Nan Boothby Memorial Library has a Notifier SFP-10UD system, with Amseco MSB-6-PV4 bells on Wheelock RSSP-24MCW strobe plates. Pulls are all Grinnell-rebranded Notifier MPS-950B.
Lakefront Inn and Motel in Island Pond, Vermont has Wheelock 7002T horn/strobes with BG-10 pull stations mounted outside next to the doorways that lead into the rooms themselves under the eaves of the balcony for the first floor and the roof for the second floor. What concerns me however is that the pulls were eye level to me meaning no small kids or anybody who was shorter could activate the alarm if they saw a fire.
Sunrise Manor, the assisted senior living facility in Island Pond, Vermont where my grandparents moved to also has an interesting system. The panel is a Simplex 2001 that I saw when I went into the main building. Outside at the end of each walkway where the doors that lead into the apartment on on the first floor, are Simplex 2901-9806 horns on 2903 light plates. One was also eye level to me! The second floor and inside the main buildings there are Simplex 4903-9220 horn/strobes so I am wondering if the 2901-9806s are even still connected. They are HORRIBLY faded from sun exposure and there are only 8 of them in total. The horn was mounted in the front of the light plate.
McDonalds in Wheeling: Red wall-mounted Wheelock Exceeder horn/strobes and Notifier BG-12XLs. In the bathroom there is a ceiling mounted Exceeder strobe, and outside there is a horizontally mounted SpectrAlert Advance.
It seems that there have been more Exceeders being used instead of System Sensor alarms nowadays.
West Residence Hall–Greensboro College, Greensboro, NC
There’s a VERY interesting mix, resulting from a partial upgrade due to a fire on the basement and first floors three years ago. There was another Simplex system installed in the past 10-15 years, replacing an old high-voltage Pyr-A-Larm system. There are faint remnants of an even older system in the form of covered flush horn backboxes, but I can’t tell for sure what could have been there (they’ve been gone since the 1970s).
Panel
NEW Simplex Addressable Panel (not sure what—I’m willing to bet a 4010ES or 4100ES).
Initiating Devices
Simplex TrueAlarm addressable smokes throughout
Simplex 4099-9001 pulls (floors 2 and 3)
Simplex 4009-9004 pulls w/ visible polling LEDs (basement and floor 1)
Signals
Simplex TrueAlert 4906-9127 horn/strobes (basement, level 1 lobby)
Pyr-A-Larm HAC-120 120VAC horns (Vibratone 350 B1) (everywhere else)
Federal Signal Vibratone 350 120VAC horns (new versions–gray) (First floor residence hallways)
All signals sound in Temporal and all TrueAlerts are synchronized. Last Tuesday was my first time hearing Vibratone 350 horns in person, and let me say that not even SpectrAlert Advances can top those things! :shock: :shock:
That’s for sure! SpectrAlert Advances and TrueAlerts and Wheelock ASs are pretty loud and piercing, but they can’t top old AC electromechanical horns!
Anyways, my brother is staying at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, MA: the building he’s in has a rather interesting fire alarm setup. They have a big Honeywell voice-evac system of some kind. The main alarms are Wheelock ET-1080-SLM-24 speaker/strobes rebranded by Honeywell, but there are also a few Edwards/EST Integrity speaker/strobes (then again, EST is very common in Boston…) The restroom in my brother’s hospital room has a 4" Integrity remote strobe. The pulls are Honeywell S464As, and the smoke detectors are System Sensor 2151s with the Honeywell logo on the head.
WHOOPS! I said the 12 volt version of the bell. The bells there are Amseco EXB-6-PV4
Northland Professional Building has a Siemens FireFinder XLS system, with System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance P2R/P4R horn/strobes, even one in a very small room! :shock: There is one System Sensor SR by a dentist’s room. Pulls are all Siemens HMS-S. There is a Simplex 4080 bell (10 inch gong) by the 5th floor elevators, I doubt it is still in use, as I saw a SpectrAlert Advance not far from it.
The building was built in 1978, the Siemens system was put there in 2013, the original 4080 bells were still in use, and there was an Edwards 439D-10AWC bell in the lobby (now gone).
The SpectrAlerts were put there in early 2017.
L-Series NAs are starting to show up quite a bit: Cumberland Farms, Ashford, CT
Pulls: Fire-Lite BG-12s
Annunciator: Fire-Lite ANN-80
NAs: System Sensor L-Series horn/strobes, white, ceiling-mount
In the field, ceiling-mount L-series devices are almost identical to Advances, the only distinguishing characteristic being the horn grille. I fully expect we’ll be seeing these in the majority of new buildings from now on.
I checked the decibels on the data sheet and it looks like the L-series devices are a little bit quieter to their advanced predecessor. Thank freaking God.
Two System Sensors are at Sports Direct, Gravesend Town Centre, there are some Apollo XP95s there as well.
The attachments won’t upload, so I’ll try again sooner or later.
I know! The Advances are SO SO SO loud!!! I can’t believe the Northland Professional Building would have TWO in each room!!!
I saw one in a mall store around here too as well as a regular P2RL.
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Some of the larger rooms in our school have two ceiling mounted siemens ZH horn strobes, even when it isn’t a double classroom! (art rooms and health rooms) It’s really loud…
I have never heard of a big room having more than one device in it at all as a set up before. And its never happened in any of the schools I went to when I attended them. Most big rooms just had one alarm and sometimes they were given an alarm because they were in the back of another room. One alarm always seemed to be enough or in some cases, I would say it shouldn’t be enough. The two gyms at my junior high school each only had one Simplex 4051+4050-80 in them and they were bigger than the cafeteria which had 3 of them in the back. But it did get the job done and it could be heard during a fire drill.
One of my schools had Gentex Commander 2s. Each room had at least 1 horn/strobe, including restrooms and most offices. Large classrooms had 2. Cafeteria had 6.
I guess it depends on the way that the room in question is built and if the sound can reverb in there enough or if it the strobe can be bright enough to cut through smoke. My high school had only 2 2901-9838s on 4904 strobe plates in their cafetorium, but my elementary school’s cafeteria/gymnasium which was quite a bit smaller than the one at my high school had 4 2901-9838s on 4904 strobe plates. And now it has 8 SpectrAlert Advanced Speaker/Strobes which can be forgiven because a speaker isn’t as loud as a horn.
My high school’s main gym only has 2 2901-9838s on 2903 strobe plates. The auxiliary gym has a 4903-9104/2901-9846 (from 1994 upgrade) and a 4903-9252 which replaced a combo on the other side of the same type for whatever reason; probably stopped working. And interestingly the aux gym has Honeywell rebranded SigCom T-bars while the main gym sports it’s original 4251-20’s except for one which was replaced with hex lock BG-12 after getting destroyed when hit by a ball.
The McDonalds right by my house has a Fire-Lite system. Alarms consist of Wheelock MT-24-LSM horn-strobes and ONE System Sensor MASS in the kitchen visible from where you order. In the bathrooms, there are SpectrAlert Classic strobes. Smoke detectors are System Sensor 2451s and pulls are Fire-Lite BG-10s. Quite a dated system for my area, everything new is Notifier with BG-12 and Advances or Exceeders.