There’s a building fairly close to me that was built in the early 2000s that has Edwards 270-SPO pull stations with Wheelock AS’s. The system is an EST3 I believe. There’s another building in my area that has Edwards 270-SPO’s (and other pull stations) mixed with SpectrAlert Advances and a ton of other stuff (I’ll post more on that system in the ‘Fire Alarms in Buildings’ thread).
Depending on where you are, that may or may not be weird. I know 270-SPOs are ubiquitous in Canada and systems will often have them regardless of manufacturer.
I may have posted this earlier, but the Comfort Inn in Kent, OH (a relatively new building) has a Gamewell system with SpectrAlert Advances and single-action Centuries as the pulls. I didn’t even know they still made Centuries.
Well that setup in the first picture is…interesting to say the least.
Yeah that is a bit disturbing to say the least. When they replaced the AV32+2DCDs at my high school, at least they took the whole device down before replacing them with Wheelock Exceeders and than again with Siemens U-MMTs. (Also, for some reason they put TrueAlert horn/strobes in all of the hallway bathrooms and just TrueAlert strobes in the classroom bathrooms)
Not trying to bump, but…
Our pep band visited one of our elementary schools to play for the kids (and recruit for the middle school :lol: ) and they have a rather interesting setup…
The panel is some sort of addressable EST system (it looks like an EST2 from a distance) with SIGA-PS smokes and SIGA-270 pulls throughout, which is pretty typical. The signals, however, are where things get interesting…
The main office wing and gym/media center/cafeteria hallway have System Sensor SpectrAlert Classic P1224MC horn/strobes and S1224MC remote strobes. One of the classroom wings has pre-ADA System Sensor MASS horn/strobes and pre-ADA SS-24 strobes, but another wing still has Simplex 4051+4050-80 horn/lights and 4051 horns (flush mounted) still active!! There are several blanked out pull backboxes, 4050-80 backboxes, and flush mount grilles still visible throughout the rest of the building.
I may have been mistaken, but I didn’t think SpectrAlerts were UL listed for new EST installs, and the Classics were definitely installed with the “EST2” (or whatever it is), as they share some conduit runs with SIGA-270 pulls. Weird…
That does sound really interesting. Tell me, did the places that were blanked out have and new upgrades around them?
The section with the MASS-24 (pre-ADA) signals had most of the signals retrofitted into the existing backboxes (those replacing 4050-80s on some sort of retrofit trim plate), but the area with the SpectrAlert Classics had all new conduit and backboxes/signal locations, some of which ran in common conduit with the new initiating devices. The old were removed, blanked out, and the backboxes left, as the old audible coverage is/was sparse, and even more so for visual coverage. As for the entire building, the old initiating devices, which I would be willing to bet were 4251-Series pulls and Chemtronics heat sensors, were removed, and all the new SIGA-270 pulls are near (if not next to) where the old pulls were. As for heat/smoke coverage, I couldn’t see any old backboxes, so I can’t answer that question.
I can’t help but wonder how they ended up with the pre-ADA MASS signals, let alone the SpectrAlerts…
Understandable. But there were still more 4051s there right?
There were four 4051+4050-80 signals and two 4051 horns left still active. The rest were removed when the MASS and SpectrAlert signals were put in. Exterior signals across the entire building are pre-ADA MASS horn/strobes, but I saw where a flush-mount 4051 used to be. It was covered over with a blank trim plate and a MASS horn/strobe was next to it.
I also would like to add that the 4050-80 devices have white FIRE lettering and are the flush-horn variation (the horns are completely recessed into the light plate).
Oooh, I got one of those, from an elementary school in my town that was repairing their fire alarm system last spring (only a few of their 4050-80s had the white "FIRE’ lettering; all the others were blank.)
I’m willing to bet at that school, the Simplex system was put in around the early to mid-1970s (the school I got mine from was built in 1974), and then some time in the early or mid 1990s, with the exception of that one wing, the rest of the school upgraded to the MA/SS horn/strobes, probably on a Fire-Lite or Notifier system or something. Then they put in the EST system in the late 1990s or early 2000s, and replaced many of the MA/SSs except for one wing with the SpectrAlerts.
I’m almost willing to bet money on an ESL 1500 or 2500 system, as the sixth grade middle school had a 1500 system with MA sounders (now a Fire-Lite MS-5UD) installed in 1993. It appears, however, that the wing with the SpectrAlerts may not have completely received the MA/SS upgrade, as there is a disconnected 4051 still in it’s original configuration in the back entrance off the gym, with a Classic horn/strobe maybe three feet away from it. As for the rest of that wing, I can’t say.
I still want to know where the Classics came from…I would have expected Genesis signals
Just a question but how do you know they were active and which ones were disconnected?
I assume that this particular 4051 is disconnected, as A) it’s the only one left intact in that part of the school, and B) there’s a SpectrAlert Classic P1224MC horn/strobe next to it. As for the rest of that section, they abandoned all of the old field wiring/boxes and ran all new wiring+conduit for everything.
The section with the MA/SS signals has new wiring for the initiating devices only. The MA/SSes are mounted semi-flush where the 4051 flush horns were and on special trim plates that allowed them to retrofit onto the 4050-80 backboxes. There weren’t any added signals either in that wing, save the remote strobes in the restrooms.
The section with the 4051 and 4051+4050-80 signals still intact does not have any newer signals except for a MA/SS on the exterior. The only modification to that portion of the building is the new initiating devices and the removal of the old ones.
Of course, an old horn next to a new one means nothing. The university I did undergrad at added a bunch of TrueAlert horn/strobes to a building for strobe coverage, but left the 4040s/50s they were mounted next to active. I was in there for a drill and the mechanical horns activated a few seconds before the TrueAlerts.
Well, given the fact that all the other old signals in that wing had been removed, I assume it’s disconnected.
Also…4040s AND TrueAlerts!!! Oh my God…
God that sounds like it would be a big mess.
I remember another user here recalling a school that had its’ old Simplex system with 4040s still active and tied into a newer Simplex system with TrueAlert horn/strobes and Simplex-rebranded Gentex SHGs. He was in the gym when it went off one time, which had two 4040s and four TrueAlerts, and the 4040s went off first, but everyone just thought it was the scoreboard due to the game going on, until the TrueAlerts began blaring seconds later. And I will agree it must sound painful, as 4040s are one of the loudest fire alarm horns ever made, and TrueAlerts are also very loud (but nowhere as loud as 4040s.)
It’s a shame I’ve never been back there to verify the Simplex SHGs. Oh well.
Anyways, in this building the gym was expanded to two courts, so a wall in the “old gym” was demolished and replaced with a massive beam, and the “new gym” was added onto that side, creating a large “double wide” gym.
The 4040s were located right in the middle of the gym, where the exterior doors to the “old gym” would have been. The “new gym” was built in 1992 and had its SHGs replaced by TrueAlerts when two more were added at the opposite end of the “old gym” during an upgrade in 2012-ish.
The alarm occurred one time during a local iceless hockey game I was attending, some kids pulled a station in the original section of the building, so the 4040s sounded a good 20 seconds before the TrueAlerts kicked in. This leads me to believe the original panel was likely still active. I noticed something was off right away, but most people who were sitting near me had no clue until the TrueAlert strobes kicked in.