I'm president of a condo building.  The building itself is somewhat safe, in that there's good people living hear but that's not exactly security.  A couple of times in the last year, it would have been nice to have more video capabilities in the building.  A couple of examples of the needs:
- We had some packages swiped in the lobby by someone as they were leaving
- A former board member likely has a master key and used it to access the roof to watch July 4th fireworks.
- People dumping mattresses, recliners, etc in the trash room...if it ain't in a dumpster, the garbage man isn't taking it...


Building
- 9 floor condo building, 30 units
- Built in the 1920's, converted in the early 2000's.
- Concrete floors/ceilings, underground garage, elevator penthouse.
- Alley access to the garages, secondary stairwell exits to the alley.

Current security system
- Single camera with motion detector on in the lobby vestibule  Connected to the a recorder in the adjacent locked closet with ethernet cable.
- Door buzzer entry system in the lobby - DoorKing.


I'd like to see if a wireless system can be put together, with the camera's tied into the electrical system.  While there's wireless, battery powered cameras out there, it needs to be low maintenance as the system won't be preventively checked long term.

At a minimum, we would want one camera per floor, plus one in the stairwell to the roof and garage alley doors.  Those go vertically over 10 floors, so having a mesh station on each floor should be workable with the DVR still in the lobby closet (no other place available).  I can get the wireless network for about 2 floors above and below me, no more.  There's a junction box on each floor for common area lights, so the ability to hardwire the cameras for power is there, but I don't want to drill though all the concrete for a power over ethernet cable.

Does this system concept make sense, and if so, what are the gear that I'd want to use (DVR, cameras, wireless mesh)?  I'm not sure of the brands and while casino quality's not what I'm looking for, I don't want a cheapo special.  We'd also like to view images while connected to the network, but would like to avoid having to pay for the monthly internet access for just this use (long term costs).

We have a forum for that
lots of information on cameras

Security Forum

wireless and surveillance systems do not mix well (Bandwidth issues for one)

You need to contact a professional for this. A dedicated and independent (or at least a seperate VLAN that does not have any routes to the VLAN that everyone else has access to) wirered network is needed here.  Wireless is not going to work reliably for what you are wanting to do.