This past weekend, I went to the Furpocalypse convention in Stamford, Connecticut. convention at Stamford, Connecticut. The Armon Hotel it was at, built in 1984 (with a few partial renovations since), had a rather interesting EST fire alarm system (most likely an EST-3, given the annunciator at the reservation counter).
The majority of the hotel has EST Genesis horn/strobes, with many of them on the trim plates, but one panel room on the second floor had Wheelock AS horn/strobes, the video gaming rooms on that same floor had Wheelock RSS remote strobes, another area had a System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobe, and the main lobby and ballrooms and related panel rooms had EST Genesis speaker/strobes! There were also a couple Federal Signal Vibratone 450D horn/strobes, clearly the original alarms from when the hotel was built, and most likely disconnected.
The pulls are Edwards 270-SPOs with simple STI covers over them, with many of the pulls being the 1980s version (suggesting they were the original pulls installed with the Vibratones) and some newer models with GE and EST logos, along with SIGA-PS smoke detectors (many of them were on large trim plates, clearly covering up where older smoke detectors were, but some were on the smaller base and had the “GE EST” logo). It’s possible the old system was a rare instance of Edwards using Federal Signal Vibratone horn/strobes, or it could’ve been another company that also used Edwards’s 270-SPOs (and there were a few in the 1980s that used them as their metal pull station option).
The parking garage had SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes, and Edwards 278B-1110 pulls and at least one 270-SPO pull with Stopper II covers.
Wilton YMCA, Wilton, CT:
Panel: Gamewell-FCI S3 (annunciator is in front foyer)
Pulls: Fire-Lite BG-12s
Alarms: SpectrAlert Advance Speaker/Strobes and at least two SPSRL speaker strobes
Detectors: 2151s
Wow! Heck of a find right there: not every day you see a white SHG!
I saw it at crown center in kc
Frank Murphy Hall of Justice (Detroit, built in 1970) - This place still has vintage components in use!
Annunciators/panels:
<Siemens FireFinder XLS series panel, presumably tied with one or more Simplex 4208, 4245, 4246, or 4247 panels
Detectors:
<Siemens photoelectric models, type unknown
Pull stations:
<Siemens HMS-S models, presumably replacing Simplex 4263 models due to the size of the surrounding trim
Notification appliances:
<Simplex 4037-1 horns
<Simplex 4070 chimes, presumably separate from the fire alarm system as there are several in close proximity to the horns
*All of the notification appliances are gray in color, with some of them painted over
That’s rather late for the 4037. I thought Simplex started switching to re-branding Faraday and Federal Sign & Signal signaling devices in the mid 60s. You should contact Old School Fire Alarms about this. Be sure to have the city salvage the backboxes for the 4037s too (those are rarer than the alarms themselves).
I found some vintage mid-60s Honeywell S465 pull stations (general alarm switch variant of the S464) and single stroke bells (also Honeywell) at the Akron City-County Safety building (Harold K. Stubbs justice center for the Akron city court). I have no clue if they are still in use, as the building has a modern EST voice system in place.
That system is weird. I have seen a newer unit in the Crown Center that had EST genesis horn strobes.
These images are from a restaurant. It seems that the smokes are fsp-751s, but the system is a DMP system. It has Spectralert classic speaker strobes. The pull stations look like they are one of the sigcom t bar pulls, and these are branded by Spectronics. Also you can see that there is a regency security system keypad.
You say “generic t bar pulls”, but that particular one is a Spectronics-rebranded Sigcom SG-42SK-series t-bar (or possibly an older SG-32SK-series one instead): like RSG’s RMS-1T many companies rebrand it.
I didn’t know that. I remember a brand name for those somewhere, but I couldn’t remember it.
In one of the campuses for the university in my city, in the engineering and tech building, the system is an EST3 with integrity NAs.
I should mention that the health university also uses EST on its campus.
buckaroos my image of the AS at my school got featured on google and microsoft
Bismarck Event Center
Bismarck, ND
Consists of two buildings connected by a hallway in the middle. I don’t know if the systems are tied together but I’m assuming they are. I heard the older Simplex system go off once when I was here for a show.
Main Building: 80s-90s
Panel: Simplex 4002 or 4005 (possibly with max amount of zones)
Notification Appliances: red 4903 mechanical horn strobes in the slightly newer part and 4903-9101 strobe plates with wheelock EH series electronic horns. All on continuous.
Pull stations: normal single action conventional T-bars in the slightly newer section and break glass T-bars in the slightly older section
Detectors: the only one I could spot was a conventional TrueAlarm in front of the elevator
New Building: Late 90s. Updated and size tripled in 2010s.
Panel: Siemens FireFinder XLS voice evac system
Notification appliances: rebranded wheelock E-50s and E-60s (including some odd ceiling mount lettered E-50s) Unknown message.
Detectors: Siemens addressable smoke detectors
Pull stations: Siemens addressable pull stations
Although I find the old system very interesting, I think that they should have extended the Siemens system to both buildings when they installed it because the old Simplex system is very outdated and ineffective. I experienced this firsthand when it went off and nobody was moving. I actually had to tell my parents that it was going off because they didn’t realize. I think that a proper voice evac system would at least help this.
My therapist’s office got another new fire alarm panel!
Some time last week they replaced their Silent Knight IFP-100 panel (installed in 2011 to replace an old Kidde panel) with an Autocall-branded Simplex 4007ES! Aside from also replacing the nearby smoke detector, nothing else was changed with the system, largely consisting of Wheelock MT-24-LSM horn/strobes (along with an NS and a few Exceders), System Sensor i3 smoke detectors (and a few 5601 heat detectors) and Edwards/AIP 270-SPO pulls (though the one near the panel was replaced with a Fire-Lite BG-12 this past spring).
That previous Silent Knight panel was relatively new. I’d almost thought Autocall brand went extinct from Simplex taking over it’s market.
For some time it did, but then Johnson Controls revived the brand after buying out TYCO/SimplexGrinnell, for selling Simplex products to third-party distributors. This is very similar to when Edwards had AIP (Alarm Industry Products), and when Faraday had FOS in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And my area is also home to the most popular Autocall distributor, NSG Life Safety (a division of Norel Communications). This has led to a few newly-built and recently-renovated school buildings going with Autocall-branded 4100ES mass-notification systems (while some school districts here still stick with EST for that).
Hy-Vee grocery store in Omaha at 78th and Cass. The system used to be a Simplex 4005, but was replaced with a fire lite panel within the past few years. The NAs were simplex. Idk if they were the mechanical horn variant or the electronic horn variant. And then near one of the entrances they had a system sensor Spectralert classic. Now they have system sensor l series ceiling horn strobes. The interesting thing is that the old panel is still there and is still powered up.
And here is the fire Lite annunciator and pullstation. Idk if it is addressable, I don’t see a light blinking inside it but it does have a number written on it. I have seen other pulls in the building that have different numbers on it. Also, I forgot to mention that there seem to be a few simplex duct detector test stations still hanging around.
I just did a thread on the fire alarms at my local zoo. Fire alarms at Omaha Nebraska Henry Doorly zoo
This is at the local history museum in my city. The building used to be a train station for UP back when they did passenger service. The building’s architecture is beautiful. The fire alarm system is a Notifier system, most likely an NFS-3030, although it could be a 640. The system has a DVC, and the upper levels are voice evac. The lower levels are not. All of the notification appliances have been replaced with Spectralert advances. The NAs used to be Gentex commanders, but they removed those. There are a few FSP-851 smokes, but for the most part it is a bunch of older smokes. Idk if they are addressable, I think they are. There are also some conventional heats. At least a few are edwards recalled, but there are also a few system sensor ones as well. There is also at least 1 RSG pullstation. There is also some sort of beam detector that I am not familiar with.
