Last week, I found out that the city of Brockton’s public school system has now officially dropped SimplexGrinnell for servicing their time and fire alarm products, and will no longer buy new stuff from them. Here are the reasons why, as I have been told…
The schools are not satisfied with Simplex’s service and product costs, and also don’t think they do a great job servicing anymore.
The 4100U voice-evacuation panel at South Middle School (the one right near my house) got too glitchy, and rather hire Simplex to fix or replace it, they decided to do away with the company altogether.
Proprietary reasons, again mostly with the 4100U.
Currently, they are going through plans to eventually replace all Simplex systems in the city schools with Notifier or whatever. The middle school near my house has gotten a new Notifier fire alarm system (I don’t even know yet if it’s voice-evac or not!) Additionally, two other schools, one with a 4246/4247 and another with a 2001, replaced theirs with Notifier NFS-3030 voice-evacuation systems.
Out of the 22 active schools in my city, only six of them currently have Simplex systems. One of them (Brockton High School) has an ancient 4247 system, the other five have 4207s or 4208s installed between 1974 and 1979 (though two of them, the Davis and Raymond K-8 schools, have newer Simplex FACPs tied into their old 4208s for duct detectors.) Previously there used to be more, but some schools were renovated/upgraded, and some were closed down.
Oh, and before some of you ask about parts from the systems, you’re out of luck. I was told I can’t get any parts from those systems once they are replaced, including South Middle School, because the alarm companies taken them with them back to use as spare parts (at least that’s a lot better than just throwing them away!) Guess it’s back to eBay for me. I’ll have to look for glass for my 4251-30 pull somewhere else…
All the reasons I mentioned are the usual reasons companies or buildings may drop Simplex, and are understandable. So I don’t want any certain somebodies to start criticizing my post or anything like that.
I think only one school in my system has a Simplex System, which is a high school that opened in 2002. I know that they have an annunciator and True Alert Horn/Strobes, Speaker/Strobes and then T-Bar Pulls. I couldn’t really see the panel when I was there but there were 4 huge panels in the room and a sprinkler bell above one of them.
There are a couple of schools with old PA systems that have the Simplex Time Recorder Co. Sticker on them and the number to call for servicing, but I know that Simplex doesn’t work on them.
I have heard that the company that works on the fire alarms is always the cheapest route to go. They almost always come in under budget on major rennovations and additions to a system. (Simplex must have come in way under budget for the high school). They also can fix the system issues and only ring the alarm once or twice, which is also a plus.
In my city, The school boards usually go with Edwards systems. I only know of a few schools with Simplex systems in them, and the majority of the FA systems in my city either get serviced by the FCFP (Forest City Fire Protection) or the company that twoplyboy works for (can’t exactly remeber the name).
My district used to be all Simplex, but when they built the new ES and added onto the MS and HS, things changed, because the contract has to go to the lowest bidder and Simplex wasn’t. A company called “Northern Fire Systems” got the bid and as a result, they went with EST for the new alarm stuff (according to their website, the other option was Siemens). The new ES was easy because it was a brand new building (a single EST 3 system). The MS/HS on the other hand, already had an existing Simplex 4002 system and that didn’t have enough space on it to accomodate the new additons, so what Northern did install an http://www.dan.calvinet.com/Edwards_FACP_Modified.JPG EST 3 and interconnected it with the 4002. IDK if it works the way it’s supposed to, but given the fact that the EST 3 is addressable, anything is possible, plus, the whole building passes inspection every year, so as long as the code enforcer doesn’t see anything wrong with it, it must be ok.
As a side note, we also used Simplex for our time systems. The new ES has a http://www.lathem.com/ Lathem system installed with Lathem analog clocks. The MS/HS also got Lathem analog clocks, but they were wired to the existing Simplex 2350 system. My senior year, the 2350 shorted out and was replaced with a new Simplex 6400 system.
So, it seems my district still likes Simplex, given the new time system replacement, and Simplex still services the 4002, as they were called in to set up the interconnection with the EST 3, and they test it on a yearly basis. IDK if they also service the EST 3 or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
Ah. Regarding those Simplex time systems, we still have many schools here in Brockton with Simplex 2350 and 6400 master time systems. The Davis and Raymond K-8 schools, however, have Simplex 6100 time systems.
Plus, when they built the Plouffe, Angelo and Arnone Elementary Schools in 1998-2001 (the Plouffe is now a middle school though), they had Rauland clock systems, and the two new elementary schools they built in 2008 had National Time and Signal time systems. All five schools have EST fire alarm systems though, so I guess since 1998, new school buildings built by my district will use EST systems. I do remember SimplexGrinnell serviced the Arnone school’s EST system for some time until the district dropped them.
Also, East Middle School had a Simplex 2350 time system when I went there, but last spring it shorted out, and they replaced it with an American Time and Signal AllSync time system, but even that is starting to break! (The school mostly has old Edwards analog clocks from the 1950s.)
Besides, many other places here in Brockton still like Simplex, such as the main hospital, public library, the two courthouses, the main bus depot and the day-care center down the street from it, and the local YMCA Youth Center (incidentally, the Youth Center got a brand-new Simplex 4006 fire alarm panel a couple of weeks ago to replace their old 2001 system from the 1980s!)
My district (Volusia County Schools) has only a few schools that use Simplex systems. 1 School (Woodward Ave Elementary) got theirs removed and replaced with “garbage labeled Notifier”, and another school (Champion/Hurst Elementary) got replaced with a newer school which is likely to have an EST System. My High School uses a company called “SmartWatch Sound & Security” to maintain their fire alarm system. All 3 of my Elementary Schools and my Middle School used a different company.
Was it an older system (like with 4050-80s or the 2903-series alarms) or a newer one that the school wasn’t satisfied with anymore? (I take it you got “garbage labeled Notifier” from SimplexTech )
I also recall the Stonehill College in a neighboring town (Easton) has also dropped Simplex for similar reasons, and are planning to eventually remove all the Simplex systems on campus, and there are only a few of them to begin with (other buildings without Simplex systems are not having their systems replaced, though, and theirs may be really old, like from the early 1970s!) So far, they removed and scrapped the Simplex system in Merkert-Tracy Hall and replaced it with “garbage labeled Siemens.”
OK, not necessarily Simplex, but still related to my school system. This summer, they had also dropped Atlas Alarm Corp., the company that serviced the Brockton schools for many years (since the early 1990s, at least.) I learned this when I saw some of the school fire alarm panels (as well as the Simplex 4207 panel at the administration building) had the Atlas Alarm stickers removed!
I was told, Brockton Public Schools is now doing most of their fire alarm work in-house. The facilities department orders the products from a Notifier provider in most cases (this is probably why they’ve been using Notifier for many upgrades and renovations since 2008 - six schools now have Notifier systems.) Anyone else ever see a case like this?
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two schools I went to that are planning to upgrade both get Notifier systems for their new alarms (my middle school would obviously get voice-evac, IDK about the other one.)
First point… Wiley you need to leave your old schools alone. You are a college student now. Time to stop visiting the grade schools except for high school homecoming. It’s fucking creepy.
Second point… Do not wake up a topic from Jan 2012.
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