Looks like they did a good job. The only thing I see painted is the conduit.
I really don’t see anything wrong with that because the device itself isn’t painted and it is just the conduit. And I have seen some installations where the conduit is painted and it is painted very professionally.
It’s a lot more apparent in person, my camera sucks. About half of it is still red.
Also correct me if I’m wrong, I thought it was against code to paint red conduit?
I don’t think that I have ever heard of that before but if it is part of a law that you can’t then we have a lot of law breakers around here.
I’ve seen painted conduit in both MA and RI. In some places the fire alarm conduit and junction boxes are painted red.
I thought that it was the alarm that couldn’t be painted itself.
Depending on the jurisdiction, they may have a rule that fire alarm related conduit MUST be red. It’s very common in my area (Chicago), but not all places have this rule. Some places just want the devices to be unpainted, and are okay with the conduit being painted. It’s all very complicated, you will need to look at local codes to determine if this is okay or not.
Obviously the AHJ has the final say for local codes but here’s my 2 cents about painting parts of fire alarm systems:
- If you want it red, buy red conduit. No matter how well it’s painted it will likely wear over time. If you must paint conduit red, paint all sides evenly before installing it.
- If it’s already red, don’t paint over it. It looks better red and also, the contractor probably installed it red because that’s what local codes require.
- Never, ever, ever, ever EVER is it a good idea to paint over conduit or junction boxes the same color as the wall behind it. Exhibit A the OP’s picture. There’s a strip on the back that’s still silver and you can see paint starting to chip off from it on the sides. Literally adds 20+ years to the age you’d think the building is when you see conduit all over the place looking like that. The building could be 50+ years old (example: my local high school) and still appear to be relatively modern and in good condition if the conduit and backboxes are shiny silver. In our case, the fire alarm conduit is silver, as are the backboxes, but the conduit nipples/male to male connectors are all red, as are junction box covers/L-joint covers. Pretty sharp looking if you ask me.
Totally agree with the OP, no part of the fire alarm system should be painted. If it must be anything but silver, buy it red in the first place.
One thing we can ALL agree on, is since almost all A/V signals have “Fire Alarm device - Do Not Paint” written on them somewhere, you should NEVER paint a fire alarm device itself.
Yeah, my phone is a potato but I just got a new phone and it has a better cameta, I’ll snap a better picture tomorrow when I’m back at school. What theboginator said were my thoughts exactly - if it’s red, don’t paint it any other color. Else you’re probably fine.
Working in the field, we only write devices as defective if the paint is on the sensor or impeding the sound of the alarm.
For my tastes, when conduit is unpainted or otherwise doesn’t match the wall, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Conduit that’s been painted the same color as the wall is a lot less intrusive to me. As for the argument about it making the building look more aged - to me, having a new system installed with lots of exposed metal conduit has that effect either way.
I honestly don’t think that conduit whether unpainted or painted makes a building look old or aged at all. But if it is unpainted, I think it looks kind of horrible.
