Almost everything we get called about in Kelowna happens between 11pm and 5am.
Not all of it. But the break-ins, the yard thefts, the doors found open, the people sleeping in loading bays. Six hours out of twenty-four, carrying most of the risk.
That is good news, financially. It means you are buying a window, not a day.
Find your window first
Before booking anything, work out when your incidents actually happen.
Pull what you have. Alarm activations with times. Police file numbers. Dates things went missing. Staff reports of doors found unlocked.
Most Kelowna businesses who do this find the pattern is narrower than they assumed. A retail unit might cluster in the two hours after close. A yard might be hit in the small hours. A strata parkade is usually late evening, when people are still coming and going and an unfamiliar vehicle does not stand out.
If you have no data, two weeks of patrol reports will give you some. That is cheaper than guessing and staffing twelve hours.
What overnight coverage looks like
Three shapes, roughly in order of cost.
Randomised patrol. A marked vehicle attends several times a night at varied hours. The officer gets out, checks the perimeter and doors, and logs it with photographs. For an empty building this is usually the right answer and it costs a fraction of staffing.
A targeted static shift. An officer on site for the specific hours your risk clusters in. Four hours covering 11pm to 3am rather than twelve covering the whole night.
Full overnight staffing. An officer present from close to open. Appropriate when there are people on site, a door that must be controlled continuously, or a risk that genuinely runs the whole night.
Most Kelowna sites need the first or second. Very few need the third, though the third is what gets quoted when nobody asks about timing.
West Kelowna and the bridge
Worth saying plainly because it affects response.
West Kelowna is a short drive from Kelowna most of the night. It is not a short drive during a bridge closure, an incident, or in wildfire season when traffic is being managed.
If your property is on the west side, ask your provider where the officer covering you is based overnight. A provider routing everything from the Kelowna side has a plan that assumes the bridge.
Same question applies, for different reasons, out toward Lake Country and the airport. Ask for a realistic 3am response time rather than the advertised one.
Wildfire season changes the job
For a few months a year, overnight security in the Okanagan is a different service.
Evacuated premises sit empty in quiet areas with emergency services stretched and everyone aware the buildings are unoccupied.
Where access permits, patrol coverage during an evacuation order does two things. It deters, and it documents that the property was attended, which matters afterwards when you are talking to an insurer.
Our wildfire season checklist covers what to do before and during, and the Okanagan patrol and fire watch guide covers how attendance is logged.
Lighting does more than you think
Before you buy coverage, walk your property at 11pm.
Not at noon. At 11pm, on a weeknight, the way someone considering it would see it.
Count the dead bulbs. Look at which doorways are in shadow. Check whether the back of the building is lit at all, and whether anything is stacked against the fence line.
We do this on every site assessment, and it routinely finds things that cost a hundred dollars to fix and matter more than an extra patrol pass.
A provider who tells you to fix the lighting instead of buying more security is giving you the honest answer.
What it costs
Overnight work carries premiums. Expect to pay more per hour for 2am than for 2pm.
Standing guard work in BC generally starts around $28 per hour, with overnight above that, and a four-hour minimum shift. Patrol is priced per visit or per month and works out considerably cheaper per property.
Our price list has the full ranges, and security guards in Kelowna covers the local market more broadly.
Talk to us
Kelowna is where we started in 2020 and where the head office is, at 575 Hollydell Rd. Most of our supervisors live here. We run 100+ licensed guards serving 100+ clients across 11 cities, and we carry $2M CAD in comprehensive general liability.
Tell us when your incidents happen and we will tell you what coverage actually fits. See Kelowna, request a quote, or call 250-899-6620.
