Today at dinner my dad told me that the fire alarm panel that protects the school he works at finally bit the big one. While not original to the school (as the school had been constructed in the 70s), the panel had been in service for at least 15 years.
He told me that because a repair crew wouldn’t be able to get to replacing it immediately, they’ve had to set up a fire watch and have a police officer patrol the entire school as long as it’s occupied until the panel gets replaced.
I suppose the obvious solution here is to take the old IFP-1000 motherboard out and simply drop in a new one and reprogram it, but it got me thinking what other panels could take its place. The system has Hochiki devices, but because the 5820XL can accept either Hochiki or System Sensor, perhaps that would work.
I would say that I don’t think they’ll just replace all the devices in the building with a brand-new system (my guess would be an EST-3), but then I remembered that the middle school I went to for 6th grade did just that. There are no longer any original devices in that building anymore.
I guess it would all depend on how much the district’s budget is allocated to that one particular school.
What are the alarms in your dad’s work right now?
System Sensor Spectralert Classics, Silent Knight/Hochiki SD-500-PS pulls, and whatever model number addressable photo smokes.
firewatch isn’t cheap and it’s a good opportunity to replace it all as an emergency replacement without having to upgrade to the latest adopted codes. still, swapping in an est3 isn’t something you just do overnight.
Well, I was right. My dad said that the district is going to send out some guys to replace the panel’s motherboard. Apparently the installer they got was a small-time, four-employee little mom and pop deal.