Plenty of schools have strict dress codes, not just your own. Ours has a strict rule about shorts that they must be longer than 4" below the knee… Pretty much ruling out anything except jeans and capris. At least you don’t live in Japan, where nearly all schools have a set uniform that must be followed, no questions asked.
Any panel has the possibility of breaking all your toes. An NFS2-3030 can do that. An E3 can do that. A 4100ES can do that. Just don’t drop them. :mrgreen: South Texas. I already mentioned the Spectralert I saw mounted upside-down… My first photo on Instagram was of a broken BG-10… I’ve even seen one where the pulls are mounted at (my) eye level, in a building built after the new ADA requirement!
You can’t have a real beef with an entire company just because you almost crushed your feet with a heavy can, now can you?
Any panel has the possibility of breaking all your toes. An NFS2-3030 can do that. An E3 can do that. A 4100ES can do that. Just don’t drop them. :mrgreen: South Texas. I already mentioned the Spectralert I saw mounted upside-down… My first photo on Instagram was of a broken BG-10… I’ve even seen one where the pulls are mounted at (my) eye level, in a building built after the new ADA requirement!
You can’t have a real beef with an entire company just because you almost crushed your feet with a heavy can, now can you?
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Lol true, just this panel was in a building… :roll: lol thanks for proving me thoughts to be stupid lol
I know this is off topic but let me give my opinions on each brand, in short sentences.
Simplex:
I feel simplex was one of the leading brands in the industry but is beginning to fall behind. Their products are getting cheaper and more poorly manufactured but are still real proprietary where they sell you a cheap system and then screw you in the service contract since only they can service their systems.
Notifier:
Industry leader, working on new technology, always had real nice fire alarm panels with innovative features not found in others.
Fire-Lite:
Cheap systems for small installations, good for if you need a system and it does not have to be very big. Although, they had some reliability problems in the 1990s with their MS-5024 and MS-9200 systems.
Gamewell-FCI:
Industry leader who is working on some pretty cool stuff. A strong competitor to Notifier especially considering they are both Honeywell brands.
Gamewell (before merger):
Had a dark age in my opinion. Were one of the last companies to use a relay logic circuit based conventional panel. A lot of their products in the 80s and 90s were rebranded Cerberus Pyrotronics products.
FCI (before merger):
Interesting systems that worked very well such as the 7200, FC-72 and more.
Silent Knight:
Similar to Fire-Lite but very unusual systems which take some getting used to. Lots of neat features.
Edwards / EST:
OK products, (i’ve never used one before) however their device addressing system is ridiculously stupid. All manufactured in china however, and the build quality of their stuff feels cheap. Also makers of some of the hardest panels to program.
Potter Signal:
Very nice stuff, innovative company who only makes panels good for small systems. Their NAC power supply is awesome because it can sync multiple brands of signals at once, though.
Fike: Never seen one.
Mircom: Never seen one.
Siemens:
Gotten kinda cheap, only brand whose smokes do not have a solid LED when they are in alarm. Panels are OK but never been able to play with one since our competitor always changes the codes on the panels.
Cerberus Pyrotronics:
OK systems, last a while but are a bit tricky to program. Some of the Cerberus products were still sold (or are still sold) by Siemens.
Faraday:
Now pretty much a duplicate of Cerberus and Siemens. Before that, the largest signal manufacturer for a long time.
Ademco Vista Fire Alarm Panels:
Kinda meh, using a panel originally intended for security as a fire alarm. Also you can’t port the database from one firmware version to another, which is really stupid.
Autocall:
Before being killed by Simplex, Autocall had a history of making systems that were way ahead of their time. One of the first to make a large scale addressable system.
Kidde/Thorn:
This is Kidde when they still did commercial fire protection. Decent systems, worked well, not many left however.
Grinnell:
I don’t know anything about them before they bought Autocall.
So i was thinking after the Fire drill today, could it be in super slow march time?
like
-------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- And so on?
Also on a SK panel that has this
Can you disable a dialer from it? We heard 2 short peizo beeps then 3 minutes later the alarms.
I have to admit i was being well i guess, Prejudice against Silent Knight. I was taking one bad experience and bashing them in.Today, i researched SK and i kinda like them.My apologize for ranting on the forums.
Ok thrn:
Does that anuniator have a high peizo peep?
Why do the only SK panels in the school( the old building were everything is hapening) not have a way of indicating the status or operating them?
This is why NFPA 72 doesn’t allow this feature unless specifically blessed by the AHJ. You have to get permission FIRST, not beg forgiveness later to install a Stopper with the buzzer.
The 2013 allows it, or at least doesn’t disallow it. Couldn’t find any references to covers at all before it though, which tells me the AHJ probably had to approve any installation of them.
The appendix has this to stay about it though:
“Some units include battery-operated audible warn-
ing signals that have been shown to deter malicious activations.
To be effective, it is important that the regular staff or occupants
be aware of the sound and investigate immediately in order to
catch someone who might otherwise activate the device without
cause or to ensure that the device is activated if there is a legiti-
mate reason.”
Yeah, never happens. As many times as I pull these covers off and they squeal in my ear, nobody ever questions me. I get stopped and questioned more when I’m simply walking around, staring up at the ceiling and looking at smoke detectors or sprinkler heads! But usually when I come across these covers, I just disable the sounder by sliding the switch to the side and locking it in the off position. Yea, yea, I know… I swear, I just “accidentally” forgot to enable it before I put it back on. It happens…
Honestly, I think the cover itself works just as enough as a deterrent. I would recommend the covers more for physical protection of the pull station - like in a gym for that runaway basketball hitting the BG-12 pull station (too easy to set them off).
Speaking of schools and pull stations… The most interesting setup I saw was in the City of Chester PA schools - there were only two pull stations in the entire building (regardless of size), One in the main office behind the desk and one in the boiler room. Not one exit had a pull station. Needless to say, their false alarm rate was virtually zero.
Allowed by code per the AHJ blessing! Chester PA for anyone unfamiliar isn’t exactly Mayberry USA, one of those places you tend to avoid driving through in the daytime on a sunny day. The high school doesn’t have that lone police officer sitting in the front office - it has a police sub-station inside. I would imagine if they had placed pull station per code at all exits and at distances in between, they would have kids pulling them every hour.
The International Building Code allows this in educational occupancies when the building is fully sprinkled.
907.2.3 Group E (Educational (Group E) - schools and day care centers up to the 12th grade.)
Exceptions:
3. Manual fire alarm boxes shall not be required in Group E occupancies where the building is equipped throughout with an approved automatic sprinkler system installed in accordance with Section 903.3.1.1, the emergency voice/alarm communication system will activate on sprinkler water flow and manual activation is provided from a normally occupied location.
basic rule of thumb is if its a fully sprinkled building with a voice/evac system, only 1 pull station is required and it can be wherever the ahj wants it, typically by the fire alarm panel.
This varies slightly based on the occupancy and which code you go by (IBC or NFPA 101), but it’s basically the rule.
