I really wish I got a picture of these devices, but alas, I did not.
Hampton Inn (Exton, PA)
Pulls: Mix of Simplex single-action and break glass T-bars and Ademco T-bars
Smokes: can’t recall what was in the hallways, but the room had one of the square Gentex smoke detectors
NAs: Wheelock NSes and Exceders, as well as SpectrAlert Advances, mounted on Simplex 2903-9001 light plates. No idea if both the light plates and the strobes on retrofit devices activate during an alarm.
If they are mounted on TOP of the light plates, its pretty safe to say that they are disconnected.
…and they couldn’t just buy the retrofit plates Simplex sells for this reason and take the old ones off the backboxes and put up the new stuff on retrofit plates??? Somebody was lazy…lol. Also it would be impossible to tell if they were a light or strobe plate unless you looked at the circuitry on the back…but I would assume strobe plates; that is, if the building was built in the 80’s? Could you tell what year they were from? Also were the pulls real high up or at regular height? I’m just curious since a lot of older buildings seemed to do this, maybe to prevent kids from falsely pulling the alarm?
Well putting a new horn over an old installation is a lot more common then you might think. We had a whole topic on it a few years back.
I’ve seen new horn/strobes mounted on old installations several times. My high school has a ton of Genesis horns mounted on top of 4040/4050 flush mounts and on grilles that I think were hiding horns and class change bells. My university had a couple buildings with TrueAlerts mounted on top of 4050 flush mounts. The weird thing here was the consistent sloppiness.
As far as whether they’re strobes or lights, yeah, can’t tell unless you see the back. Couldn’t tell anything about them, but they probably were strobes.
I recently visited a building that just reopened after undergoing a complete renovation and was surprised by the new system’s incredibly high density of signals. The building has a Notifier system with N-MPS-series pull stations and SpectrAlert Advance horns (no strobes, oddly enough). The picture below shows about one-half of a rather small reception room located on the building’s ground floor, with each red dot representing one horn (this room had six horns); two other horns are located to the right of the picture (out-of-frame).
I have no idea if this type of setup is actually necessary to meet current audibility requirements, but having such a high density of horns almost seems like overkill.
I’d have to think those are chimes if they’re placed so closely. Otherwise, that spacing is ridiculous.
It would make sense to be chimes, especially because the horns have no fire label.
I’m hoping they are chimes because I would HATE to be in there when an alarm happened and have to listen to SIX of those *******.
Don’t they have ceiling-mount versions of chimes though? My college has mainly ceiling mount versions of SpectrAlert Advance speakers and they are round and it is the same with the ceiling mount versions of the SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes they have at my local CVS.
Those signals could indeed be chimes. However, the SpectrAlert Advance CH-series devices are only listed for private mode signalling, and this is a public mode application. Unless the AHJ approved this type of setup, it would seem to be an unlikely option.
System Sensor does indeed offer ceiling-mount SpectrAlert Advance chime/strobes, but audible-only devices (horns and chimes) appear to be available exclusively with the wall-mount housing.
So if those are chimes, it would be very strange that they mounted them on the ceiling then.
Considering the space is a reception room, it’s possible that loud music, or simply the voices of many people gathered at a party, was factored into the audibility requirements. The ceiling and walls appear to be lined with (rather ornate) sound dampening tiles, so high ambient noise levels seem to be anticipated within this room.
While it may be overkill when the room is silent, it’s likely just enough to be audible over the sound of a rowdy gathering.
That explanation definitely sounds logical. I also just realised that there appear to be some very discreet dividers, which would mean that each part of the room would have two horns (still a lot for those small spaces!).
It remains the highest concentration of signals I’ve seen in such a small space, and it’s the first time I’ve encountered such a setup with horns. Most systems I’ve seen that have a high density of signals are voice-evac setups, where it seems that a higher quantity of speakers is used to ensure both adequate audibility and intelligibility (instead of audibility only).
You know when you said that was a reception area, I thought you meant reception as in a RECEPTIONIST. XD
Sears - Natick, MA - DEFUNCT / STORE HAS CLOSED
Pull stations: FCI MS-2’s
Signals: Faraday 6140 horns behind SAE AV32 strobe plates, and some newer Wheelock MT’s.
Detectors: System Sensor 2400’s
This was the first system I mentioned on TFP… and now it’s gone.
Since they are horns behind the AV32 strobe plates and look silver, I’m gonna go and assume the alarms are Faraday 6120 horns without the front cover.
Thanks for the info!
The West Bridgewater Public Library has a 1980s Gamewell fire alarm system. The alarms are Wheelock 7002T horn/strobes! They also have key-reset dual-action Gamewell Century pulls and Chemtronics 601 heat sensors.
The nearby elementary school (my brother and I used to play on their fancy playground when we were kids) has a Simplex 4020 fire alarm system from the 1990s, with a 4003 voice-evac panel next to it. The hallways and most larger rooms have Simplex 4903 signals, most likely horn/strobes for the most part (couldn’t tell if they were electromechanical or electronic.) Each classroom has a Gentex GX-90 horn/strobe rebranded by Simplex. This leads me to believe that many of the 4903 signals are horn/strobes, even though there’s a 4003 evac panel present. The gymnasium/auditorium most likely has the speaker/strobe version, while everywhere else uses horn/strobes (I’ve seen quite a few systems like that.) Anyways, the pulls are single-action 2099-9795s, and the smoke detectors are 2098-9201 photoelectric heads on addressable 4-wire bases.
Outside the playground that is co-owned by the school, they have this neat modified Gamewell fire box that serves as a “medical emergency or injury pull box”…
Costco - Waltham, MA
Panel: Fire-Lite MS-9200UDLS, located at the main exit.
Pull stations: BG-12LX’s
Detectors: SD-355’s
Signals: SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes
This system appears to have replaced an old Gamewell system, judging by an old Gamewell remote alarm indicator at the back of the parking garage, next to some electrical/mechanical rooms.
The Simplex model number for the ADA-compliant version (which I assume you’re talking about) is 4903-9224.
