CCTV System Design & Surveying

A CCTV system that was purchased and installed without a prior design survey is often one that has blind spots in critical areas, cameras with inadequate resolution for identification, poor low-light performance, and a recorder that runs out of storage within days. Professional CCTV system design eliminates these problems before a single cable is run. Lance Security provides standalone CCTV design and site survey services for property owners, architects, building managers, and security consultants who want an engineered camera system rather than a best-guess installation. Whether you are fitting out a new development, upgrading an existing system, or tendering a security project and need a specification document, our design service gives you the technical foundation for a system that actually works.

What a CCTV Site Survey Covers

Threat & Risk Assessment

Before placing a single camera on a drawing, we establish what you need the system to do: deter opportunistic crime at the perimeter, identify individuals at access points, provide evidence-quality footage of transaction areas, monitor car parks for vehicle security, or enable remote security management of multiple sites. The threat profile determines the required camera specification, coverage priorities, and recording strategy.

Coverage Mapping

We walk the entire site, identifying all areas that need surveillance coverage, areas where cameras cannot be placed due to privacy considerations (toilet blocks, changing rooms, residential neighbours' property), and structural constraints (no power, no cable routes, no mounting points). We produce a scaled site plan with proposed camera positions, coverage arcs, and overlap zones clearly marked.

Camera Specification

Not every camera needs 4K resolution. We specify the minimum resolution required for the purpose at each camera position, using the Pixels Per Metre (PPM) methodology from BS EN 62676 (CCTV Standards for Europe, widely used in Kenya):

• Detection (25 PPM) — Confirm that something or someone is in the scene. Suitable for wide-area surveillance of open car parks and perimeters.
• Observation (62 PPM) — Determine gender, approximate age, and clothing. Suitable for monitoring general movement in corridors and public areas.
• Recognition (125 PPM) — Recognise a known individual in the scene. Suitable for reception areas and main entrances where you need to confirm the identity of regular staff or visitors.
• Identification (250 PPM) — Identify an unknown individual with sufficient certainty for use as legal evidence. Required at access-controlled doors, teller positions, and areas with high theft risk.

Lighting Assessment

The most common cause of unusable night-time CCTV footage is inadequate lighting — not inadequate camera specification. We measure existing light levels at night using a lux meter and assess whether each camera position requires infrared illumination, white-light illumination, or whether existing lighting is adequate. We specify IR illuminators, LED spotlights, or covert illuminators as required, matched to the camera's spectral sensitivity.

Network & Storage Design

For IP camera systems (the current industry standard), we calculate the total bandwidth required based on camera count, resolution, frame rate, and compression codec, and verify that the site's network infrastructure can support the surveillance traffic without degrading other systems. We specify NVR or server capacity, RAID configuration for redundancy, and calculate storage duration based on recording resolution and retention requirements (typically 7–30 days for commercial applications, 90 days for banking and high-security environments in Kenya).

Power Planning

We identify how each camera will be powered — PoE (Power over Ethernet) from the NVR or PoE switch, local power supply, or solar with battery backup for remote outdoor cameras — and ensure the electrical loading is within the capacity of the existing circuits or specify new circuits where required.

Design Deliverables

• Scaled site plan with camera positions and coverage arcs
• Camera schedule with make, model, lens, resolution, and mounting specification for each position
• NVR/DVR specification and storage calculation
• Network topology diagram (for IP systems)
• Cable routing schematic
• Bill of Materials for procurement
• Design rationale report — documenting why each decision was made, for client approval and tender documentation

A Lance Security CCTV design can be used to tender the installation competitively, ensure a contractor installs what was specified, or provide the technical basis for a direct installation by our own team. Request a CCTV site survey and design — invest in getting the design right before committing to hardware and installation costs.