty to notify the department immediately when the people responsible for the system change.
Common questions about alarms in Orange
Registration, the two letters, the settling-in period and what Old Towne changes.
Do I need an alarm permit in Orange?
No. Chapter 9.04 of the Orange Municipal Code regulates false alarms rather than issuing permits, and there is no alarm permit and no permit fee. You do have duties under the code, and the police department asks alarm users to complete an Alarm Registration Form, but there is nothing to buy or renew.
What is the Alarm Registration Form for?
It is how the police department gets the information the code requires: an emergency card on file, and for a monitored system a current list of at least three names with addresses and telephone numbers of people who have access to the property. It goes to the Orange Police Department Alarm Unit at 1107 N Batavia Street.
How many false alarms before Orange charges me?
Three. The first brings a warning letter, the second brings another if it falls within 365 days of the first, and the third and any after it bring a penalty, payable within thirty days of billing. The amount is set in the city’s Master Schedule of Fees and Charges.
When does the 365 day clock start?
On the day of your first false alarm. Orange does not count on a calendar year, and it does not use a window that rolls backwards from each new alarm. The period runs forward from the first one, which makes it different from every other city we cover.
I have just had a new system installed. What if it misbehaves at first?
The code gives new users a thirty day adjustment period, starting the day the alarm becomes operational and testing begins. Up to three false alarms are permitted in that window before the warning and penalty provisions apply. The same applies to existing users who can show they have upgraded or replaced an in-service system.
What if the false alarm was not my fault?
The code allows for that. If you can show the alarm was the result of conditions beyond your control, and not your negligence, or that it came from a defect you neither knew about nor should reasonably have found, it is not deemed a false alarm. Keep the service record.
What keeps my alarm on the police response list?
Keeping the system well behaved and your details current. The code lists the grounds on which response can be discontinued: repeated false alarms, intentional activation when no hazardous condition exists, an unpaid penalty after thirty days, using an unlicensed alarm operator, and breaching the alarm conditions. Stay clear of those and nothing changes. If an order is ever issued, you have fifteen days to appeal and it does not take effect meanwhile.
Can my siren just keep sounding until someone arrives?
No. Fifteen minutes for a residential system and thirty for a non-residential one. The code requires an automatic shut off capable of terminating the sounder within those limits, and fitting one is a routine part of the install.
My house is in Old Towne. Does that change what can be installed?
It changes the outside of it. Any alteration to the exterior of a property in Old Towne has to comply with the Historic Preservation Design Standards, and cameras, sirens, exterior contacts and conduit are all exterior alterations. The three Eichler tracts have their own standards. It is worth agreeing placement and finish before anything is fixed to the building.
Can I appeal if response to my alarm is discontinued?
Yes. You have fifteen days from the date of the order to appeal to the City Council, and the order does not take effect while the appeal is pending. The Council can affirm, modify or overrule the Chief of Police’s decision.
Get a free quote for your Orange home
We will walk the property, work out what can be fixed where if you are in a protected district, and get your call list right the first time.