Did any of the schools you went to have portables? I remember having a class in a portable and the fire alarm in that portable was just too loud for that enclosed space.
My middle school had four portables. The one I was in didn’t have any NAs in it, but it did have an Edwards-rebranded Mirtone 73303 pull by the door to the hallway, a Fire-Lite-rebranded Notifier NFM-950 by the exterior exit, an Edwards heat detector, and a household smoke detector. One of the other portables was identical, except both pulls were 73303s. I’m not sure of the setup in the 3rd portable, but the 4th one had two Edwards 270-SPO pulls and an Edwards 439D 6-inch bell.
Those portables may not be there for much longer, since they’ve been having horrible mold problems the past two years, so bad, they’ve had to find alternate spaces to teach the grade 7s and 8s.
If the portables didn’t have fire alarms, how would you know to evacuate if a fire broke out or the fire alarm went off?
The high school I went to has one portable which is the modular building with 9 classrooms, though three of them are for the Health Careers shop (technical high school). Then there was another building that used to be where aquaculture classes were before being converted into two regular classrooms.
The modular building had Edwards 892-1B horns that each had a different pitch to them. Which was strange since the main building was generally a Simplex building. The Aquaculture Building has a Simplex 4903-9219 inside and a Wheelock ASWP outside.
My third elementary school and high school all had their portables tied into the main fire alarm system. They had a Gentex Commander 2, ESL Heat Sensor, and FCI MS-2 in them.
Even the daycare I went to for the longest time from infancy to my early preteen years had a portable building. They had an “Afterschoolers” program where, if you went to a nearby elementary or even middle school and weren’t able to safely go home without a parent, they would bus you over and let you play outside or do homework or play video games or whatever. During the summer, if your parents worked, you could come and spend the day there, and they would feed you. They even had a swimming pool, and I remember spending a good chunk of my early summers there. I’ve never gotten a chance to talk about this place, but it’s since been abandoned. The reason I know this is this past summer I wanted to visit some of the nice folks that more or less brought me up while my parents were working, but there was a big lock on the door, and the decorations and things were still up, leading me to believe it was unexpectedly shut down. Anyway, there wasn’t a proper fire alarm system in that building, but there were Family Gard FG-888D smoke alarms in both rooms. And unlike the portables in my public schools, they had bathrooms! I guess then it was less of a portable building and more of a… fancy portable?
The elementary school I went to had four portable buildings- two for fourth grade and two for fifth grade. The building I was in for fourth grade was the only one to have proper fire alarms in the rooms themselves: a Wheelock 7002T and a SIGA-278 pull. The pull made sense, as the school had an EST-3, from back when GE used to own Edwards. I visited the summer before this past one and noticed the GE logo on the pulls and on the panel itself.
The middle school I went to for sixth grade also had an EST system, but this was before all the old Simplex equipment in the building proper was replaced by EST stuff. However, since the portables were built either at the same time the EST-3 was put in or after, they sported EST SIGA-PS smokes, SIGA-278 pulls, and ceiling-mount Geneses. I never heard them go off because I never had a class there, I was only there when they displaced classes because of standardized testing.
Since the middle school I went to for seventh and eighth grade was brand-new at the time, it did not have portables, though I don’t know if this is still true.
At the high school I went to, my Economics class was in a portable building. I think I talked about this before but there were Siemens ZH signals, FirePrint smokes, and MS(I/X) pulls.
Maybe it’s a portapack, and they have fire alarms outside in the hallway/walkway. I’ve heard of portapacks where that’s the case. Never see one though. Or maybe if the portables don’t have fire alarms they just manually call up the portables on the intercom if the fire alarm sounds. I’ve heard of a school where this is the case.
Portables get put in later, after schools get overcrowded. So they often have different alarms from the rest of the school.
The school as built in 1971 and in 1992 the addition was put on. I’m not sure when the Aquaculture Building or the Modular Building was put in though.
My elementary school had a couple portables throughout the years, mainly when another school down the road merged with us after their school turned into a french immersion. My high school had 2 portapaks and a standalone portable (the dance portable). They both had their own systems which were tied into the 6500 panel. The one had an EST 6616, and the bells did continuous (this portable also watched over the stand alone dance portable). The other one had a Mircom FA-T1025, which the bells did a fast code 3. Luckily I’ve never been in any portable when the alarm has been off.
Both my elementary schools had portables added in 1996. Each one had a small ESL fire alarm panel (probably a 1500-series) that was tied into the main building’s system (the first school, built in 1974, had an old Simplex system with a 4208 panel tied into a newer one, probably a 2001 at the time; and the other, built in 1971, had an old Gamewell FlexAlarm system.) Both portables had Wheelock MT-24-LSM horn/strobes installed everywhere, even in classrooms, and the pulls were RSG T-bars, along with various ESL and System Sensor smoke detectors. They’d even put alarm signals in the classrooms! I believe the first school’s portable also had an Edwards Adapt-a-bel installed in the hallway as a school bell, tied into the main building’s master time system. Each school had its’ portable attached to the main building in some way; the first one removed a couple of windows on one side and put a doorway there that would go to the portables, while the other had the portables entrance connected to an existing exit doorway.
They still have the portables to this day. The first elementary school became a K-8 school in 2006, so it was necessary to keep it (it’s used for the eighth grade classes currently). After the main building’s Simplex system failed early this year and was replaced, the alarm devices in the portable were left alone, interestingly. After my brother and I left the other school, they added kindergarten (it was formerly just grades 1 to 6), and had it in the portables for a few years, until they removed sixth grade (some time in 2009, I think, all the “regular” elementary schools became K-5, and the middle schools became 6-8.) I think the portable there is currently used for a couple of special ed. classes.
My portables wings had varying alarms and panels till 2008, when various individual wings had different, old panels and devices. These panels, devices, etcs. were failing and the maintenance budget was going way over. Eventually, they cashed in on part of the district rainy day fund and ripped out the mess and put new everything in, all connected to an EST 3 panel. And they made a SUPER GOOD choice on panel. :roll: I now see the alarm tech about twice a week fixing all of the maps faults, CPU issues, and device failures.
The Portables Ive Seen Have Wheelock AS-24MCW Set On High Vol. And 30 Candella.
My elementary school had three portables where fifth and sixth grade classes were usually held, though only two of them were actually used for classes and the other was used for something else. Like in the main building, the portables had Wheelock electromechanical horn strobes, except they were 34T-24-WS models because they didn’t skip; and even I thought those were too loud for such an enclosed space.
My middle school also had portables, but the devices inside were better suited. Some had System Sensor PA400R mini-horns with PS424 strobes; and some had Wheelock MIZ-24-WS mini horn strobes. One of them had a 34T on the outside.
There were portables at my high school. But I was only in one of them, and that was when I was taking Algebra I my freshman year and then work study second semester of my senior year. No notification devices were installed. I was in that portable during a fire drill, and I could barely hear a Wheelock 34T going off outside.
The portables at my school have EST 270-SPOs with SpectrAlert advances. In my middle school (and also my high school), they were very similar except some portables had Gamewell Centuries and L-Series (Not always in the same portable)
Update: My school is getting new portables over the summer. The old ones will be taken out around a week from now. I am curious as to what fire alarms will be in the new ones.
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