I thought it would be interesting to hear about the system everyone has seen that has the most variety of alarms, and see what the weirdest is we could come up with. I’ll start…
Alarms
-Honeywell Speakers rebranded by Edwards
-Edwards Wedge Strobe (red with white lettering)
-Cornell rebranded edwards wedge strobe
-Gentex GX Speaker Strobe
-Gentex GX Strobe
-Wheelock EH Speakers
-Random Edwards Speaker (I have a post on it, but we haven’t figured out what it is yet)
-Spectr Alert Classic speaker (it has straight corners though, not curved)
-Mini strobe red with white lettering, I beleive Faraday made it
I think the system with the most variety that I’ve ever seen is Turning Stone Casino. The building was built in several stages, starting off soley as a casino. They then expanded to include a 3-floor hotel. In the early 2000s, they expanded again to include a showroom, more casino space, and also built a 19-story hotel tower.
The system there now is currently a Simplex 4100U. Where you are in the building depends on what alarms are installed. All of the pulls are Simplex 4099-9003s, although in one part, there are 4099-9001s installed. All the smokes are TrueAlarm smokes, however in the old part, they are first generation TrueAlarms (some with small bases, some with large) and the recent expansion has 2nd generation TrueAlarms. All the rooms have TrueAlarms with sounders installed as well as remote speakers. For the most part, in the old portion, the alarms are SAE speakers and speaker/strobes, although there are some oddity alarms like 4903-9168s installed. In the newer parts, there are TrueAlert speaker/strobes. The bingo hall area has 4902 speakers on 4903-9105 retrofit plates.
The odd part is, in the casino and around the casino entrances, there are horn/strobes installed. There is one GX-90 mini-horn/strobe, there are several PA400R mini-horn/strobes, and in the casino, there are several Wheelock NSs installed. The casino also has ceiling-mount TrueAlert speaker/strobes (mostly ceiling models, but there is one wall model) as well as some 4904-9105 strobes too.
The Massasoit Community College Canton Campus has some variety in the signals:
The panel is a Faraday MPC-2000.
The pull stations are all non-addressable Faraday Chevrons (I know because they have zone numbers on them), obviously later installations replacing old pulls and adding new ones where no pulls initially were).
The smokes are all System Sensor 2451TH smoke detectors, and some areas have Chemtronics 400-series heat detectors (these might be the originals).
The signals were originally all Wheelock 34 horns behind Standard Electric Time Co. light plates with a weird-looking front grille. Most of them now have the newer ADA-compliant vertical Faraday strobes plastered onto where the old light was, but one still has the old light intact. One Wheelock 34 has a red grille, the others are gray. A couple of them have Faraday horns that look like 6020s without the front grille, and one of the Standard light plates is upside down, so the “FIRE” strobe is on the bottom (I meant this has a newer strobe on it too.) There’s also an SAE VA4 horn/strobe in one hallway, and some signals are U-MMT horn/strobes (many of them plastered onto the old light plates, but one is stand-alone on a backbox.
Brockton Hospital also has some interesting varieties:
The panel is either a Simplex 4120 or a 4100U, replacing a 2001 or 2120 with voice-evac.
A Simplex 4603-9101 annunciator is installed right next to an older graphic annunciator.
2/3rds of the pulls in the building are Simplex 4251-20s (or the addressable version), some with Stopper IIs over them. Others are Simplex 2099-9756s and 4099-9003s.
Smoke detectors are mostly Simplex TrueAlarms (the newer version), a few wings have the addressable version, others do not. Some TrueAlarms have heat sensors on them too. There are also a few Simplex 2098-9201 and 2098-9202 smokes in the main lobby. Other areas have old ESL smokes, some rebranded by ADT, others by Simplex.
The signals vary; in a few wings like the emergency room or the blood-draw lab have Simplex 4903-9150 speaker/strobes. Other areas typically have older Simplex 445-026 LifeAlarm speakers on 2903 retrofit plates (probably the light version). A few of the old speaker/lights were replaced with vertical 4903 speaker/strobes. One exit I saw had a 2902-9732 speaker on a 4903-9001 light plate. The Radiology lab has SAE 2DCD+AV32s!
i would have to say a OLD mall near me. it was built in 1951. its original system was probaly an old coded pull & bell system. the system was renovated in 1987 into a simplex system with 2901-9833 hornns with remote simplex 2903 lights next to them & 4251-20 pulls . in 2002, some of the dead 2903s and 9833s were replaced with mircom select-a-strobes and remote Wheelock MT horns. and this is when the variety starts. only 2 4251-20s remain. there are some Notifire NBG-10s, some Edwards 270 spo & 278-b pulls, a weird RSG t-bar with a weird local company’s name on it, some fire lite BG-12s, a lone Faraday t-bar, a fire lite bg-6 ( disconnected), a lone 2099-9754 t bar, and finally an old coded pull ( i think its a faraday but im not sure) that is visable from the loading dock when it is open. the pull is probaly disconnected. :mrgreen:
I seen a building where they even had different types of signals, they had bells and horns. I know the bells are still working because some areas just have the bells, some areas had all bells except where some were replaced they used horns, and the newer areas had horns, but multiple brands within that area. It looked like the installer installed all used parts whatever he had laying around.
I remember this one system at a school in another city, That was I think a high school. There was 2 parts to the school, the newer part (which was like the basement/some of the third floor) had System Sensor MASSADAs with Simplex T-bars under them, the older part (1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors) was a little different. The pulls were Simplex Chevrons, but i couldn’t figure out the alarms. On all the floors I saw these grey sirens, which looked like MASSADAs, except gray and I think a little bit bigger. Now that I think of it, it could have been a gray MASSADA, but I really can’t remember, this was like 4-5 years ago. On the third floor, I remember seeing 5 or 6 Red horns on strobe plates on the ceiling, only they were close to each other. Like for every ceiling panel, there was a horn, they were like less than a feet apart each, and I also say that gray “siren”. I really hope I can go back to that school, I have no idea what city it was in or the name of it, but I’ve been wondering about this system for years.
The Boyden Hall at Bridgewater State University probably has the most variety out of any system on this campus. Here is what they have…
The panel is a Simplex 4100, and there is also a 4003 voice-control panel located outside the auditorium (the voice-evac alarms were installed years after the 4100 was put in). The panel was most likely originally a Simplex 2001.
The signals in most of the building are Simplex 4051 horns on 4050-85 light plates. But a few classrooms and offices have TrueAlert horn/strobes. The auditorium section has TrueAlert speaker/strobes, and there are also a couple of horizontal 4903 speaker/strobes as well.
Pull stations are mostly Simplex 4251-20 T-bars, but the auditorium section has dual-action Simplex 4099-9003 pulls.
The smoke detectors are a mix of the original 4259-36 smokes (rebranded ESL detectors), Simplex 2098-9801 and -9802 photoelectric heads on 2098-9536 bases, and conventional TrueAlarms, throughout the majority of the building. But the renovated areas (including the auditorium section, a few classrooms and restrooms) have addressable TrueAlarm smoke detectors. There are also 4255-5 heat sensors in the restrooms, and there was originally one near an elevator, but it was replaced with a newer TrueAlarm heat sensor when the ceiling in the elevator alcove was redone.
That’s right; especially if the mall goes through a fire alarm upgrade, or has stores renovated, or is added onto. South Shore Plaza is a perfect example of this:
The system is a huge Simplex 4120 network, with a 2500 NDU Command Center located in the parking garage. A few sections of the mall have their own 4120 panel, but the newest areas have 4100Us. There are several 4603-9101 LCD annunciators throughout the mall, as well as SAE graphic annunciators rebranded by Simplex. Several of the stores have their own small fire alarm panel tied into the 4120 network (usually a conventional system like a 4004 or a 4006, but a few stores have 4010 systems).
The main signals in the mall are vertical Simplex 4903 speaker/strobes, which can be found in the corridors, food court, and some stores. Other stores and some parts of the food court have TrueAlert speaker/strobes (some places like the Apple Store have the multi-candela version). I recall another store having 4903-9168 speaker/strobes (or a different version), and they also have a TrueAlert horn/strobe outside the Cheesecake Factory (that is probably what the alarms in the restaurant are). One restroom has EST Genesis horn/strobes, but other restrooms have TrueAlert speaker/strobes. The newest wing and recent stores also have white ceiling-mount TrueAlert speaker/strobes. The Nordstrom store has ceiling-mount TrueAlert horn/strobes (white version), while the Target, even though it has a Simplex 4100U system, has SpectrAlert Advance speaker/strobes (mostly the ceiling-mount version, but a couple of wall-mount versions too).
Pull stations are mostly Simplex 2099-9795s, under Stopper IIs, but a few were replaced woth 4099-9001s and 4099-9003s. The new wing and the Nordstrom also have 4099-9003 pulls, while the Target has a mix of 4099-9001s and -9003s. Several stores have 2099-9754 and -9756 pulls, as well as a few with 4099-9001s and -9003s (depending on the panel), and at least one store has 2099-9103 break-glass pulls.
In the main section, most smoke detectors are older 1st-generation TrueAlarms, but the new wing and many stores have the 2nd-generation TrueAlarms (again, depends on what panel is used if the detectors are addressable or not). A few stores have 2098-9201 smoke detector heads on the 2098-9211 base.
This counts for all the Simplex systems in the mall. There are a few small systems by other companies (including Wheelock 7002T horn/strobes in a Filene’s Basement), but I did not include them, as there were only a few of them, and Simplex was the main alarm company of the mall.
Signals that I’ve seen include:
Red Gentex GOSs or SHGs
Fire-Lite or Notifier BG-8’s
System Sensor MA/SS
FCI MS-2
Some horn with a Federal Signal iStrobe (I’m probably wrong with that one)
One of those Kidde pull stations (that looks a little like this): http://smup.us/kidde-pull
Lots of Heat Detectors
Items with the same color means it looks like they were installed together.
I’m sure since all of those signals provided terrible coverage for the whole building (such as not every door had a pull station by it, certain parts of the building didn’t have alarms), the whole system was just scraped and made similar to most of the other systems on the military installation that it’s on: System Sensor SpecterAlert Advances, Notifier NBG-12LXs, and (I assume), Notifier smoke detectors.
To my memory, Dearborn Heights Montessori Center has the most variation of fire alarms I’ve ever seen. Most of the school has 7002T-24 horn/strobes, but some parts have 34T-24 horns, one National Time 4" bell, some MASS horn/strobes, one MASS24110ADA, SpectrAlert classic horn/strobes, and one Faraday horn/strobe. The school also uses 6" IBM bells for class change, along with some unidentifiable white bells exclusive to one hallway, one 4" golden bell, and some 6" bells (unknown model) in an annex. The pull stations are a mix of 270-SPO and 641 models.
My middle school had the most variety that I can remember. I think its more of the tones than signals. I don’t know all model numbers.
Hall A1 had an Edwards 892 (jackhammer tone)
Hall A2 (Office, across from A1) Had the same Edwards 892 as Hall A until they replaced the system. That horn died out. It was replaced with a Mircom Select-A-Horn/Strobe.
Hall B, 2-story building had Spectra Classics on Code-3 on both floors.
Hall C (I call the walkway rooms, not an actual hall) Had Siemens Mini Horns on Code 3, I hated them!
Lunchroom- Edwards 892 (jackhammer)
Hall D- Band Room- Edwards 892 that buzzes
Hall E contained the Computer Lab, TAG, Special Ed. and Enrichment rooms as well as Weightlifting- MASS On Slow Whoop that quit working.
Front/Old Gym- Newer EST’s on Code 3
Back/New Gym- Older EST on Continuous
And the new Library had Ceiling Mount Spectras, I guess set to code-3. Never heard them ring.
Hall E were T-Buildings that heard the MASS. It was extremely loud. When the MASS quit working, they put Mircoms in the rooms.
We went to a grocery store with a very varied system. First, there were two open spaces next to each other, so they had to knock down the wall to make the room bigger. There were SO MANY different alarms! The main pulls were BG-10s. I saw one Simplex 4051+4050-80 near the bathrooms, a 7002t, a grey Edwards Adapt-a-horn, a System Sensor SpectraAlert Advance, a Gentex SHG, a System Sensor MASS, and a Wheelock AS!