I think people are starting to treat fire alarms like they do car alarms: annoying but nothing to really pay attention to.
You can’t fight stupid. If someone makes the conscious decision to ignore an alarm so be it. However property owners need to step up and force evacuations or start having police and fire officials take action. However you will find that at most large buildings the fire department is not pushing for evacuations or holding those that do not evacuate accountable.
Location: Picket Place (7-story high-rise apartment building)
Old System: Simplex Voice Evac w/ 2001-style cabinet,
Simplex 4259-36smokes + 4259-39 bases, some addressable TrueAlarms,
Simplex Bull’s Eye speakers (basically the Federal SelecTone speaker) behind 2903 strobe or light plates.
4099 pulls (not sure what model the addressable version of the 4251-30 - style station would be.)
Older Gentex AC smokes in the apartment.
New System: Fike? system (didn’t get a good look at the panel.)
SpectrAlert Advance SPSCWK-R Speaker/Strobes
2251T (or equivalent) Smokes
Fike rebranded BG-12s
Possibly newer smokes in apartments.
Note: Mom’s friend lived there for a while so I got to see the old system pretty well. Then she moved out. The company that does my services (helps w/ groceries, cleaning, food prep) have clients there. Back in May, I saw Brother’s Fire vans parked outside the building, and figured out they were working on the system. At first I thought it was their annual inspection, but after seeing them there several more times I figured out they must be getting a full upgrade, although I hadn’t been in there in quite a while. Then on Friday we stopped by real quick to drop off meds for one and I got to see the new system. One of the staff knows I like alarms, so she saw one of the techs about to ditch one of the 4259-36s and told him I collect alarms so he gave it to her and I got to have it!
The pulls you have in mind are Simplex 4099-9002s.
But besides that, it seems your town is doing away with Simplex. First that hospital, then a hotel, now this! But it’s neat how you got one of the smoke detectors! Reminds me of how I got a Simplex 4051+4050-80 from when they were renovating part of my city’s public school administration building (they replaced it with a SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobe.)
Actually the hospital was it Rochester. I live in Austin. But not to worry, there are still a number of Simplex systems still kickin’ around here.
Here’s one I noticed just yesterday right across the plaza from my work. I’m guessing there is a Simplex system (I’m leaning towards a 4001) that’s very problematic and constantly activating in the middle of the night. Originally that strip had in the cost cutters a classic Spectra set to code-3 of course, and in the UPS store a 2903 strobe+9833 set to continuous both with 9795 T-bars(the one in cost cutters is under a stopper with a note taped to it reading “please do not touch. thanks” ). Now while in the cost cutters I happen to look up and noticed the spectra was gone and in it’s place was an Advance. I haven’t looked in the UPS store yet. I’ll take a drive by after work tomorrow night.
Only other “change” in the plaza was a BG-12s in my work’s back room was replaced with a new one, after I discovered the old one hanging by the wires (yes I reported it immediately) a few months ago
Here’s a new one: the Gilmore School near the train station closest to my house recently upgraded their fire alarm system as part of converting the building into a pre-K school. Prior to the upgrade, the school had some kind of Simplex system (probably a 2001), with 2903+2901-9806 horn/strobes, and a few Simplex smokes (I saw a 2098-9508 head and a 4259-36), as well as Gamewell Century “LOCAL ALARM” pulls and Chemtronics 500-series heat sensors left from the old Gamewell system from when the school was built in 1965.
The new system is some kind of Notifier system; I didn’t see the panel, but I am willing to bet it’s one of those ONYX-series digital voice command panels.
The new signals are red SpectrAlert Advance speaker/strobes. They are located in most areas, even in the classrooms! Some of the old Simplex horn/strobes are still intact, but disconnected. All the old pulls, smokes and heats are gone. They installed Notifier NBG-12LX pull stations at the entrances and exits, and possibly more in the cafetorium and gym. The smoke detectors are addressable Notifier models, probably 2251s.
I was told by the new principal (she used to work with my brother when he was in preschool) that this new Notifier system cost ten thousand dollars! I can’t imagine how much an equivalent system by EST or Simplex would cost.
But I am kinda bummed that I didn’t get a chance to score any parts from the upgrade. I can do without the old 2903+9806 horn/strobes (I already have a 2901-9806 horn anyway), but I was thinking about collecting some of the old smoke detectors and pulls (since with the latter, the Downey and Hancock schools had the same models). Guess I’ll have to look elsewhere for a Simplex 4259-36 smoke detector!
My brother started Massasoit College today, so I thought I’d join him today to meet the new Helping Hands Club director. Aside from that, not much has changed alarm-wise, but here are a few interesting things…
The fire alarm panels had their service stickers replaced this summer with updated versions featuring the new Total Computing Life Safety logo on them. (This is on the Faraday MPC-2000 in the Fine Arts building.)
The Field House building surprisingly had a BIG update: they got a new fire alarm control panel! As you can see, it is a Fire-Lite MS9600UDLS addressable panel. Interesting how they went with an addressable panel, yet all the devices are conventional. Interestingly, the panel is located in the main lobby; in the mechanical room where the old Faraday MPC-2000 panel was, the cabinet is still there but now has a Fire-Lite power supply cabinet plastered onto the front, and the inside of the panel was gutted.
The panel is wired into where the old Faraday RDC-700 annunciator was (and before that, there was a Simplex 4308 annunciator for the old Simplex 4207 system from 1978). They completely removed all traces of the old Simplex and Faraday annunciators, and now have that big red junction box in its place. The old Simplex 4255-1 heat sensors (and a System Sensor 2451TH smoke detector) are still intact, as are most of the original Simplex 4251-20 pulls. The VA4 horn/strobes were also left intact.
I was told the reason for the new panel was because the Faraday MPC-2000 was damaged due to a heavy amount of rainfall (I guess the ceiling was leaking or something), so they had to get a new one.
Surprisingly, in that small room that is adjacent to the mens’ locker room, the VA4 horn/strobe installation STILL isn’t finished yet! You’d think they’d have gotten to that when they installed the new fire alarm panel…
I guess at the college, they are pretty much done with Faraday and have now pretty much switched to the Honeywell stuff, with the exception of the Faraday F1G pull stations and an occasional U-MMT. I wonder if this had to do with Faraday discontinuing their own signals?
Made another discovery at Massasoit College’s Field House building. Right above where the new Fire-Lite MS-9600UDLS panel was placed, on the ceiling I found what appears to be a Fire-Lite SD-355T smoke detector! It had “001” written on the head, and since this was located in Zone 4 (the pull stations and smoke detectors in this and the Fine Arts building have the zone number written on them), I have the feeling this smoke detector is ADDRESSABLE! I’m starting to have the feeling that they might upgrade the whole building’s system in the future. They will probably leave the existing signals intact (the SAE VA4 horn/strobes were already installed years back to replace the old Simplex 4051+4050-80 horn/lights), but I imagine all the pull stations (Simplex 4251-20s left from the old system and a few replacement Faraday F1G Chevrons) and heat sensors (mostly Simplex 4255-1s and a few Chemtronics 600-series detectors), as well as a System Sensor 2451TH smoke detector in a mechanical room, will all be taken out and replaced with addressable devices (I’m pretty sure they’ll use Fire-Lite BG-12LX pulls and more SD-355T smoke detectors).
I went back yesterday, and well, that’s only on the subway/lobby levels. Most of the upper floors still have the Simplex devices present.
Another update:
The Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission in Brockton, MA (this is where the job club I attend meets every week) had an update of sorts to their fire alarm system. They still have the Wheelock AS horn/strobes, as well as an LSM strobe in one of the offices and a Gentex remote strobe in one of the mens’ rooms, but the Notifier BG-10 pulls were recently replaced with NBG-12 pulls! Seems they are now aware of that false alarm problems BG-10s had and they are replacing them with its less-problematic successor.
The BG-10’s issue only existed when an incompetent installer or “tester” overtightened the allen head screw. The fact that they could be reset with out a key was a free fix from Fire Lite/Notifer and that is really not a reason to change out the pull station. If they lasted this long and they were all replaced at once it is a safe guess that there is something else at play. Take a closer look next time you are there look for a swapped panel or a key lock on the new stations.
I will look. The new pulls aren’t addressable, but it could be likely the panel was replaced, yet they left the existing signals intact. IDK what the existing panel was, probably some conventional Notifier model (I wouldn’t be surprised if the panel were still there.)
An update on my old ES, I just noticed they replaced the 6" adaptabel outside and put a 4" adaptabel in its place.
I had a few updates at UA. See my topic for more details and pictures.
Here’s an interesting thing I found at Massasoit Community College’s Student Center, when I was there for a Helping Hands Club meeting. We had it in a different area today, due to someone else using the Student Council room. At one area of the building there used to be a game room (with a pool table and stuff like that), but now it contains a few offices, a storage closet and a secret passage that leads to another end of the building. When we tried having the meeting in the college newspaper office, I discovered something in the adjacent storage closet:
Turns out I was wrong about there being no more old complete Standard horn/lights! I was surprised to see it there, and the woman who gained us permission to the office told us that the closet was exempt from ADA-compliant upgrades, so this probably won’t be upgraded anytime soon.
There was also a hole underneath where an old Standard pull station used to be. I imagine this was the alarm and pull for when it used to be the game room, but now it doesn’t really make sense to have a pull station in a storage closet. (There is a newer Faraday F1G “Chevron” pull installed in the secret passage though, but no other alarm signals are in this area so far.)
Also, in our Helping Hands Club meeting we brought up trying to bring the campus up to code more, and fire alarms were brought up on the agenda (my brother is the president of the club). The vice-president complained that once last year, the Student Center had a gas leak, and they set off the fire alarm to evacuate, but nobody paid attention to the alarms, so the fire department had to manually evacuate the building! She thinks the volume of the alarm should be increased in a few large areas, and that more strobes should be installed. I agreed with the remote strobe thing; they should at least put them in the classrooms and the restrooms. It’d be enough to grab everyone’s attention, even if they can’t hear the alarm. We will try and contact the fire alarm company when they test the systems again to see if we can do something about it (but chances are they’re NOT going to upgrade that old Standard horn/light in the storage closet unless it breaks down.)
Chances are they won’t be doing anything about it until the college pays them to do it.
Right, and like I said, that would probably be if the alarm suddenly stops working.
I discovered tonight that a local school got an upgrade. Here’s what it used to be:
[quote] Schuylerville Jr./Sr. High: Simplex system (unsure of what but there's Simplex 4602 LED annunciators with zone labels in the 30s). Inside the old parts, there's Simplex bells, vairying between 6" and 10". In the newer parts, they have bell/strobes. I have a couple of pics:In the lobby, I believe you can make the assumptions about which bell is for what.
A pic of the 6" Simplex bell. Also as a bonus, next to it is an 8" IBM bell! I assume it’s used as a class bell, but IDK for sure.
What’s weird about this place is their auditorium is probably smaller in size than MHS’s, yet MHS is ranked for 975 and this one is ranked for 1025 people and it has fewer exits too. Also, MHS has 7 bell/strobes installed in the auditorium and at this school, there’s just one 6" bell in the auditorium. I don’t care about 7, but I do think the auditorium should have at least one more bell. BTW, the smokes are 2098-9577s and the pulls are 4251-20s.
[/quote]
Well, the school underwent an expansion and rennovation project this past year and in the process, the alarm system was upgraded. IDK the exact model of the panel because all I saw was an annunciator (Notifier FDU-80), but knowing the size of the school, it’s definately one of the superior ONYX panels. The 2098-9577 smokes have been replaced with addressable Notifier smokes (all of which are mounted in the same places the old smokes were) and the 4251-20 pulls have been replaced with NBG-12LXs. All the NAs have been replaced with SpectrAlert Advances (again, most int he same places the old ones were, but more have been installed as needed for additional coverage). As far as the auditorium goes, pulls have been installed at the exits (there weren’t any before), the smokes replaced with the addressable Notifier ones, and instead of the one 6" bell, there’s now two Advanced horn/strobes (one on each side of the room). Personally, I’m sad to see the bells go, but the upgrade was certainly for the better (even though the system is no longer Simplex). The class bell system remains the same though, so the IBM bell lives on! 
I guess they wanted the students and faculty to be able to tell the school bells and the fire alarms apart much easier.
BTW, that upgrade reminds me of the upgrades two of the schools in my city got not too long ago. They both had Simplex systems of some sort (one had an old 4246/7 system with 4040 horns and 270-SPO pulls, the other had a 2001 (I think) with 2903+2901-9806 horn/strobes, various 80s-style Simplex smokes, and older Gamewell Century pulls and Chemtronics heat sensors left over from an older Gamewell system.) Now they both have Notifier ONYX-series systems similar to the one you mentioned, except they are voice-evacuation systems and have the SpectrAlert Advance speaker/strobes. The smokes were installed where the old ones were located, but the areas where the old signals and pulls were installed were just plated over, and had new signals installed next to them, and put the new pulls in different areas.
Both schools still have their old bell systems (I believe the clock panels are Simplex, but the bells are Stromberg), but one of the schools (the one that had the 4040s) replaced a few of the bells with newer buzzers, and the other is now a pre-K school, so they disabled the bell system, but they might use it as a backup fire alarm system or as a lockdown alarm. I was also told at that school, the new Notifier system cost over $10,000!