This system is for a locally historic, fully sprinklered seven-story + mezzanine + basement high rise (~80’ from grade plane to the top floor) that is being converted from office/ground floor commercial to residential (R-2 apartments)/ground floor commercial.
Life Safety
Fire Alarm & Voice Evacuation
The FA and voice evac required for a building of this size is supplied using an Advanced Axis AX networked system. The hardware consists of:
- an AX-CC2-16 with 18Ah batteries and an AX-DSP in the FCC, and its internal amps wired to the stair tower and elevator car NACs respectively
- 2 AV-VBs with 7Ah batteries on the ground floor
- an AV-VB with 7Ah batteries on all the other floors
- an AX-LED16RY in an AX-LZA-CAB1 to provide “first look annuncation” at the building’s south entrance (adjacent to the FDC)
- two Class X SLCs (yes, the Soteria devices have built in isolators) for the whole building, with one dedicated to NAC modules for the apartments and the other handling all other SLC duties
- and a Bosch B465 monitoring the panel’s discretes to serve as the (IP) communicator feeding one of the ports on a 2N EasyGate IP+ powered from a diode-OR of FACP and AOR power, as one of the downsides of the Axis AX is that its DACT module is rather janky/hard-to-get.
Initiation
Initiation consists of:
- per-floor waterflow & supervisory switches
- full corridor smoke detection on each floor above the first (as compensation for the relatively poor egress layout of the building) in addition to smoke detectors for recall service
- self-protection smoke detection in the FCC and the various electrical closets
- supervisory circuits for the smoke control system, including an SL-DA4R-P duct detector to provide smoke shutoff for the stair pressurization fan
- an addressable pull station in the sprinkler riser room
- and a CO and fuel gas detection system in the existing boiler room and at the gas service entrance in the southeast storage room, consisting of:
- a pair of standalone QEL Q5-CH4-100L-0-A detectors sharing an IDC, with one for each room
- a 24VAC gas shutoff circuit, controlled by and powering the Q5s, that also provides a fail-safe prealarm signal to the FACP
- and a System Sensor CO1224TR on the ceiling of the boiler room, monitored by a FACP monitor module.
Notification
The building uses Eluxa devices throughout, with a mixture of ceiling and wall mount speakerstrobes and ceiling mounted infill speakers along with wall mounted remote strobes and wall mounted speakers in audible-only zones. The existing waterflow alarm device is retained as part of the conversion, though.
The amplifiers in the AV-VBs are set up as primary/backup pairs driven from the Axis AX network with Class A trunk/corridor NACs; this provides a fully redundant setup.
Fire Pump & Standby Power
A containerized diesel genset on the roof supplies standby, fire pump emergency, and a small amount of miscellaneous emergency power to the building. The genset has the obligatory remote annunciator at the FCC, and is also monitored by several fire alarm monitor modules.
Transfer is handled using a 480V Cummins OTEC switch for legally-required and optional standby. A single ETC SC1008 mechanically held BCELTS running at 277V serves as the emergency power switch, though, as all it has to power is the 3kVA 277/120V transformer feeding the outlets and HVAC in the FCC.
The fire pump controller is also a transfer type, using a Master MCRT primary reactor transfer controller driving a relatively modest vertical in-line pump. (The building just barely meets high-rise criteria, so it doesn’t need a fancy variable speed controller or even a full jockey pump.)
Annunciation
Primary annunciation is provided by the AX-DSP in the AX-CC2-16, located in the FCC on the ground floor. This room also has the other required annunciators for the elevator control system and standby generator in it.
The AX-LED16RY at the south entrance provides “first look” LED annunciation consisting of the following:
- Solid yellow LEDs for system or floor troubles, rescue comms trouble, CO/gas trouble, stair pressurization trouble, or fire pump trouble
- Flashing yellow LEDs for system or floor sprinkler supervisory, generator trouble, or elevator recall
- Solid red LEDs for system or floor alarm (smoke detected), rescue comms alarm, stair pressurized, CO or gas alarm, or fire pump running
- And flashing red LEDs for system or floor waterflow, fire pump running on generator power, stair pressurization smoke shutdown, gas shutdown, or machine room smoke
with the annunciation zones organized with Floors 7 to 1 and the basement from top to bottom on the left, and the following annunciators on the right:
- System Status
- Rescue/Elevator
- Boiler Unsafe
- Fire Pump/Genset
- Stair Pressurization
Residential Life Safety
The in-unit smoke alarms are generic 120V units. CO and fuel gas alarms may or may not be needed, depending on whether heat and hot water for the apartments is being supplied by in-unit combustion appliances or by the building’s central boiler plant.
The speaker and strobe NACs for the apartments are supplied off individual NAC modules; this prevents a fault in an apartment from taking down notification in other units.
Stair Pressurization
The stairwell pressurization fan is a Canarm AX variable speed unit located on the third floor to provide direct single-point injection into the stairwell, with a combination baro-relief and powered anti-chatter damper in the stairwell penthouse. (It is presumed that an enclosure is added to the stairwell at the basement level, as that stairwell was previously open to the basement.)
The aforementioned addressable duct detector is used to provide smoke shutdown for the fan, while fan proving is accomplished using an AC case fan mounted in the duct to generate a low AC voltage from the airflow across it, along with an industrial optocoupler module to provide a dry output from that “wet” AC input. The fan speed is preset using a Bourns 3059L-1-503LF wire leaded multiturn trimmer mounted in a junction box adjacent to the fan.
Egress Lighting
The building’s existing light fixtures are modernized with LED emitters and per-fixture emergency drivers/inverters to provide normal/emergency lighting in corridors, common areas, and commercial tenants. The FCC, storm shelter, and some electrical spaces, however, use emergency mini-inverters driving surface-mounted utility fixtures, but with enough battery in the inverter for 2h of runtime, and the sensor for the space cutting off power to the fixture even when it is in emergency (no sense burning battery to throw light around that nobody sees). The exit signs are also the existing units, modernized with LED bulbs, and the exterior lighting is retained intact as well.
Other FCC devices
HVAC service to the FCC is provided using a Daikin Oterra RXQ09SABU9-FTXQ09ASBU9 9kBTU mini-split heat pump and a Fantech HERO 150H-EC HRV. An auxiliary contact on the FCC’s lighting control sensor disables the heatpump outright and turns the ERV down to a low setting when the space is unoccupied.
The obligatory FCC telephone is a Snom D120 connected to the spare LAN port on the EasyGate via an Altronix NetWay1 injector powered from the Area of Rescue supply. It also provides firefighters with a wired-of-sorts Internet connection via the passthrough port on the D120.
Elevator and Rescue Assistance Communications
All actual elevator and rescue assistance communications duties in the building are performed using a Rath/Janus/Avire 10-station SmartRescue analog AOR system. An additional station for this system is present on the ground floor, inside the stairwell, on the public side of the in-stair partition door. The two phones in the elevators are connected to a Viking LV-1K to annunciate elevator failure at the elevator landing and to a PAM-2 relay that sends that failure signal onward to the monitor module for the area of refuge system.
(Note that video communicators are not required during a change of use or elevator refit in an existing building in the jurisdiction I’m in since we’re on A17.1-2013 and IEBC Chapter 10 does not require compliance with IBC Chapter 30.)
The SmartRescue receives its 24VDC power via an Altronix PD16WCB located within the SmartRescue’s base station, which is in turned powered by one half of a LSP FPO75/75-E2 supply, with the SmartRescue supplying its own battery backup. The other half of this system supplies 24V to the EasyGate and 12V to a Hitron CODA cable modem via a B100 card, with 4 14Ah batteries for this half of the system to back it up for the 24h standby/4h operating requirements of NFPA 72.
The CODA provides a wired LAN drop to the EasyGate and a second wired LAN drop to the access control system, while the SmartRescue’s analog phone line is connected to the FXS port on the EasyGate. (Ideally, we’d use a voice gateway instead of the cable modem, letting us have analog lines down to the alarm communicator, area of refuge system, and the FCC telephone, but the Hitron gateways aren’t supported by the local ISP where this building is, and the Technicolor gateways they do support aren’t documented enough to permit them to be used for this application.)
Security & Access Control
Residential Access Control
The access control system for this building has to overcome one major problem: several of the commercial tenants on the ground floor can only be accessed via the building’s lobby, instead of having their own doors, and the accessible route to the basement tenant bay requires passage through the lobby as well. This requires three things to overcome:
- the ability to access control the elevators (not terribly hard)
- the ability to access control the interior stair above the first floor (which is possible, but requires the use of either stair reentry locking or an in-stair partition door)
- and the ability to grant visitors to the building one-time access to the stair and elevators.
With this in mind, we wind up with a system that uses the automation functionality of a pair of 2N IP Verso 2.0 doorphones, one at each main entrance, to request visitor PIN codes from an Inner Range Inception access control system via the Inception REST API. This manual integration, while relatively complex-sounding, permits tenants to let visitors in off-hours while requiring a minimum of fire alarm interfacing, and also permits the lobby to function normally during business hours.
The south entrance doorphone is configured as a 1x3 with a camera module, mechanical keypad, directory display, and OSDP module, while the east entrance doorphone is configured as a 2x2 with a teleloop in addition to the aforementioned modules. Both of these doorphones are on the same LAN switch as the Inception and receive 12V from the access control supply directly. Each of these entrances also has an Inner Range SIFER reader (994723) at it, and the doorphone unlocks the door via a 2N security relay module to prevent “paperclip” and other forms of tampering based attacks.
The in-stair door on the ground floor and the elevators use SIFER keypad readers (994726) in order to accept PIN codes for guest access. There is also a CommFront RPT-485_422-2 RS-485 repeater powered from reader power using a Recom R-78W5.0-0.5 step-down module to serve as a bus splitter for the OSDP bus between the two elevator cars. The door contacts on the exterior doors, in-stair door, and interior doors are GRI MS20RS-T Magnaspheres.
All of this controls:
- Von Duprin 5547 concealed vertical rod crashbar panics with E371L-BE electrically unlocked trims and Securitron CEPT power transfers on the historic south entrance doors
- a Falcon 1790 pushpad storefront rim panic with a Command Access MLRK1-FAL17 electric latch retraction retrofit kit and a Securitron CEPT power transfer on the accessible (low energy operator equipped) east door
- and a SDC S6303FH Spectra HiTower electrically locked frame actuator controlled mortise panic with a SDC LRSDC1R retrofit REX switch and a Command Access CDL transfer for that REX signal on the in-stair partition door on the ground floor
Additionally, the ACS receives arm/disarm signals from the security systems for the various tenant bays, with the exception of the northeast tenant bay on the ground floor, to determine whether the lobby should be considered open, with the east door electrically dogged and the south doors unlocked, or closed, requiring a credential or doorphone trigger for entry.
Common Areas
The common areas in the basement, consisting of two storage areas and an exercise room/storm shelter, are managed by the Inception, with SIFER readers at each of those four doors. The storage room doors themselves use a combination of a Falcon MA881 electrically unlocked mortise lockset and a Command Access CDL power transfer. However, the exercise room/storm shelter must function as an assembly space during storms, with sufficient occupant loads to require panic hardware. Furthermore, it must meet FEMA 361 & ICC 500 community shelter requirements, which means that the door hardware must be fully tornado rated and tested.
This is accomplished using Ceco/Curries StormPro door slabs fitted with Corbin-Russwin FE5400SA multipoint fire exit devices, Corbin-Russwin N9905 electrically unlocked trims, Securitron CEPT power transfers, McKinney SP3786NRP hinges, and Norton Rixson 7500 closers. The trims were chosen over electric latch retraction so that the door cannot be unlatched by debris impacts. These doors also have Securitron DPS-M contacts on them instead of the GRI Magnaspheres in order to maintain the UL windstorm listing of the door.
Individual Apartments
The individual apartment doors are solid wood slab doors with Marks 5 series mortise locks on them; this provides options for fine finishes and decorative lever trim, while being much sturdier than typical decorative-style residential mortise hardware at not much more cost.
Access Control Power, Networking, Modules, & Mounting
Power to the ACS and doorphones is provided by an Altronix AL1024ULXB2 power supply card and a VR10 regulator with a PDS16CB stacked on the VR10 and an ACM4CB module mounted on a BR1 bracket that isolates the door relays for the outside entrances from the access controller in addition to unlocking the stair partition door based on a FAI command from the FACP. This supply also provides 12V to a NetGate 2100 to provide WAN/LAN isolation & switching for the system.
These power modules and network devices, along with the Inception system consisting of its 996300NA controller, controlling the ground floor doors via the ACM4CB and directly handling the elevator readers as well, and the following Inception modules:
- an Inner Range ILAM (996018PCB&K) for the basement doors, providing UniBus to:
- a lift interface (996540PCB&K)
- and a 2 door expander (996535PCB&K)
- and an Inner Range LAN zone expander (996005PCB&K), providing a UniBus connection to:
- another lift interface (996540PCB&K)
- and any UniBus zone expanders required (which can go up to a triple-stack in the far lower right position)
This is all wrapped into a Trove2IR2 with the aid of double-stacked modules, along with a pair of 20Ah batteries for over four hours of backup power service. The WAN for this comes from the other port on the Hitron CODA; it doesn’t have cellular backup, but that’s OK in this case as it’s not providing intrusion reporting to a central station.