A CCTV install is not “stick up four cameras and scan a QR code”. On a Berkshire house it is a survey, cable routes, a recorder that will still be there in five years, and an app the household can actually use. This is the job as we run it, so you know what you are booking.
The service page is CCTV installation. The design choices sit in how to choose a system and camera positions.
Before we arrive: survey and scope
We want photos of each elevation, a note on where the router lives, and what you are trying to catch: parcels, drive, rear garden, a side alley. We will suggest a camera count. If you insist on eight cameras for a three-bed terrace, we will push back.
The survey answers:
- Positions that see faces, not roof tiles
- Cable routes that will still look acceptable
- Recorder location and disk size
- Whether any camera should stay wireless
- Whether the WiFi needs work on the same day
We also ask who should have the app, whether you already own cameras, and whether the house is listed or in a conservation area. Bring model names if you bought a kit. If they are the wrong type for the positions, we will say so rather than spend a day making a bad kit look tidy.
A terraced plot in Slough, a riverside garden in Maidenhead, and a long drive in Virginia Water do not take the same design. The survey is where we say which cameras earn their keep, and which ones only add overlap.
Law and neighbour views are part of that conversation, not an afterthought. See home CCTV and UK law. If a requested camera stares into a neighbour’s kitchen, we will move it or drop it. That is cheaper than a complaint after handover.
If we are already planning data cabling or access points, tell us. Camera home-runs in the same loft visit cost less grief than a second booking.
On the day: cables, cameras, recorder
Order of work on a typical PoE job:
- Confirm positions on the building, not on a sketch
- Run Cat6 from each camera back to the recorder location, usually via loft or soffit
- Terminate, test, label
- Fit housings and aim
- Build the recorder, switch and, if needed, a small UPS
- Connect the app, users, and retention
- Walk the playback with you until you can export a clip without us
Data cabling is not a separate mystery. It is most of the day. The camera hanging is the short part.
Cat6 from each camera is a home-run. We do not daisy-chain cameras along a fascia. We do not leave trailing leads over fascias “to paint later”. If the route has to be external, it gets proper containment, clipped, and finished so it still looks acceptable in two winters.
In the loft we board what we kneel on, keep cables out of the deepest insulation where we can, and we label both ends before we forget which camera is which. Untested cable is not a camera circuit. It is string.
Aiming is not “point it at the garden and hope”. Front door cameras need face height as someone reaches the handle. Drive cameras need enough of the car and the person leaving it. We will come down the ladder and look at the live view with you before we tighten the last screw.
Wireless leftover cameras, if any, get a WiFi check at the camera, not at the kettle. If they will not hold, they do not stay. Why cameras drop off WiFi is the science. The install is where we refuse to ignore it.
What “tidy” means on different houses
A 1970s Bracknell loft with boards is a gift. We can run, drop, and be out of the bedrooms almost entirely. A Windsor period eaves with bats, insulation and no hatch is not. That job is slower, and the honest route may be painted trunking along a soffit rather than a fantasy cavity we cannot see.
Maidenhead riverside timber, Ascot deep soffits, Slough cavity trays: the route changes, the standard does not. Newer Slough estates often have a usable loft and a tight side alley that matters more than a wide rear pan. Virginia Water and Sunningdale plots add length: the camera at the gates is a cable problem, not an app problem.
We will tell you if a requested camera needs a tower, a listed-building conversation, or a different mount. That is cheaper than pretending.
Indoor routing through living rooms is a last resort. Families remember the trunking longer than they remember the installer’s joke. A neat external run on a side elevation, colour matched, is often kinder than a chase across a freshly painted hall.
If the only way to a far gate is a long trench, we will say so on the survey, not on the afternoon when the drum is already open. Wireless at that distance is how you buy a dropout.
Where the recorder lives
The recorder is not a spare box for the kitchen worktop. It wants a dry cupboard, decent airflow, and a power socket that will not be unplugged to run the vacuum.
Under the stairs next to the broadband is common. A loft is possible if it stays accessible and not an oven in August. A damp garage is a poor home for a disk. A high shelf in a hallway looks tidy until nobody can reach it to swap a drive.
The switch and the recorder should sit together. PoE cameras land on the switch. The recorder takes those streams. If we are putting UniFi on the LAN side of the same cabinet, the cameras and the house WiFi stop fighting one overloaded ISP router. That is a network choice, not a camera brand.
Distance still matters. A long run to a Virginia Water gate is voltage drop and heat in the bundle, not just “Cat6 will be fine”. Sometimes the cabinet moves closer to the cameras. Sometimes we shorten a foolish route rather than crank PoE until the camera browns out in winter.
A small UPS is worth talking about if the house loses power often or if you care about the five minutes after a trip. It will not run the system for a week. It will ride through a blip so the disk is not the first thing that dies.
Cloud-only doorbells still need a network. They do not replace a local disk on a family house. Prefer a local disk. Recorder vs cloud.
Handover: if you cannot play a clip, we are not finished
You should leave with:
- A working live view on the people who should have it
- Motion or continuous recording as agreed
- A retention period you understand
- A simple way to export footage
- A note of where the recorder is and how it is powered
We will not leave a live system without walking you through the app. That includes a second person if they also need access. Systems that only live in one person’s phone become a household argument the first time someone is away.
Export means: find the time, clip it, get it off the recorder onto a phone or laptop without us on speakerphone. If that fails in the kitchen, we are not finished.
Write down the recorder location, the switch location, and which fuse or socket feeds them. Future you, or a different engineer, will thank present you.
Retention is a decision, not a default buried in a menu. A week of continuous 4K is not the same job as a month of motion on two cameras. We set what you agreed on the survey, then we show you where that setting lives so nobody “optimises” it to nothing in a fortnight.
Aftercare and the call we would rather not get
Cameras need a clean lens and a disk that is not five years old. Spiders love a warm housing. A lens that looked fine at handover will look like fog after a summer on a south-west wall. A damp cloth is maintenance. A five-year-old disk that has never been checked is a gamble.
We would rather you call us for a reposition after landscaping than live with a camera that now looks at a new hedge. Gates move. Trellis goes up. A new SUV sits higher than the old car. None of that is a reason to ignore the live view for a year.
If you add WiFi access points later, do it with the same cabinet in mind. UniFi on the LAN side is a common follow-on so the house network and the cameras are not fighting one ISP router.
Weather, access and the unglamorous logistics
We need somewhere to park, a working loft hatch, and a grown-up on site who can approve a route if the survey sketch meets a surprise tank. Rain stops external drilling, not internal loft work. Deep gravel drives in Ascot need a conversation about how the cable lands at the camera, not a shrug.
If you have alarms, loft insulation that is a health hazard, or bats, tell us before the day. We will reschedule rather than guess. Listed constraints and conservation rules are the same: we would rather move a camera than hack a cornice.
Book via the town pages if you already know the site: Windsor, Slough, Maidenhead, Ascot, Virginia Water, Bracknell. Or start on the CCTV hub and contact.