How often should CCTV be serviced?
There is no fixed rule for how often CCTV must be serviced. The right interval depends on the equipment, where it is mounted and how exposed it is. Locks & Alarms Ltd alarm customers already book annual services and yearly checks, and the practical approach for CCTV is the same: agree a servicing schedule at the free quote visit.
What a CCTV service covers
A service is a working check of the whole chain, not just the cameras. Typical items: cleaning lenses, checking camera alignment and fixings, checking cables and connections for weathering, confirming the recorder is actually recording, testing playback, checking storage, and confirming the date and time stamp is right, a wrong time stamp weakens footage as evidence.
Night-time image quality is worth checking on its own, because infrared performance can degrade in ways a daytime glance never shows.
Power supplies fail too. One Checkatrade-verified job for Locks & Alarms Ltd in SE28 was the replacement of a CCTV power supply unit, the kind of fault a routine check catches before the system quietly stops recording.
What the firm's customers actually do
Locks & Alarms Ltd alarm customers use annual servicing, and the pattern is visible in the review record. A Checkatrade reviewer in TN15 titled their review “Annual Service”; another in DA8 booked a “Yearly check and replacement battery”. Several reviews describe servicing of systems the firm originally installed years earlier.
The same logic applies to CCTV: equipment mounted outdoors and running all year benefits from a scheduled check rather than waiting for a failure to be noticed.
Agree the schedule at the quote visit
The honest answer on interval is that it depends: on the equipment fitted, where the cameras are mounted, how exposed they are to weather and dirt, and how much the property relies on the footage. The practical step is to agree a servicing schedule at the quote visit, so the interval fits the system rather than a generic rule.
Related service: CCTV Systems