Hi!
So we had a fire drill at school yesterday and the system instead of being in code 3 as it normally is it was in continuous. :shock: Of course I had to go up to the front office and silence the panel. I’m still at school now, I’m thinking something with the panel’s memory. I have parts at home from a old 4100 and would gladly give them to the school. I know my way around panels and I should be able to fix it. Principal doesn’t want to call Simplex because of their high costs. and if I screw something up I’m gonna give them my 4005. I also want you guys to post here stories where you got to help with drills.
Those parts should not uses in a life safety system. I don’t know if they were removed or not, so in my opinion, why risk a malfunctioning system? Even then installing a Simplex system without being trained by Simplex i believe voids any warranty. Anyways, why give your SCHOOL of all people YOUR alarms? I mean, damn i wish i had a 4100 and 4005.
-Brandon
My high school/middle school (pretty much one building) shared the same fire alarm system (either a 4100 or a 4120), but they were divided into multiple panels called nodes. And a node, from what I understand, is one panel (4100 or 4120) that protects a certain part of the building as far as notification appliances and detection. When one node would trip, obviously all of the panels would go into alarm throughout the school. It’s a very complex system.
But my point is, sometimes the alarms would sound in continuous, sometimes they would sound in code-3 and sometimes it would sound in code-3 in one part of the building and continuous in another part of the same building. I don’t know why exactly it worked that way, or if it was something messed up with the programming. So I wouldn’t be too worried that it sounds in a different coding than you’re used to.
Yeah, Isn’t there a rule or something that you can’t reinstall used alarms into a system? Doesn’t it have to be new/approved devices installed, or maybe I’m just wrong. Not too familiar with the FA code, I just heard somewhere that it was the case.
I do know in California that ONLY new fire alarms (from box) are allowed to be installed in any life safety system, unless the device was approved by the fire marshal. (There may be some exception if you wire a device into a system but need to move it somewhere else in the system, but don’t quote me on that, I am not sure about that rule)
Doesn’t your school contract out with a service tech or company to annual service their panel? I know my school district has a couple different contracts with various companies like Simplex and Notifier.
If the specs want March time they can put it in. Besides the alarms a chime tone and so is our school they both do code 3 now to not confuse the alarms do march time.