My wife and I just purchased a home built in 1955, and it has an old Notifier alarm system that appears to have been produced in 1951. I don’t know the first thing about the system, and I was hoping that some of you might be able to provide some insight about it.
This is the alarm system, positioned by the door to our garage.
Inside of the alarm panel.
Detail on inside of panel cover.
Wiring diagram on inside of panel cover.
We also have these on the ceilings of nearly every room. Thanks to these boards, I’ve been able to determine that these are heat sensors, but I don’t know anything else about them.
I know that the alarm still works, as our home inspector tested it when he was going through the house. There was a doorbell button in the attic that he pressed to see what it was, and it triggered the extremely loud bell on the alarm panel. Past that, I don’t know anything. Thank you so much to anybody who can help me learn a little bit more about our new house and the super fascinating fire alarm system that it has installed.
That’s a very rare system. Notifier is actually still producing fire alarm systems today, but they haven’t manufactured anything like this for several decades. In fact, stand-alone fire alarm systems in residences are really not very common at all.
Most houses either have independent smoke detectors or something wired in to a security system. Does your house have regular residential smoke detectors in it http://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/for-consumers/fire-and-safety-equipment/smoke-alarms/safety-messages-about-smoke-alarms that are less than 10 years old? I wouldn’t put much trust in a 60+ year old system that uses heat detectors as its means of fire detection. Heat detectors are commonly not regarded as life safety devices due to their inability to sense a fire as quickly as smoke detectors can.
If your house is equipped with modern fire detection, there would be no harm in leaving this system running. Or, if you wanted, you could rip it out and probably sell it for a good amount on eBay. There would definitely be a market for it there.
Definitely a cool relic from the past you have there though!
Thanks for the reply! Yes, we’ve got up to date smoke alarms throughout the house, so were covered there (but it’s great that you checked). We think the old system is interesting, and we’d never seen something like that before. It’s great to know that it’s as unique and uncommon as we had guessed. We look forward to showing off our little piece of history when people come over.
