Well, I just found out that the K-8 school I went to for kindergarten (and for a summer school program before I started middle school) had a sudden fire alarm upgrade! I was told that the alarms weren’t working in one part of the building, and thus needed to be fixed. This is what has happened now:
Can you believe that? All of the old Simplex 4051+4050-80 alarms are now gone; they removed them and replaced them with SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes on adapter plates, right where the old alarms were. Interestingly, they kept the existing pull stations (most of them being break-glass 4251-30s), and I also saw the old Simplex graphic annunciator in the main lobby.
I am guessing they just so far replaced the panel setup and the alarm signals. I found this unusual, as usually my city’s school system doesn’t do upgrades like this; when they replace a fire alarm system, they replace EVERYTHING (usually with a Notifier voice-evac system), but here, they instead went with the same approach Massasoit Community College does (they even used the same alarms; the SpectrAlert Advances on adapter plates!)
I know the classroom pods that got re-walled in 2012 had SpectrAlert Advances installed, along with conventional Notifier BG-12 pulls at direct exits outside. The modular building still has its Wheelock MT-24-LSM horn/strobes, so I guess it was unaffected.
I don’t know what the panel setup currently is. Chances are it’s a Fire-Lite or Notifier system that has been set up as a conventional system.
The reason for the title is because those 4051s were the first fire alarms I ever heard in my life. They sure were loud. Now those rare unique alarms have been replaced with another typical, modern run-of-the-mill system.
And before anyone asks, no, I did not get anything from the old alarm system. And I probably won’t when my middle school upgrades in the future either.
Well we knew it was coming. My junior high still has theirs up according to my cousin who goes there, but I feel like an update is coming soon. I only heard them for 2 years though.
This is exactly how I felt when I learned that my elementary school got rid of its Simplex mixed up system for the same run-of-the-mill alarm.
Yeah, my middle school had a Simplex 4100 system when I went there. Most of the building had 2901-9838s on strobe plates doing 120 bpm march time, while recently built/renovated areas had TrueAlerts on 60 bpm march time. Some horns in the oldest (1930s) section of the building had dual projectors. There was one non-ADA Wheelock MIZ in an art room and one Gentex GX-90 in a music room. Everything came out in the summer of 2009 and was replaced by an EST3 system with Genesis horns everywhere.
Well considering that my avatar is a picture of the former alarm in the school, yes it did. Another blow.
CCRI Flanagan removed their 4051s and replaced them with SpectrAlert Advanced speaker/strobes. I never got to hear them go off so I don’t know what they were set to. My middle school has them on continuous and my elementary school has SpectrAlert Advances now.
I can understand my high school though. The 2DCDs were on their way out (the one outside Cosmetology was getting real bad) and the Commander 3s didn’t replace any horn but were just put up for strobe coverage when they divided the freshman wing.
That really sucks! Hate seeing those old systems being scrapped.
I know how you feel though, I just found out that my former high school (6500 system w/ 10" Single stroke adaptabels) is probably going to be replaced in 2017/2018. The school needs about $16 Million in repairs, and hence the small population of kids going there (around 800 or less), they want to build a smaller building that fits around 700 kids. I would hate to see the building go, it’s such a one of a kind building itself, but if it does then I’m going to try to scrap as much of that system as I can get my hands on.
Same here. Except its mostly the older Thorn/Merlin/Autocall Systems from the 1980s and 1990s that are mostly getting replaced in my school district (I believe a few of these even had older signals (e.g. 2903+2901-9833, 7002T, 892, etc)). Even my first elementary school had their system replaced. Sigh.
That is probably the worst kind of change; when school district’s modify/replace the entire system you knew and heard as you grew up, which really sucks! :x It a shame to see those old systems being scrapped.
That’s quite a shame. Seems like they come in, replace the system, and get out before you can notice. I guess that’s why, if you know a replacement is going to happen, you need to stay on top of it and check up on the building periodically.
Yeah, but the thing is, this was a sudden unexpected upgrade. I was told the system wasn’t working properly anymore. The alarms wouldn’t sound in a few parts of the building, and a friend of mine even mentioned a few months ago hearing on his scanner late one night (when he couldn’t sleep) that the alarms were going off at this school at 4 AM! When something like that happens on a 41-year-old fire alarm system, you can be sure something’s wrong with it.
Like I said, I’m glad the matter has been settled, but I will still miss the old alarms greatly. And then I’ll probably have to keep an eye out on eBay for a 4050-80 like the ones they had (24 VDC, with the longer blank red lens and white screws.) I already have a couple of 4051s I could mount one of them on, though.
I’m wondering if they’ll do anything else with the system this summer, like make the whole thing addressable, or at least improve it in a few more ways (like install Stopper covers over the pulls, put remote strobes in the restrooms, etc.)
Yeah, when a system fails like that, it’s not reliable anymore and needs to come out.
But yeah, you can find those on eBay periodically, so it’s nice to have that to turn to.
I do hope they finished what they started. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to replace just the horn/strobes and not the pulls. It’d be great if they came in over the summer and make it a fully addressable system.
It also depends on the money. The school system is a little tight on funds right now, and their main project this summer seems to be renovating one of the middle schools (the rival to the one I attended.) I know they’ll be getting a full-blown fire alarm upgrade to a Notifier voice-evac system.
I remember at my college, that was how they replaced three of the fire alarm systems there (ironically with the same SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes on trim plates), though they have addressable panels (two of them have Notifier NFS2-640 systems and one has a Fire-Lite MS-9600UDLS) they kept it as a conventional system for the most part, though many of the old heat sensors (except for one building) were replaced with new smoke detectors.
Even if they keep using conventional devices, it would be wise if they replaced the old heat sensors in many areas with new smoke detectors, especially in certain mechanical rooms and the classroom areas.
As I said, back when they had the Simplex alarms they had two panels installed: a Simplex 4010 tied into the original Simplex 4208 from the '70s. I wouldn’t be surprised if both panels were now gone and replaced with something like an NFS2-640, even though they kept the Simplex graphic annunciator.
That’s what most of the schools did in my city, during what I call the great FA upgrade of 2005. During that summer they replaced over 30 systems in the board (mostly Edwards 6500s and such) with Mircom FX-2000s. To keep it as cheap and affordable as possible, all they did was replace the panel and the NAs. They left everything else from the old systems intact.
But I can say that “bad” install job with the 4051 on two backboxes on the 4050-80 now looks even worse; they simply replaced the 4051 and slapped a SpectrAlert Advance on the two backboxes, keeping the 4050-80 light plate (which is now presumably disconnected, or maybe it isn’t?) Seeing as they were just doing a quick fire alarm upgrade during the school year due to the old system failing, it’s likely they didn’t have enough time to dismantle it and do it more properly (like put the new alarm on a slightly larger backbox onto a trim plate, like they did with one of them at my college.) Nonetheless, it still doesn’t look good.
I’m sure several of you remember me showing that awkward install job at the school, consisting of a 4051 horn on two backboxes (one with conduit running through it) on a 4050-80 light plate. Well, this is how it looks now…
Now it looks worse than before! My understanding is that since this “upgrade” took place during the school year, they did not have enough time to disassemble that setup and have it installed properly (i.e. with a SpectrAlert Advance backbox on the adapter plate or something), so they had to do it this way.
