For many businesses the Christmas break is the longest period of the year in which the premises is empty. It is also widely known: everybody can guess that an office or a building site is closed from Christmas Eve until the first week of January. A little preparation in December removes most of the risk.

Two weeks before you close

  • Service the alarm. Ask your alarm company to check the system, and fix any detector or door contact that has been causing false alarms.
  • Update the key holder list. Find out who will actually be in the country and reachable. Give your monitoring centre a list that is true for the holiday period, not the one from last spring.
  • Check the cameras. Make sure every camera is recording, the date and time are right and the lenses are clean. Confirm that you can view the system remotely.
  • Tell your security company your dates. If you want extra patrols, lock-up visits or a guard for the break, book early. December is a busy month for security companies.
  • Read your insurance policy. Some policies set conditions for premises left unoccupied beyond a certain number of days.

In the final days

  • Bank cash and leave tills open and empty.
  • Move laptops, tools and high-value stock out of sight, into a locked room or off the premises.
  • Do not leave vehicle keys in the building. Park vehicles inside or where they block access to the yard.
  • Put out bins for the last collection and bring them back in. Bins left out are an invitation to dumping and a fire risk.
  • Arrange for deliveries and post to be held.

On the last day

Give one person the job of walking the whole building after everybody else has left:

  • every window closed and locked, including upper floors and roof lights;
  • fire doors and delivery doors closed, with nothing propping them;
  • heaters, cookers and non-essential electrical equipment switched off;
  • heating left on a frost setting, or the water turned off, to prevent burst pipes;
  • no ladders, pallets or bins left against the building or the fence;
  • external lights working and on a timer or sensor;
  • gates padlocked and the alarm set, with confirmation from the monitoring centre if you can get it.

While you are closed

  • Somebody should look at the building. A weekly visit by a member of staff is better than nothing. Mobile patrol visits at varied times are better, because they deter as well as detect and each visit is recorded.
  • Somebody must answer the alarm. If your key holders are away, a key holding and alarm response service means a licensed officer attends instead.
  • Be careful what you announce. By all means tell customers your opening hours, but there is no need to tell the world on social media that the warehouse is unattended until 6 January.

Construction sites

Sites need extra thought, because they cannot be locked like a building. Return hired plant you will not need, reduce the fuel and materials on site, immobilise what stays, check the full fence line and decide whether the break calls for a guard rather than patrols. Our construction site security checklist goes through this in detail.

When you reopen

  • Walk the perimeter before opening up, and look for signs of entry.
  • Check the alarm log for activations and faults.
  • Return the key holder list to normal.
  • Note anything that did not work, so that next year's checklist is better.

If you would like patrols, key holding or guarding in place for the Christmas period, ask us for a quote in good time.