Interesting Notifier SPF-10UD System @ My Church

Fire Alarm General Discussion
1

I’m starting this topic tonight because I think you’ll find it pretty interesting, for those who haven’t seen my YouTube video yet. You can watch the tour here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eCIbc4sJVI

My church has a pretty fascinating fire alarm system. To start off, the original part of my church was built in the 1970’s, not exactly sure which year. Throughout its life it’s had at least one addition to it, completed in 1994, which was the foyer/lobby and sanctuary. As of right now, it has a Notifier SPF-10UD conventional fire alarm panel, but if I was to take a guess, it might have been a Simplex 2001 at one point. The church has Simplex, Faraday, Wheelock, Gentex, Notifier, and EST initiating devices and notification appliances scattered throughout the building.

The foyer and sanctuary on the main floor have Faraday 6120 horn/strobes and Faraday F1GT pull stations. However, one of these pull stations is an EST 270-SPO which is right at the front door. The “gymnasium wing” and childcare wing each have one Faraday 5505 horn/strobe. The two 5505’s are basically Faraday 6020 horns with the Wheelock-style strobe on top, just like the 7002T. The “gymnasium wing” has another EST 270-SPO under the 5505, and the childcare wing has a Notiifer BNG-1 pull station. Near the childcare desk is a Wheelock 7002T above a newer Notifier NBG-12 pull station. The church office has a single Gentex SHG horn/strobe improperly mounted on the ceiling.

Moving downstairs, the basement grade school wing has another Faraday 6120 and a third 270-SPO. In that general area is the fire alarm panel room, which is quite big, and it’s a tiny hike to get back to the panel. Near that there’s a small flight of maybe 3 or 4 steps that goes up to an original corridor of the building. Right there is the church’s tiny library which used to be the kitchen. It has a vintage Simplex 4255-1 “Thermodetector” heat detector. Right across from the library is a Simplex 4251-20 pull station. How it doesn’t get activated I have no idea, since it’s in the unlocked position, leading me to believe the church doesn’t even have a B key for it anymore. All the rest of the pulls have hex locks, with exception to the BNG-1 upstairs. Down the corridor is the high school youth group room, which has been completely renovated with all the latest and greatest games and pieces of technology. Outside the door is another Simplex 4255-1 heat detector near a second Wheelock 7002T. The rest of the basement is made up of the “elevator lobby”, the kitchen, and the jubilee room which is a large meeting/dinner area where we have our bi-weekly church dinner. The kitchen has nothing except its own Ansul suppression system. The “elevator lobby” and jubilee room have Gentex SHG horn/strobes ceiling mounted, just like in the office upstairs. The jubilee room has its own pair of restrooms as well, which also have SHG horn/strobes. Those are the only bathrooms in the building with fire alarm notification.

So as you can see, it’s a pretty interesting system. It’s very weird too. Strangely, I do not believe there are any smoke detectors of any kind. There might possibly be one in the gym, but I’ll have to check. That’s one of my biggest problems with the system, along with the fact there’s no remote annunciator. The fire department has to go down to the basement and walk through a long, cluttered room to get to the panel, and that is unacceptable in my opinion. Furthermore, I don’t think some areas of the church have adequate notification. The gymnasium, kitchen, and 3/4 pairs of bathrooms in the church have no notification whatsoever, and the pair of bathrooms that do have loud horn/strobes, which is overkill. Come to think of it, remote strobes are unheard of in the building. Just horn/strobes. Let me know what you think of this or if you see any code violations. I’m curious.

A video or two of it in action should be posted next year, as I am supposed to be a part of the next inspection and assist with our first church fire drill scheduled for this spring.

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It’s probably up to 1970’s and 1994 codes, which is all it needs to be.

I noticed sprinklers in at least part of the building, smokes often aren’t needed if there’s a sprinkler coverage. There might be duct detectors if there’s an airhandler over 2000cfm and serving multiple areas. The heat detectors are probably leftover from when that area was a kitchen (the pull station too).

The most interesting part of the video you completely skipped over, that Keltron transceiver in place of a traditional dialer. Having one of those means most if not all of your city probably uses those as they’re limited to a greographic area and need to be able to reach other transceivers in (somewhat) nearby buildings to work.

The “unknown faraday” horn strobe around the 9:55 mark was at least marked as the EOL.

Churches are often hacked together by well meaning members volunteering their time/effort/parts/whatever else. Hence the box of random parts thrown up around that place over the past 45 years.

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I see. That does make sense. And yes, I forgot to mention that there might be duct detectors. Forgot about those.

Thanks for explaining that transceiver a bit. I knew it was there, but I really didn’t think about it and consider it worthy of being included in the description. Surprised I didn’t add considering I have a big interest in two-way radios as well. I might add it. I never knew how it worked, and I didn’t think the radio signal would actually be able to reach wherever the monitoring center is, especially since it’s tucked back in the basement. I think that would be DU-COMM since they handle all the emergency communications for my county, and they’re located a couple towns away. However, there are very many buildings surrounding this. There’s a whole office complex literally right next to the church. So you’re saying the transceivers might “talk” to each other and transmit the signal to the monitoring center?

I see. Well it sure is an interesting mix of devices.

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Oh man…that 5505…that screw sticking out makes me want to pluck it. :lol:

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+1 on what Chris said. Churches are also one of those buildings that seem to get perpetually added onto. And what was code and acceptable one year would be different ten years later when the addition is built. And generally you don’t have to update the old stuff. Personally, I love places like that because it almost gives you a timeline on the codes and standards throughout the years since the building was built.

6

I see. And yes, I totally agree! This is one of my favorite systems because of how unique it is. I can’t wait to take part in the testing and fire drill next year!