Oh, and there also seems to be nothing wrong with keeping the old pull stations after upgrading a fire alarm systems, just as long as they still work. But if an addressable system is replacing the old one, then all the old pulls and smoke detectors are going to need to be replaced. This happened in the Liberal Arts and Fine Arts buildings…
These are addressable Faraday Chevrons, and I can tell because of the logo on them. I believe that this pull replaced an old Standard pull station (the rest were probably T-bars).
But here is one from the Fine Arts building. They must use conventional fire alarm parts in an addressable fire alarm system in the Fine Arts, Field House and Administration buildings. Many of the T-bars around campus had Stopper II covers installed over them (only one Stopper I’ve seen has a sounder on it).
I’ve seen some System Sensor smoke detectors, too, that were probably installed back in the 1990s, such as this one in the Administration building…
I remember back in 2005 when I took a tour of the college I saw the Administration Building. There were 4050-80s almost everywhere, but in 2006 I was shocked to find that most of the old Simplex horns were replaced with the new HORN/strobes from SAE. BUT, there were a couple of 4051 horns retrofitted on newer Faraday/Siemens strobe plates!
This might be a temporary replacement in case a horn/strobe needs to be repaired. But this looks pretty cool, though. I would’ve used a retrofit plate with a horizontal strobe, such as a Simplex 4904-series. But at least it isn’t a bad installation job 
Depends when the replacement was done. The -9101 is non-ADA compliant, so it’d be illegal to install that, so they had to go w/ an ADA plate.
Also, you can use non-addressable smokes and pulls on an addressable system. Take this UAlbany setup for example. The smokes and pulls are non-addressable, yet, the system is still a Simplex 4100.
BTW, I KNOW the devices are non-addressable because there’s a zone sheet taped to the panel door, so it is set up in a non-addressable manner…
OK, I thought horizontal strobes were ADA-compilant instead of the vertical ones like on the retrofit plate. Simplex should make ADA-compilant retrofit strobe plates, then.
And I think the fire alarm system in the Field House building is an older addressable system because the MPC-2000 panel has the Faraday logo with the white letters in a black oval.
Bear in mind that the pull stations don’t necessarily have to be addressable to be part of an addressable system. Don’t forget that addressable monitor modules made by most manufacturers can be used in retrofit situations thus eliminating the need for replacing the pull stations (and to possibly get out of mounting them at the correct height). The only difference between a non-addressable and an addressable pull station is that the addressable one has a monitor module built into it.
Patrick
Verticle strobes are ADA compliant. In order for a strobe to be ADA, it must be at least 15cd, and the -9101 is only 4.5. Not only that, but the strobe must also flash at at least 1hz (once per second = 60x/min). The -9101 flashes 45x/min, so that’s a flash about every 1 and 1/3 seconds.
[quote] Simplex should make ADA-compilant retrofit strobe plates, then. [/quote]They do:
The -9101 was discontinued in the early-mid '90s. And for the record, the reason why the majority of strobes are horizontal is because when tested that way, they covered the area better than verticle ones. Verticle ones are still ADA though.
You got that wrong. Horizontal and Vertical strobes are ADA as long as they are at least 15 cd and the lens is clear. The strobe on the Faraday retrofit is not horizontal or vertical. It’s round and omnidirectional.
LOL you beat me!!!
Both times. Also, the lens doesn’t have to be clear, but the strobe can’t be any color other than white…
I just remembered a cheap-looking fire alarm upgrade I once saw. It was at an elementary school in a neighboring town. I think the pull stations were Simplex Chevrons, and above them were flush-mount horns that were the same color as the wall. I think they were Simplex 4030s. But I am sure they were disconnected, because next to each 4030 was a Wheelock 7002T! I think this upgrade was done in the 1980s due to those electromechanical non-ADA compilant horn/strobes. I doubt the 7002Ts are still up, though. And I bet they replaced the older Simplex panel with one from Fire-Lite or Notifier or whatever company in the 1980s had their panels used with Wheelock fire alarms.
I just inspected a dorm building at a local college. they originally had an old Honeywell system, I belive (Notifier, fire-lite, silent knight, pick one). I saw some older System Sensor duct detector remote LEDs up at the ceiling that seemed to be out of service. the signals were Wheelock 7002Ts mounted at ceiling height (not the required 7-foot distance from the floor). the panel was a Simplex 4100U but all the devices were still zoned.
here’s what was wrong with it.
(1) any alarm in the building woud cause elevator recall (good thing I had a Dover fire service key with me!), not just the lobby/machine room smokes.
(2) the NAC was coded to temporal 3. again, the signals were 7002T horn/strobes, which we know, have the horn and strobe wired together and they can’t be wired separate. so they made a very erratic flash pattern because of the coding. it wasn’t smooth, and they’re not ADA compliant in the first place.
I wrote them up pretty badly.
Did you recommend any signal upgrades?
I saw this on the show “What Not to Wear.” Obviously, the picture is not very clear, but the alarms are ZNS’s. I’m not sure if you would call this a “bad” installation, but they are mounted so low on the wall! I mean, they’re sitting down, and there’s one a few inches above that woman’s head.
well since their existing NAC was only a 2-wire circuit, I recommended upgrading to Truealerts, since they operate on a 2-wire signal circuit, can do synchronized temporal 3 with synchroed ADA strobes, and would allow them to use audible silence with the strobes operating until the 4100U is reset.
it seems pretty stupid to upgrade to a brand new panel but keep the signals not in compliance.
What are the pulls in that college? Are they an older Fire-Lite or Notifier model, or are they newer Simplex T-bars. If you are replacing them, I recommend the dual-action push-spring type.
Anyways, there is nothing wrong with only replacing the panel and not the rest of the fire alarm system at some times. For instance, if a Simplex 4208 began breaking down but the 4050-80s and T-bars still worked well, as a temporary replacement I’d first replace the 4208 with a 4100U, then probably either retrofit the 4051 horns on newer Simplex strobe plates or replace them altogether with TrueAlerts (with the new horn/strobes on mounting plates to cover up the evidence of the 4050-80s), and I’d install TrueAlarm smoke detectors if there aren’t any, and I might also keep the old pulls since Simplex still makes them, just with a different model number.
Haha here’s one for the books. At my old elementary school before they tore everything down and built a new school. A Simplex 4002 and FCI panel were synced together! The alarm company who only installs Honeywell products decided to wire the new lunch rooms panel in sync with the Simplex 4002, with the Simplex 4002 being the host panel. Turns out because you can’t sync those two panels together without using a special relay. And I guess they didn’t have enough time to wait for that special relay or whatever. And they Form-C relayed both panels together, so that way when one panel went into alarm, it would trip the other panel, and vice versa.
Only problem is… There weren’t synced to reset together. So I remember one day I was home early from MS, and they were doing a fire drill at the ES (which is right across the street) well you can hear the Wheelock horns from the new building going off, and the alarm tone over the PA. And then you hear the alarm tone from the PA shut off, but the wheelocks still going, then the PA alarm comes back on again. Then they try shutting off both panels simultaneously, meaning one janitor at each panel with walkie talkies, counting down. And you heard the Wheelocks shut off, just a hair before the PA alarm goes off. But about two seconds later, both alarms started up again. So they decided to call the students back in. Finally they manage to silence both systems, so strobes are still going in the multi-purpose room, and FYI the simplex system has no strobes added to it except in the bathroom.
Now the Honeywell installers come back to try to fix the problem, which they think may be a bad pull or detector, instead of the connection problems. So they decided to replace a detector, shut off both power to the systems and restart them up. And that did the trick, both panels were back into normal. However, one of the guys must’ve not been looking at the box, and they ended up installing a different brand detector into the Simplex system, which mind you had a different coding for reporting things. Apparently the smoke was normal, but still tripped the 4002, which tripped the FCI panel. Everyone was told to evacuate, and now the mess starts all over again. They decided to dismiss school early, which us residents didn’t find pleasing.
After a couple hours of alarms going off, they finally got a replacement FCI panel for the 4002, which was just temporary. And replaced all the old Simplex pulls and detectors, but kept a relay for the alarm tone to the Simplex PA, which worked fine. And actually they wired the annunciator (old Simplex one) into the FCI panel, and for the first time, it actually lit up. I had never seen it do that before, but it did, they eventually disconnected it. And they did one more test round, this time resetting from the new replacement, and it worked perfectly. So moral of the story? Don’t conduct fire drills with a shoddy system.
That’s exactly how the systems at MHS are set up. Except, it’s setup so that the Edwards system (EST 3) doesn’t send the Simplex into alarm - only trouble. But the Simplex WILL trip the Edwards. After everyone is done evacuating (at least out of the 500 wing) for a fire drill, they reset the Simplex panel, and it goes into trouble, because the Edwards system is still activated. Then once everyone is outside, they reset the Edwards system. IDK about other Simplex series panels, but the way the 4002 (and 4001 for that matter) works is that as soon as the problem causing the trouble is fixed, the trouble automatically goes away, no resetting needed, so as soon as they reset the Edwards system, the Simplex goes back to normal, and both systems are normal again.
The only concern I have is what if the Edwards goes into alarm? It’ll only show up on the 4002 as a trouble, and they’d then have to go to the Edwards panel, find out that the alarm is going off, and then manually set off the Simplex system. And like Nick’s case, the EST 3 may be the newest (and biggest) panel, but the 4002 is still the host panel. I wish they’d get a communicator so they can have both panels trip eachother and reset both systems by only resetting one of them, but it’s costly, so it won’t. Besides, both systems as a whole pass fire inspections, so as long as it’s not a problem, the district won’t be in a hurry to fix it.
I have seen the same thing at a movie theater in Phx, it was torn down last year, but I wish I could have gotten some PiCS- over the retrofit was a Wheelock AS. It looked funny.
Just today in a Costco store, I saw an Edwards 270SPO pull that was right below a new style white Genesis. It looked odd and out of place above the vintage pull. What’s odder is that the building was constructed only a couple years ago, so they had to have “recycled” the pull.
Ah, yes, and just FYI, I saw a gray Edwards 874-N5. Not just one, but two! One was inside the store in a gray housing with one of those cop car strobe things, and the other one had the same housing but was outside. Below the inside one, there was a primitive panel like thing that had two buttons: one was acknowledge, and I forgot the other one. It also had a big incandescent red light.
They’re doing some fire alarm upgrades in the Student Union at my college, and there’s been a couple of shoddy installation jobs; they installed U-HNHs where the old Standard horn used to be, and put electrical tape over where the light once was! Want some proof? Here’s a pic!
I have a couple. First:
Not only is the TrueAlert loose from it’s backbox, but that’s a screw in bottom-right of the cover! No wonder it didn’t work… :lol: Second:
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present a flush-mount AS! To their credit though, it’s probably the panels on the wall to mount the game racks on, and plus, this wasn’t the only AS in the store, despite the store being really small. The other AS is seen in it’s fullest.