I live in a highrise and recently had painters come in to fix holes and drywall and paint. Well I just realized they removed then drywalled over my bldg fire speaker. I really don’t want the hoa involved so is there a certain speaker used in highrises tha I can just purchase and have installed?
Seriously? sigh…the stupidity of some people…
I’d advise letting your building’s fire alarm service company handle this issue as they’re the only ones authorized to work on such systems.
3 Likes
Second that. The speakers have to be a certain type and wattage for the system, and also only a certified technician can repair them. Plus not to mention the system is monitored, so the moment you pull it down, the condo will be notified anyways, and then you are paying for a service tech to come out and trace the problem out. The system has to be called offline or else fire trucks could also come out, and no one can do so beside the condo owners.
Idk why you don’t want to involve your HOA, but it is better to do so. Your painters should be on the hook for the repairs anyways.
According to the OP the painters removed the speaker & apparently did not put it back up, which should mean the panel’s already in trouble due to a missing device.
The rest of what you said makes no sense to me though: the fire department will only be called if the fire alarm system activates (at least if the system has a dialer. This still doesn’t mean anybody but the service company should be messing with it however), & the system doesn’t have to be taken fully offline just because one device is missing: if anything that would jeopardize the safety of everyone in the building & would require a fire watch to be put in place.
The rest of what you said makes no sense to me though: the fire department will only be called if the fire alarm system activates (at least if the system has a dialer. This still doesn’t mean anybody but the service company should be messing with it however), & the system doesn’t have to be taken fully offline just because one device is missing: if anything that would jeopardize the safety of everyone in the building & would require a fire watch to be put in place.
Actually, yes it does. I always put the system on test whenever I work on it, no matter what. Where I live we don’t use dialers, or my company doesn’t. We install our own ULC monitoring panels that monitor the contacts on the FACP (Alarm, trouble, supervisory). That means any signal will trigger to the monitoring station, and sometimes they are messed up or programmed wrong.
I remember one building we put in monitoring panels for a 3 building complex. We just put one system on test, but turns out the panels were programmed wrong, and when I set the alarms off in the one building, the Fire Department showed up to the other building. Changing an NAC device shouldn’t set off the alarms, but at the same time you never know.
Unless you mean to put it on test when it is in trouble, but I mean whenever I go to work on the system. Obviously the building should keep the system online until the techs are there to repair it. The only time they are put into fire watch is if the fire department responds and sees there is a trouble on the system or it is stuck in alarm. The FD will deem the system inoperable and order a fire watch in place until the problem is fixed.
As far as I can tell neither of us said anything about putting the system on test mode: I’m just saying that the system can remain in operation even if one device is missing (though of course someone from the local service company should be called out to replace it).