Recently, my school has had some construction and renovations being done, after they got funding. I thought that they would not replace the fire alarms, however in new construction areas, it is required by law for it to be voice evacuation. The panel was a NFS2-640, so i assumed that they would just add a DVC, and use L-Series speaker strobes for the new construction, however I was wrong. When I walked into the school before the construction was complete, i was surprised to see Edwards SIGA-278 pull stations, and LED speaker strobes, marked “ALERT”. I assumed that they had fully replaced the alarms, but half of the school, which was only slightly renovated, still had FSP-851’s, NBG12-LX’s, and SpectrAlert Advances. Today when I walked in, I saw a Edwards EST4 annunciator by the main entrance, right next to the Notifier FDU-80. Is this code-compliant?
I honestly can’t see why it would be. But I honestly think that is kinda weird considering that the Notifier systems in my opinion are easier to work on and honestly a lot more reliable compared to EST
EST speakers are typically significantly cheaper than other manufacturers.
ive serviced places with the same situation with two panels, as long as each panel can communicate to the other that alarms and troubles its all fine. Any renovation with an FA permit in a school will be under fairly close scrutiny by the local AHJ, and they have walked through and tested things are working. So you can take some comfort in that.
Depends. In Canada they really don’t like when you connect 2 different panels together that can’t share a network (Like the Mircom FX-2000, FlexNet, Or Kidde VM panels).
They could also be leaving the old system in place till the new one is done. I’ve seen this many times; once in a hotel where they had an Older Edwards system (probably a 6616 or 6632 from what I can tell) with continuous bells. The renovated areas had EST Genesis Horn/Strobes, and there was also a newer EST annunciator at the time (this was back in 2011 or 2012, the system was an EST 3). Both were active, but not connected, as someone pulled the alarm for the old system and the bells went off, but not the horn/strobes.
Both of the systems do backtrip each other, as sometimes during drills you hear the advances go off first, and sometimes you hear the speakers go off first. I have most of my classes in the renovated section, so it is easy for me to hear which ones go off first. The systems do not backtrip trouble or supervisory conditions though, as the EST4 had a tamper valve supervisory for over a week, and the Notifier system stayed normal. Maybe this system is not code compliant? I still have no doubts that it will protect the building, and both of the annunciators are right next to each other, so they can see them at the same time.