Calling dibs on components from soon-to-be-retired systems?

Fire Alarms
1

I’ll make the backstory quick!

I was terrified of the fire alarms at my elementary school. (Simplex 2901’s on march time aren’t exactly the friendliest-sounding signal in the world.) You’d think I’d have slowly gotten over the phobia over six years, but nope. If anything, it got worse.

The light at the end of the tunnel? I would soon be moving on to middle school. And, as I’d been told, the fire alarms talked.

Long story short, yes, they did talk. And it was AWESOME, instead of terrifying. What a relief. Seriously, I don’t know how many complexes I must’ve developed from worrying so much about those damn fire alarms in elementary school.

I still live near my old middle school. I walk past it every night as part of my little walking route. And recently, to my surprise, I noticed that they were installing some new speaker strobes. And then I saw some new smoke detectors and new wires being pulled. The old signals are still there for now, but it’s pretty obvious that they won’t be for long. They’re replacing the whole system.

So now, I can’t help but wonder… is there any way I could acquire the old voice panels? No, I don’t mean stealing them; I mean calling the new system installer and just plain asking if I could have them.

I only have one objection: is this… realistic? I don’t care if it’s weird or awkward (because it kind of is), but I don’t know, for instance, if old systems are usually sold or parted out instead of just thrown away. Would anyone want to pay for a 25-year-old system that’s being replaced because it’s old, obsolete, and liable to fail at any time? Maybe they would; I’m just not familiar with these things. Would I be creating a big hassle for the installer by asking him to set it aside for me? (He could just leave it in the main office and I could come pick it up, perhaps.)

Just want to know what the norms are (if any) for a situation like this before I give the installer a ring. Thanks in advance for your advice!

2

I’d say give it a shot. I’ve had a lot of good luck getting things from renovation jobs, mostly when I was younger. It may be a little difficult where its a public job (school), but I would suggest either calling them or even talking to them personally if someone there is outside the building where you can holler to them.

3

That is exactly how I got my 4100 Classic, I just talked to one of the guys who was working on it and he set it aside for me! :smiley: Considering the building was set for demolition anyway…
I had to call my uncle with his F150 to haul that sucker away. I don’t even know how we got the damn thing in the truck! :lol:

4

Wow, this is super inspiring. Thanks so much for the reassurance! I already left a voicemail and didn’t get a response, but ain’t nobody got nowhere by giving up that easily :slight_smile:

(Sheesh, now I’m wishing I’d asked for the old FireVac panel at my place of work when they upgraded. That thing was a beast.)

(… and now I’m also thinking about walking around downtown DC looking for old 2001 voice systems in soon-to-be-renovated buildings. You guys have got me thinking!)

5

Update (for those who might consider doing something like this): I just called. The guy was friendly and professional, but I learned that all the old equipment belongs to the school system and, once it’s retired from active service, will be sent to the Division of Maintenance.

Oof. This might be the end of my adventures. Not sure it’s worth my time to go through so many layers of bureaucracy. I’ll do a little more Googling before I call it quits. (FWIW, I already have some “version 2” Audiosone amps that are pretty darn similar to the ones at the school, so it’s not like I haven’t already gotten my voice evac fix!)

Thanks again, everyone!

6

We toss everything.

Any campus (such as a school district, large hospital complex, manufacturing plants, etc.) will often have a dedicated maintenance department who often keep panels as they are removed as spare parts, since they likely have other panels of that type installed in one of their sites and do some of their own service work.

For the most part though, we rip them out and throw them in the dumpster (actually we hire someone to rip it out and toss it). Schools will be a tougher target than any run of the mill commercial business, I’d recommend asking someone else. Possibly an electrical contractor who does fire alarm installs, or look around for older buildings being completely renovated and go after the general contractor who is going to gut the building.