My Perpetually Troubled School

Fire Alarm General Discussion
1

My school is effectively between fifteen and twenty years old. (The distinctive front wing is actually approximately 75-80 years old but it’s functionally as old as the rest of the building.) It is currently running a Simplex system that is certainly from that renovation, and there have always been 2-3 troubles displayed on the annunciators. We once had a false alarm that was allegedly from a “malfunctioning elevator part” (the elevators are the only areas of the school that I have seen protected by smoke detectors. The rest of the building is at least guarded by sprinkler systems and manual pull stations, except for the auditorium, which at one point appears to have had smoke detectors that have been replaced with the chemtronics-style heat detectors.) In addition to these troubles, an inspection occured last year of the notification appliances (Simplex 4903 electromechanical (for the most part) horn-strobes and remote strobes, non-sync (for the most part)) which revealed an alarming number of failures, mostly with the strobes. I’ve seen several of these strobes clearly dying with irregular, fast pulses and even saw one die during an evac. Additionally, some of the horns have built up so much dust that they practically sound like rattling air vents. Every now and again (more often than one wants to admit), the trouble buzzer sounds (loudly, next to the library) with an intermittent supervisory condition. Obviously this can mean anything it’s been programmed to, but from what I’ve heard, it could mean that there is low sprinkler pressure.

Should any of these issues concern me? Or are things such as the supervisory little more than an annoyance?

2

Were the horns starting to die as well? Also, I never seen a strobe light die on a Simplex 4903 electromechanical horn/strobe before. That supervisory issue could be one of the Notification Appliance Circuits dying.

3

Some of the horns sound screwy. I think that it’s dust buildup and poor maintenance though.
I don’t think it’s the NAC; the dead strobes are scattered.

4

Are you referring to the electromechanical 4903 horn/strobes like this?

Or the separate horns on strobe plates?

If it’s the former, I think the strobe can be swapped out, but it’s a bit complicated. It would be easier to replace it with a new 4903 horn/strobe (they have the same housing and strobe, but it has the same electronic sounder as the TrueAlerts.) They make them for replacing malfunctioning 4903 audible/strobe signals like that (anything else, they’d usually use a real TrueAlert on a trim plate or something.)

5

I wonder if it’s possible that FWR, or at least poorly filtered DC from a malfunctioning panel, is being sent through those NACs, since newer Sinplex devices are known to malunction and die on FWR.