This system is for a four-building apartment complex, consisting of:
- A 150 unit, six story 5 over 1 with 1.5 stories of structured parking inside, accessed from two different levels
- Two three story wood frame (Type V) walkup buildings, one with 41 units and the other with 33. The larger building also has a party room and 12 private garages.
- An outdoor swimming pool.
- And a 9 unit townhouse building (which for the purposes of this post, is sprinklered using individual passive purge NFPA 13D systems fed off individual water service lines)
Life Safety
Fire Alarming
The fire alarm system for this complex consists of a trio of Honeywell IFP-75 panels networked together, as the walkups are large enough to need fire alarm systems of their own. This network is accomplished using SK-NIC cards, with the main building having two SK-FSL singlemode modules, and the two walkups each having a SK-FSL paired with a SK-FML. There’s also a SK-F485C converter card in the main building to provide fiber-based monitoring for the townhomes.
A HW-AV-LTE-M-2 communicator provides one of the connections from the network’s main panel to the outside world. The main panel is powered from a pair of 22Ah batteries in a SSU00505 trough, while the two auxiliary panels have SSU-00505s with 14Ah batteries in them.
Initiation
The elevator building has a Class A SLC with:
- an IDP-MONITOR-2 on each apartment floor for the waterflow switches
- an IDP-PHOTO-T-W in each elevator lobby for recall
- an IDP-PULL-SA and an IDP-PHOTO-T-W in the mechanical room
- an IDP-PHOTO-T in a B224RB and an IDP-RELAYMON-2 in the elevator machineroom for recall
- an IDP-MONITOR-2 for monitoring the parking garage CO sensors
- an IDP-MONITOR-2 for monitoring the Area of Refuge system
- and IDP-RELAYMON-2s in both the NAC extenders
The walkups also have Class A SLCs but with a much simpler initiation setup, consisting of:
- an IDP-PHOTO-T-W for self-protection
- an IDP-MONITOR-2 for sprinkler monitoring
- and an IDP-PULL-SA for manual initiation.
The larger of the two walkups also has an IDP-MINIMON monitoring a CO1224TR in the hall behind the private garages.
Finally, the townhouse has a setup consisting of a 5895XL intelligent power supply board powering and talking to a SK-F485C converter and a 5880 annunciator driver (used for its zone inputs in this case), all wrapped in an Altronix WP5 on the outside of the building with a pair of 7Ah batteries for power.
Notification
The notification appliances consist of MIZ-24 minihorns in the units and ELMTS hornstrobes in corridors and common areas, with the occasional ELMTSC tossed in where needed. The garages use EL4XMSTs instead, and these units, set to whoop tone, are also used for the outside fire sprinkler A/Vs.
The indoor notification the walkup buildings is powered by an AL602ULADA with 7Ah batteries in it driving a Class A loop for the apartments and two Class B circuits for the hallway hornstrobes. The main building, though, needs much more notification grunt, so it has a FL-PS10 with a ZNAC-PS card and 7Ah batteries in it to power the apartment and common area devices, while the garage devices, and the power for the garage ventilation detectors, is handled by an AL602ULADA with 31Ah batteries in a SK-RBB box beneath it. Both NAC extenders have IDP-RELAYMON-2 modules for triggering in them that also handle supervision for the garage sprinkler systems.
Emergency Lighting and Exit Signage (and Outside Egress Lighting)
The emergency lighting consists of Exitronix GCRS-U-WH combo units in the walls and stairs, supplemented by Exitronix LED90 “bugeye” emergency lights as-needed. Each apartment building also has an IOTA IIS-25-I in it powering RAB SLIMXXSYs over the exit discharge doors.
The parking lot itself is lit using LSI Lighting OPS-SA-6L-5C-UNV-30K8s
Garage Ventilation
The main garage ventilation detectors are Belimo 22G0214-5Cs, with a Belimo C-22G-50 relay module to turn the ventilation on and off. The fans themselves are Canarm AX variable speed units used in a two-speed operating mode.
Residential Life Safety
All the units have generic smoke/CO alarms in them. The townhome 13D systems are passive purge systems using inherent supervision – there’s no way to shut one of them off without shutting off the domestic water supply to that townhouse unit.
Backup Power
There’s a Cummins C40N6 running off a buried propane tank at one end of the complex to provide standby power to the elevator and all life safety and security equipment, as well as to telecommunications equipment and some lighting.
Emergency Communications
The main area of refuge system consists of a Talkaphone AOR-5-DKL with AOR-CSE-FM boxes at the elevators on all residential floors save for the main exit floor and an AOR-CSE-SM box on the ground garage floor. The elevator communicator, on the other hand, is a Commend TD5 ID CM with a Draka Cat5e traveller providing IP and PoE connectivity to it, along with a Viking LV-1K indicator on the main floor to annunciate a failure of the Commend via its builtin relay.
There is also a Viking E-1600-30A-EWP in a VE-5x5 box on a VE-GNP pedestal to serve as the swimming pool’s emergency phone. This is run from the main building with an ITW-Linx CAT6-235-RJ45 primary protector in-line to keep surges on the copper from causing damage to anything but the pool phone.
Power to all this is supplied by an AL600ULX that supplies the AOR system directly with 24VDC, and also has a VR5BT with a 14Ah battery in it to power the elevator phone via NetWay112 injector and the Vola for 4 hours, atop the Vola’s built-in 24h battery.
Telecoms
The main telecom plant consists of duplex OS2 + a coax/Cat5e Siamese to each apartment. This is terminated into the MDF for the building, where each unit can be fed from a given fiber ISP’s splitter rack or from coaxial cable.
The emergency telecoms are handled by a combination of a Vola PR12 running on battery-backed 12VDC and a pair of LVR-1s that can switch the AOR and pool phone lines between landline MFVN service and the Vola’s phone lines. The PR12 also has its LAN port connnected to the Commend and its WAN port connected directly to the cable gateway that provides Internet & phone service for the landlord and building services needs.
The rest of the building-service network, though, is run through an opnSense DEC697 appliance. One of the ports on this is the WAN link, another is a DMZ for guest wifi in assembly spaces, one port feeds the main security switch, and the final port is available for office networking needs.
The inter-building links consist of 6-fiber OSP OS2 cables between the main building and the two walkups, with three fibers for aggregated ISP service, two for fire alarm use, and one for the security system, and duplex OSP OM3 cables between the two walkups and between the main building and the townhomes. There’s also a duplex OSP OM3 cable that provides guest networking to the larger walkup building, run alongside the singlemode cable, and RG6s with TII 212 protectors on them run from the main building to both walkups so they can have the cableco as a service option.
That guest wifi is handled using HPE Aruba AP22Ds, with one in the main building’s lounge and one in the larger building’s party room. The interconnection between them is supplied using FS MMC-1F1Ts with SFP1G-SX-31 transceivers in them.
Security
Access Control
The access control system for this building is an Inner Range Inception system with ABB-Welcome IP intercoms, consisting of the following base hardware:
- A Trove2IR2 in the main building with:
- An AL400ULX power supply card
- A PDS16CB power distribution card stacked on a VR6 converter
- The 996300NA main Inception control unit
- A 996005PCB&K LAN expander and a 996515PCB&K relay expander to serve the garage doors (via HTTP POST API requests from the LPR cameras)
- A FS IES3220-8T4F with a SFP-GEB-T & 2 SFP-1G43-BX10 transceivers in it to serve as the main security network switch
- The H8304 actuator and the D04012 SmartAP for the intercom system
- and 2 14Ah batteries for 4 hours of standby power
- A Trove2IR2 in the larger walkup building, but with:
- An AL400ULX power supply card
- A PDS8CB power distribution card stacked on a VR6 converter
- A 996088 network bridge
- A 996012PCB&K Standard LAN Access Module (SLAM)
- A 996005PCB&K LAN expander with two 996515PCB&K relay expanders on it to serve the garages
- A FS IES3220-4T2F with a SFP-1G34-BX10 in it to serve as the security system network switch
- and 2 9Ah batteries for 4 hours of standby power
- And a Trove1BL1 in the smaller walkup building with:
- An AL300ULX power supply card
- A VR1T regulator module paired with a PDS8CB power distribution card
- A 996088 network bridge
- A 996012PCB&K SLAM
- A FS IES3220-4T2F with a SFP-1G34-BX10 in it to serve as the security system network switch
- And 2 7Ah batteries for 4 hours of standby power
The intercoms are ABB-Welcome IP H81383K-S units in 41384F boxes with their card readers replaced with Elatec T4W2-F01C7 modules. Standalone reader locations get Elatec T4WK-F01EU7s in MECH-DFW23 front frames to match the stainless steel of the intercoms.
The main garage access control is done using Mobotix Mx-VB1A-2-IR-ALPR cameras with either a single 80VA transformer or individual 30-40VA transformers for camera power. The individual garages are handled using a single Liftmaster PPWR rolling code Wiegand receiver backed up by a Security Brands 12-000 keypad, letting the Inception simply treat them as storage units. Power to the receiver & keypad is supplied by a Traco TIW12-112 power supply.
Door Hardware
The buildings have a TownSteel mortise door hardware package:
- Unit doors, and the office door, get MCE-13s. (These are also used on the front and back doors to the townhomes.)
- The common area passage doors get MCE-02s.
- The conference room door has a MCE-09 classroom intruder lock on it.
- And the electronic access controlled doors have MCE-122-RQEs on them with Securitron CEPT transfers and Magnasphere MSS-10CT contacts.
The rollup doors use Zap 825-3 or 8825-3 operators. The main garage doors pair these with a pair of Fraba FOS-1 photoeyes (one inside, one outside) on a Fraba YC1001 merge module for safety and EMX ULTRA-DIN loops for entry and exit triggering, while the individual garage doors have a single FOS-1 for the safety photoeye. The individual garage doors also have Zap 8070 autolocks fitted for additional security.