What do you think of this? In my 4th and 5th grade years in school, I went to a VERY tiny K-7 Catholic church-school in my small rural town, anyway the fire alarm pull station was wired to a little school bell that would ring a good long 10-15 seconds when the students will have walked outside the building. Another thing happened when the school principal activated the pull station while I was walking by. Yikes! But it wasn’t too bad, despite me having a phobia of sudden noises back at that time.
What do you think of this story? Did you see any similar setups?
In 2021, for just one semester, I went to a K-8 Catholic private school with a church that still had fire alarm bells. The bells were Wheelock 6" vibrating bells with generic T-Bar pull stations.
These photos are from the school. We went to church at that school in 2022 and I have photos.
I used to go to a Catholic school in Akron, Ohio that was built in the mid 50s. For the original fire alarm system, it had an IBM 4200 or 4240 with 10 inch single stroke bells as the signaling devices; the only initiating device was an actuator switch connected to a manual pull rod with trip gongs attached to it. The pull rod was removed in 2018 (when I started seventh grade) but the signaling devices and trip gong’s are still in place. I’ll have to ask the maintenance manager if I can salvage those devices since they’re disconnected.
The actual fire alarm system was an EST 2 installed in the early 2000s with 278s and Integrity series horn strobes along with single gang strobes in the restrooms. The second semester of my sixth grade year is when they replaced the EST 2 with an iO series panel. The class change bells were IBM 6 inch bells that were the semi-flush model (those bells are still in use as of this writing).
I have a post under the “what fire alarm do you have at work or school?” category about the fire alarm system at STVM (LeBron James’s high school). I contacted Old School Fire Alarms about that system, and he is planning on salvaging it once STVM has the funds for a new campus or a massive renovation to the main building. I no longer go to that school because of too many sinus infections.
Not really. All of the schools in my area all had automated fire alarm systems, mainly by Edwards. I learned that the Edwards 1221T was a very popular panel installed in many new schools between the 50s-70s. Usually paired with single stroke 10" fire bells, and the classic 270-SPO, as well as Edwards 241 heats.
I’m not sure if any older schools had older systems or the old pole and bell combo. If there was, they were removed, as I have never seen any in my area at all. Plus many schools now have updated systems.
There is one school near me that still has single stroke bells, despite upgrading the panel in 2010. The school was built in 1989, a small 2 story school, and had an Edwards 6500 system with the Edwards 333Ds. I guess at some point the panel failed, and they replaced it with an EST panel, I would assume a Quickstart. They left the original bells in place, and they are still there as of today.
There is also a rural school located on a native reserve near me, that has a 6500 still with older 333D fire bells. I am inquiring on that system, as I have been looking for a single stroke strip for a 6500 panel. It is a hard piece to find, a 6504 ‘single stroke 120bpm’ strip. It would be installed before the bell circuits, and it would code them to 120bpm. They also had a 2 stage version which I have but missing a part to it, and then a 3-3-3 code version, which is super rare, and I knew of one panel that had it.
The IBM components and pull rod were actually disconnected, an EST 2 was installed in 1999/2000, which got replaced by and iO in 2018. A lot of schools in Ohio had pull rods. There may have been some in eastern Canada.
