Largest System with Horns in Your Area

Fire Alarm General Discussion
21

I don’t want to go off topic here, but now I’m compelled to tell this story.

The sprinkler system was monitored by three DMP XR-200 security panels and one DMP XR-500 security panel (now mine). The keypad bus on one of the XR-200 panels had faulted, so the panel could no longer communicate with any of the keypads on the bus. Anyways, the facilities manager decides to pull the battery cables and disconnect AC power at the terminals (poor decision) in order to restart the system.

As soon as the battery was pulled, the security guard who was on site gets a call from the monitoring service. Since the system could not be put in test without the keypads, for the next 15 minutes the guard’s phone was flooded with calls every time anything was connected or disconnected from the panel, answered each time with the same response: “BRP Security, yes the maintenance man is here working on it.”

Finally, the panel restarts, manages to raise the keypads on the data bus, and all hell breaks loose. There was a faulty monitoring module on one of the fire risers that had been bypassed for months, which was cleared by the restart. So now we’ve got the “fire alarm” system sounding off in the distance, and “Riser #3” displaying on the keypad. Great. Once again the monitoring service calls, but “the maintenance man is here working on it” wasn’t going to cut it this time.

So the Waukegan Fire Department dispatches a whole fleet of trucks, assuming that a 90 year old facility, covering over 11 acres, with a wooden roof, and with 20,000 gallons of 50:1 gas/oil mix stored on site, is now on fire.

Here’s the conversation between the security guard and the battalion chief on duty at the time, recreated as faithfully as I can remember it:

FD: “Is 230 clear?” (Referring to the 230 address door, the building spanned from addresses 200-300)
Security: “It’s a false alarm. Maintenance tripped it.”
FD: radios ‘nothing showing’
FD: “What address is your fire panel located?”
Security: “We’ve no fire panel here”
FD: “Ya got no panel? How the hell’d we get here?”

22

OMG!!!
But yeah, let’s get back on topic.

23

Oops, I meant dual-action (HMS-D or MSI-20B)

24

Are you SURE they’re horns?
Genesis remote strobes do have a horn grille. They are probably remote strobes and there are separate speakers installed, or maybe the alarm signal is broadcasted over the PA system. I’ve heard of a few buildings that do this, and actually have seen a few in person, one of which, ironically enough, has Genesis remote strobes!

25

Haha they’re horns, they went off in pet of the hospital last month during testing.

26

I’m talking about the mall you mentioned that used to have System Sensor speaker/strobes.

27

Ahh I meant mall

Yes they are horn strobes

Haha sorry I work at a hospital which also has a similar system. Edwards is very popular where I am

28

That’s just really, really, really odd, and I have no idea how that “downgrade” got allowed.
Reminds me of how wiley209 posted about a school that was considering replacing speaker/strobes with horn/strobes during a system replacement!

29

Horn strobes are cheaper. If this upgrade was necessary, a conventional panel is much more cost efficient than a hefty voice evac panel. I know Edwards has bulk discounts for signals, and that’s probably what they did.

30

Amethyst Shores Convention Center has 275,000 square feet of space and has Wheelock NS horn strobes and Gentex SHG horn strobes. In the washrooms there’s Ceiling and wall mount Wheelock RSS Strobes in their Marriott Hotel, there is so many Gentex Commander 3s in the parking garage and their escalators, even outdoors, and in the hotel lobby, there are so many Gentex Commander 4s, Spectralert Classics, and Spectralert Advances, in the hotels restrooms, there are Gentex Strobes, in the hotel rooms, there are Wheelock Exceder horn strobes.

31

Sometimes I wonder why contractors can’t just stick to one brand…this sounds like a pretty cool system tho! I’ve never really heard of wheelock and gentex together.

32

The horns were probably installed at different times and at the time they needed more horns or replacements for horns that had broken down and were rendered inoperable, another company’s horns were a lot cheaper than the same company they used before.

That tends to happen more times than it is noted. My elementary school used to be a mainly Simplex system but also had Gentex and Wheelock horns. My high school was also the same way but had a modular building with Edwards horns as well as Space Age Electronics, Wheelock and System Sensor horns.

33

Also there are some Notifier BG-10s in the convention center, Fire Lite BG-12s in the parking garage and between the escalators, and Silent Knight T-Bars in the Marriott Hotel

34

The Rutgers Livingston Apartments, buildings A and C, are recently-built seven-story high rise dorms with stores and restaurants on the ground floor, and they have horn systems for some odd reason. Not sure how they got away with that. You can see a video of building C’s system going off here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7K1A9EaC8M

What’s even odder is that they did put voice evacuation in building B (they were all built at the same time). The only explanation I can think of for this one having voice evac vs. the others is that there’s a movie theater on the bottom floor. There’s also a video of this system going off - it still has the smokes sounding in the rooms just like building C, which makes me doubt that the usage of horns had anything to do with loudness.

35

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Cleveland, OH:

Note: The following includes all airport concourses and terminals except for D concourse, which has been closed and stands abandoned since UAL pulled their hub out of Cleveland.

Panel: Simplex 4100ES
Installed: 2015-2016
Upgraded from: Kidde/Thorn/Fenwal System (some of which remains intact; likely via NAC extender

M/C=Multi Candela

A/V’s and V/O’s:

[list]

  • - Simplex TrueAlertES 49AV and 49VO series

    • Simplex TrueAlerts, M/C, SmartSync, unknown if addressable (either 4906-9127 or 4906-9227)
    • Simplex TrueAlert Ceiling A/V’s, SmartSync, M/C, unknown if addressable (4906-9128 or 4906-9228)
    • Simplex TrueAlert V/O’s (m/c): 4906-9101 or 4906-9103
    • Simplex Weatherproof TrueAlert A/V (m/c): 4906 blah blah…
    • Gentex SHG’s, Kidde B5s, Fenwal Smokes (Hochiki kind), Wheelock AS’s, Gentex GXS’s, Wheelock RSS’s, and Spectronics??? rebranded Wheelock 7002Ts left from the old system. Not to forget older Thorn (or Grinnell?) rebranded RSG RMS-1T-LPs (I forgot what kind of locks, I’m assuming keys…also Simplex 4099s were mounted a few feet away from these like they renovated one part of the hallway and didn’t do the other…everything else that’s been renovated has TrueAlerts and TrueAlertES’s. TrueAlarm smokes in renovated areas along with Simplex 4099 stations, some with or without LEDs.

      • [/list]

    I took a ton of pictures, and I don’t want to go through uploading them individually so you’ll be seeing them in my next Fire Alarm Picture Collection episode, which if anyone wants I can upload an unlisted part with just this system’s pics in it…and due to certain circumstances like TSA people walking around and staring at people and the “no cell phones in the checkpoint” policy in the TSA checkpoints, I couldn’t take pictures of everything. Once I was past that (whether in baggage claim or in the concourses) I got a ton of pictures. Normally I look around to see if anyone’s there cause I don’t want to get weird looks, but in baggage claim after a 2 hour delayed flight (we were supposed to arrive at 9:00pm; we didn’t get there until 10:30-11:00pm…the weather wasn’t cooperating and planes were having maintenance issues), nobody seemed to mind.

    But anyways I got a ton of pictures and if I missed something typing this up on my phone I’ll post another reply later.

    • 36

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    I need to ask… isn’t there some post-9/11 requirement requiring all major transportation hubs to have some form of voice-evacuation system? I recall reading something like that a few years back, but I could be wrong.

    37

    I have heard of that too…I’ll try to find that for you

    38

    The PA system functions as that; at least, I think it does. The TSA, Airport Police, Gate Agents, Ticket Counter Attendants, etc. all have access to the PA system I believe. I know this because of all the “Airport Security Alert! Unattended baggage is dangerous! Keep watch over your baggage at all times. Report unattended baggage by notifying the TSA, or airport police, blah blah blah” announcements, plus I’ve heard the TSA calling people back to the checkpoint to claim the stuff they might’ve accidentally lost/left there, that sort of thing. Since the PA system covers more area than the horns (or even speakers if applicable) and is more easily accessible to airport personnel, etc. then I think it is okay. Plus the portions that now have TrueAlerts and TrueAlertES’s at the renovated parts used to have System Sensor MA/SS devices, and since the airport is pre-9/11 I don’t think everything applies…but I could be wrong, although I’ve seen plenty of airports with horn/strobes before too. But I have seen plenty airports that use speaker/strobes too, so I don’t really know the answer to that, but I think it probably depends on the type of job, the type of airport, and ultimately it’s likely a money saving decision.

    39

    Thats gotta suck massive balls… MTs are awful on code 3, but stone walls and have it be on continuous… :shock:

    40

    I’m at the airport again, so I thought it was time for another update. The C concourse contains a Thorn system, which looks to be circa 1990 given the devices. I’m in the United concourse this time; instead of Delta which is in B concourse.

    Audibles and Visuals:

    • Simplex TrueAlert ES and 4906-9127 (-9227?) and 4906-9128 (or -9228?): horn strobes and remote strobe in shops and first part of concourse only

    • One Gentex SHG horn/strobe as a retrofit; first generation SHG without strobe reflector

    • Main concourse devices consist of Thorn rebranded Wheelock 7002T-24s on Wheelock SFP-R surface flush plates. Remote strobes in restrooms are Wheelock RSS-24MCW remote strobes, obviously an upgrade.

    • Pull Stations are mainly Thorn rebranded Kidde B5 pulls (the pulls in B concourse in contrast are Kidde branded B5 pulls (Kidde originally manufactured them), along with Simplex 4099s.

    • Simplex 4099s in first part of C concourse along with 4906s (this part was renovated).

    Smokes in shops are addressable TrueAlarms, I didn’t see any smokes in the main concourse area; just sprinklers.

    I got pics of these too; I think my second installment of my fire alarm picture collection will be exclusively about this airport since it has a variety of different alarms.