How Rampart Security is responding to the pandemic

Rampart is a family owned, local, Kansas City company. We are a small business, and all of our employees have family members with risk factors, or have risk factors themselves. We are taking the pandemic seriously for your sake, for our own sake, and for our community.

That said, most of you won’t notice much different about how we are operating now. Most of our customers don’t require service calls that often or even talk to our central station operators very much— but we are here if you need us. We’ve been designated an essential business due to the fact that fire and security fall under life safety.

There are several facets to our work: service, the business office (sales/billing), and monitoring.

Service: You’ll still be able to get your alarm serviced if needed. Call or text 816-436-3000 or click on “schedule service” on our website.

We understand if you are apprehensive about having anyone come into your home or business. In some cases we can walk you through procedures over the phone to alleviate the need for a trip— things like programming changes. If a technician is needed on site, we can and will come out, but we will maintain a 6 foot distance from you and anyone else on site. We will sanitize our hands before coming in, and we’ll touch as few things as possible. Please assist us in these efforts.

Most service calls are battery changes. If you feel confident changing batteries, or are willing to view a how-to video or be walked through it on the phone, we can ship batteries directly to you. If you’d prefer we come out, we will.

Business office: Our sales, service, and billing staff are all able to work remotely and have been practicing social distancing for weeks. We have a routine for sanitizing our work space and we’ve turned our meetings into e-mails when possible.

Monitoring: Monitoring will continue as normal. Underwriters Laboratories requires certified central stations to be prepared with a long list of redundancies with natural disasters in mind, and that has aided in preparedness for this situation.

There may be additional ways we can help you through these trying times. If you are a residential customer forced to shut down your business, please call us if you need an alarm to secure it. If you would feel better having a medical panic button, let us know and we can add one to your home alarm system. We’d like to help.

I’d also like to assure you that we are not fair-weather friends. If you have a hardship because of the pandemic and cannot afford your bill, we ask that you let us know so we can assist you in some way. Don’t be afraid to reach out. We’re in this together.

Worried about germs? Here’s how to clean your alarm keypads

It is time to clean your alarm keypads. Keypads are an obvious place for germs to linger. Taking action is better than idle worry. We’re all smart to take precautions against seasonal flu, coronavirus, COVID-19, or and other communicable illnesses. But what is the best way to clean these electronics? You don’t want to short-out any circuits. Here’s my advice.

First, identify which kind of keypad you have. Does it have rubbery KEYS like these? (if not, keep scrolling)

6160 keypad
dsc kp.jpg

If so, take a folded paper towel or cloth and saturate the surface with glass or multi-surface cleaner, or even hand sanitizer. Let it soak into the towel. Gently place the cloth over the keys and get the outward facing surface of the keys wet. There is no need to push it down- you don’t need to get the liquid inside of the keypad or even around the edges. Let the keys air dry.

OR Is your keypad a touchscreen/keypad with a SMOOTH SURFACE like these?

Lyric alarm.jpg
5210 lynx
6290W touchscreen

The best option, if it exists on your keypad, is to check settings for a “cleaning” setting. This will make your keypad ignore your touch for a short period. To get to “clean” on these Honeywell touchscreens, press the home icon (house shape) then “settings”, then “clean”. The system gives you 15 seconds to clean it.

I barely got this picture taken in time. 1 second left! (Note that we haven’t even removed the plastic protector it comes with when shipping. Also note how bad I am at getting pics without reflections. :)

I barely got this picture taken in time. 1 second left! (Note that we haven’t even removed the plastic protector it comes with when shipping. Also note how bad I am at getting pics without reflections. :)

Honeywell touchscreen

If you have a keypad with a smooth flat surface and there isn’t a ‘clean’ setting, you can clean it by quickly and gently swiping with a damp, not soaking, cloth while the screen is dark/blank (sleep mode). Swipe in one direction and make it quick.

Stay well, everyone!