Doing building manager training in a small town for work, I came across an old vacant high school during my break. One thing that has always interested me about schools, especially in Ontario, is that I know the majority of them have had some old Edwards system in it. I walked around the school, noticed it had for sale signs, but couldn’t see any indication of old alarms.
Upon further research, This school in particular, was built in 1924, and added on about 3 or 4 times, the final and big addition added in 1970. I also found it closed in 2019, and with that I found some reunion photos of the final celebration of the old schools life, as well as the answers to my burning questions. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the school still bears the old Edwards 360A red Adaptahorns! So that tells me there might be a very old Edwards panel still in play in the school. My goal has been trying to preserve systems like this, as I now know there are some schools that still bear these old systems, and are waiting for a replacement school.
For anyone interested, my old high school is still active to this day, & the new building hasn’t even been built yet. It still has the old 6500, and #24 single stroke bells. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on the school, in case the system decides to crap out before the new school is ever built at this point, or they decide to just renovate the school instead. Although I doubt it will crap out, those 6500 are built to last. We just took one out of service that was installed when the apartment building was built in 1973. 48 years of service, and we replaced it only because the condo company wanted a new panel.