Building in Security
Innovative technology comes to the rescue in Orange County
- By Ralph C. Jensen
- Jun 01, 2017
A family-oriented municipality with a thriving business
environment, the city of Cypress is home to 48,000
residents in North Orange County, Calif. In partnership
with the community, Cypress strives to sustain
and enhance a safe, attractive and quality environment
for people to live, work and play. Among the public facilities
that help support these initiatives are the Cypress Senior Citizens
Center and Community Center.
The Cypress Senior Citizens Center is housed in a 17,600 square
foot structure that offers special interest clubs, enrichment classes,
meals, transportation and advocacy programs, serving as a welcoming
and supportive hub for elderly residents.
Spanning more than 20,000 square feet, another grand structure
is the Cypress Community Center. Available for public use, it houses
kitchen facilities, classrooms, dance rooms, arts and crafts rooms,
and an auditorium that supports youth, teen and adult programs.
In addition, the facility serves as the administrative offices for the
Cypress Recreation and Community Services department.
When seeking video surveillance solutions for both public buildings,
city of Cypress Facility and Park Supervisor Larry Campos
turned to Mario Benitez, an authorized Dahua dealer for Advanced
Alarm in Santa Fe Springs, Calif.
“Their main concern was to secure the buildings’ perimeter and
form a protection barrier to deter burglary and ensure the safety of the
employees and visitors,” Benitez said. “For each project, I selected a
combination of Dahua 4MP dome cameras and NVRs connected to a
wireless router and access point.”
At the Cypress Senior Center, Benitez and his crew installed 4MP
dome cameras at a 15-foot mounting height to protect the cameras
from vandalism and to ensure the camera can capture faces. “Dahua
cameras work great right out of the box. We get excellent imaging
from the 4MP cameras with a crystal clear picture,” Benitez said.
On the inside of the Senior Center, Benitez was able to overcome
structural obstacles to install the network infrastructure by maneuvering
more than 2,000 feet of cabling and obscuring it through duct
work, cat walks and soffits while avoiding kinks and bends to the
preserve the building’s aesthetic.
Benitez confronted similar obstacles at the Community Center,
where he encountered 10 by 18 inch concrete block walls through
which he needed to run cabling.
“We faced a major dilemma routing wires because of the building
structure and limited access between corridors, but were able
to overcome it by using a rotary hammer to penetrate through the
walls,” Benitez said. “The Advanced Alarm team was able to install
the cameras under challenging structural situations and still maintain
the design integrity of the buildings,” Campos said. “We had to take
functionality and budget into consideration for this installation.”
At both facilities, Benitez installed Dahua 16-channel NVRs
connected to a wireless router and access point to facilitate service
and maintenance calls on a mobile phone through a secure private
network.
“I like the step-by-step programming on the NVRs. Other recording
devices typically have too many dropdown menus, so I prefer
the simple format that is offered.” Benitez said. “It is user-friendly
and an ideal way to archive video on local systems.
I’m able to log into the NVR wirelessly and
access the IP configurations. I can pull up each
camera separately, which makes maintenance so
much easier.”
This article originally appeared in the June 2017 issue of Security Today.
About the Author
Ralph C. Jensen is the Publisher of Security Today magazine.