the hotels i’ve been to have fire alarm systems with nas outside in the hallways and the hotel rooms had smoke detectors with built-in alarms like a household smoke alarm. if the hotel’s fire alarm system is tripped, does it trip the smoke alarms in the hotel rooms? also if one of the smoke alarms in the hotel rooms detects smoke, does it trip the hotel’s fire alarm system and the smoke alarms in the other rooms?
Depends on the system. Take my apartment building’s system, for example. It’s a Simplex 4100ES. Each TrueAlarm smoke in the units has a built-in sounder. If the building alarm goes off, every smoke goes off.
In most older hotels, the room smoke is a standard household smoke that isn’t connected to the building alarm.
Most of the time, from what I’ve seen, the smoke alarms and fire alarm system are separate.
In many cases with outdoor motels, the smoke alarms aren’t even 120VAC interconnect alarms, just standard 9V battery ones. I think the purpose of those is to alert the guest of smoke in their room, and the guest is supposed to evacuate their room and pull the fire alarm outside.
In most indoor hotels that I’ve seen though, the rooms have both a 9V smoke alarm and a system smoke.
Motels – In room smoke detectors are usually 120V local smoke alarms. I have seen a couple of motels where the room smoke detector is an addressable detector with sounder base or wireless detector. Notification usually lacks in a motel, with the only notification in the exterior corridors. The ones with the sounder bases will activate under general alarm.
Hotels – In room smoke detectors can really be any configuration:
1.) 120VAC local smoke alarms w/9V battery backup (I did come across one hotel that had a relay wired into the interconnect wire that reported back to the FACP, have yet to see that again).
2.) 120VAC or 24VDC Gentex local smoke alarm. 24V units powered from the fire alarm panel but may or may not report back to the FACP. The Gentex units have a relay that activates with smoke detection, some units have a heat detection element independent from the smoke alarm, the heat detector could be wired to the fire alarm panel to sound the general alarm.
3.) System smoke detector with an integrated sounder or sounder base that activates with local alarm. These obviously report to the FACP. The sounder base portion can be programmed to sound under general alarm.
In any case, room smoke detectors that are wired back to the fire alarm panel almost always report as a supervisory condition only. So an activation would only make noise inside the room only. At that point it’s up to the hotel staff to investigate and if it’s determined there is a fire and activate the building fire alarm via a pull station. If the room is sprinklered, activation of a sprinkler head would trip the waterflow switch.
When there’s system smokes with sounder bases usually a single smoke causes a supervisory and multiple smokes will trip the entire building alarm.
Not true. System smoke detectors with sounder bases are programmed as supervisory and only sound the base they are attached to. These devices are installed only in living or sleeping areas such as hotel rooms. Smoke detectors installed in the common areas such as hallways, lobby’s, or anywhere the general public is allowed will signal a general alarm when smoke is detected. No matter how many smokes programmed as supervisory activate due to smoke the panel will only report a supervisory condition. In order for a fire alarm panel to report a fire alarm signal then the devices that it is monitoring must be programmed for alarm and not supervisory. Every UL listed fire alarm panel is set up this way. The only time when you need more that one device to activate for the fire alarm panel to go into alarm is cross zoning which is only done in releasing applications like pre-action systems and foam release systems.
FACP’s are capable of it, and it’s common practice even in UL installations and on bases.
Ok then give me an example, just saying FACPs are capable of it is not enough tell me how you would program a fire alarm panel with smoke detectors and sounder bases that are programmed for supervisory generate a system level alarm.
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EST and Siemens can do it with no issues. I’ve been told Simplex has zero issues with it as well, and I’m guessing notifier can pull it off too. On addressable systems it’s just logic functions, any detector set for supervisory sets off a supervisory and its local base, any two detectors (regardless of what they’re set for) sets off an alarm.
Then you would have to cross zone all those devices I know that panels can do it but are you really going to create all those cross zoned pairs. If it’s a multi story building then floor by floor would keep it some what reasonable but if you have more than 2 or 3 detectors go off due to smoke it’s reasonable to think that there would smoke in the common areas as well causing those smoke to activate?
You put all of the room smokes on the same floor into a group and use an any 2 function.
Where it gets really fun is on military bases any smoke in the guest room must activate all sounder bases in the room, and set off an alarm on the FACP but not activate the building evac. Then if detectors in multiple rooms activate they want the building to go off.
Keep in mind chris+s is referring to high-end addressable systems. Cross-zoning is more commonly associated with conventional systems with lower levels of programming options, or releasing systems as you mentioned.
A simpler way to think of it would be to compare it to older two-stage systems. A local smoke in a room can trip a control relay on the SLC to activate its sounder base or local NAs. The FACP registers this alarm but does not sound a full building evacuation. If one or more smokes in adjacent rooms trip, the FACP can activate the building system. It may also trip the control relays to activate to sounder bases/local NAs in each room as well.
This is only a very simplified outline of the process, but it should help to clarify his point.
My apartment building has some form of Simplex system (I think a 4100ES, but it might be the next size down, the panel is hidden away in a mechanical room) with sounder smokes in each unit. One unit smoke triggers a supervisory. Two sends the building into alarm. My sophomore dorm had an EST3 system with the same setup (1 set off the sounder and a supervisory, 2 for an alarm).
The hotels/apartments around me are usually one of two ways (from my past experiences):
- Hotel has an older system/Bells, The rooms would usually just have a smoke alarm, smoke detector and a sprinkler or two.
- Hotel has a newer system, Rooms would have the same as the first example but would also have a mini-horn/speaker in every room (All on a class A circuit of course, and separate from the hallway NA circuit).
From what I read in the Ontario Building Code, you could also just do away with a smoke alarm and use a smoke detector instead, provided it has a sounder base, is part of the fire alarm system, and can sound independently. They also don’t have to sound the buildings fire alarm, they only have to sound a local alarm within the individual suites.
It’s also pretty rare, but there are some systems out there that may also have what is called a ‘smoke verification feature’. Basically if a smoke detector smells smoke, it will alert the panel, and it will go into supervisory mode. The smoke detector will check every 30 seconds if it smells smoke, and if by 90 seconds it doesn’t, the panel will go back to normal. If it does, or another smoke detector trips within that 30 seconds, it will trip the alarms.
I’ve seen hotels and apartments in Ontario that have silence switches on speakers/mini horns inside the units. These are generally in 2-stage systems and the silence feature is cancelled if it goes to the second stage. Mute switches aren’t allowed in the US.
I remember seeing some of those switches in twoplyboy’s videos when they were up on YouTube and thought it was strange.
Yeah… What happened to him? :?
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I think it had something to do with a privacy complaint. But don’t quote me on that.
It was a privacy complaint so he removed all of his videos. Not hid them, REMOVED them.