What alarm do you have at work/school

I’ve been sitting on these for awhile now. While I had some down time during a floor waxing, with permission I snapped some pics of the system where I work.

On the sales floor:

scattered around, set to electromechanical code-3, synced

in the foyer next to the Mart Cart (electric “scooter” carts) charging station. There are other BG-12s at every exit/entrance. I this is our “panel” (we don’t have an actual panel)

near the customer restrooms:

in every restroom, and the manager’s office (this one is in the customer Men’s room [I was the only one in there])

in the back of the store:

What I call the “hallway from hell”. I’d hate to be walking here when the system activates (it’s bad enough on the sales floor)

Power supply, sync mod etc. The keypad to the right is for refrigeration

One of the many i3s scattered about the offices, and backroom. Sales floor is monitored by duct detectors

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I have a very interesting system to share. The system at my old middle school. Lincoln Middle School in Hawthorne, NJ.

              It was a very old building, built in the early 1900's and added onto in the late 90's and early 2000's. 

             The original notification appliances were 8 inch vibrating bells. None of them had labels on them. They were installed throughout the hallways and in certain rooms. The classrooms did not have any notification appliances. 
           
             The notification appliances in the additions were System Sensor p241575 SpectAlert horn strobes set to high volume, code-3. These were installed in the hallways. The classrooms had System Sensor s1224 SpectrAlert strobes set to 15 candela. 

             On the right side of the building, there is a long hallway which leads the cafteria, which was the latest addition, complete in 2008. In that area there are System Sensor P2R horn/strobes.

           The original pull stations were Simplex 2099-9768 chevrons with glass break rods. They were installed throughout the hallways and in certain rooms. Some were replaced with Simplex 4251-20 t-bars with glass break rods. 

          The pull stations in the additions were Fire Lite BG-12's. They were installed in the hallways. 

         The original detectors were the old black Chemtronics fixed temperature heat detectors. They were installed throughout the hallways and in the classrooms. There were no smoke detectors.

       In the additions, their were Fire Lite SD355 photoelectric smoke detectors.

      Guessing by the Fire Lite RZA annunciator in the foyer (Which is disconnected now), the original panel was a Fire Lite Sensican 2000. 
      The current panel is a Fire Lite MS-9200 with a Fire Watch Dialer/Communicator. Both are located in the main office. 

                               I don't understand why a Fire Lite system would have Simplex pull stations though. I also thought that the original panel might have been a Simplex 2001, but the RZA in the foyer says differently. I never heard of Fire Lite ever using Simplex devices in their systems before.

Most likely the Simplex devices on the system are older than the Seniscan and the RZA. I believe these panels date back to the 1980s, so the -9768s could have been installed along with a Simplex panel 10-15 years prior, which isn’t a horrible lifespan for a panel. The 4251-30s may have been a replacement prior to the upgrade. Of course, another possible explanation is that some oddball independent contractor came in and installed whatever was left in their truck :lol: :roll: .

I also have a second system to share. My high school (Where i still currently go) has a more typical system installed. Hawthorne High School in Hawthorne, NJ

        The notification appliances are Wheelock 7002T's set to continuous. They are installed throughout the hallways and other certain rooms. No classrooms have any N/A's other than the music room, for obvious reasons.

       There are two student restrooms at my school. One f them has a Wheelock RSS strobe,the other one has a Wheelock WH3T-24-FR strobe in it.

       For pull stations, there are Simplex 2099-9768 chevrons. Many have been replaced with either Simplex 4251-20's or 4099-9001 t-bars. The boiler room has a silver Edwards 270-SPO for some reason though.

     For detectors, System Sensor 2424 smoke detectors are found in the hallways and in certain rooms. 

     Black Chemtronics fixed temperature heat detectors are found in the classrooms. Some have been replaced with newer white Chemtronics rative rise heat detectors probably re branded by System Sensor.

    I'm not sure of what the original control panel could of been. I've haven't found an annunciator or any other clues. It's probably been replaced with a Fire Lite MS-9200UDLS or some other Fire Lite panel. 

   Seems to be a pattern in the Hawthorne public school district, a Fire Lite system with Simplex pull stations. Maybe they originally had a contract with Simplex, but then switched to Fire Lite when Simplex got too expensive for them.

The school may have been built in the 60s or early 70s and probably had an older Simplex system. Do the Chevron pulls look like THIS? Then they’d actually be 4251-1 Cheveon pulls; 2099-9768 is the model number for the later version from the late 80s and the 90s. Then the 7002Ts were probably installed during a fire alarm upgrade in the 80s or early 90s. I remember an elementary school in a neighboring town having that setup, along with disconnected 4030 horns next to the 7002Ts, but your school probably completely removed the old Simplex alarms.

Anyways, I am going back to my old college next week for a computer course, as I am now going for a computer science degree. The only building that has had any real changes with their fire alarm system is the Student Center. Here is what they currently have:
The panel is a Notifier AFP-200, located in an electrical room on the ground floor, next to an abandoned Standard panel (the original system form when the building was built in 1971.) There’s an LCD-80 annunciator at a ground floor entrance, next to what appears to be the original four-zone Standard annunciator.
Two sections of the ground floor (where class registration offices, computer labs and such are located) were completely renovated in 2013-2016. The alarms in these renovated sections are just System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes (probably P2Rs.) In the ground floor corridor and the library, there are the original Standard 450 horns, on the silver flush-mount light plates that had been modified with a 90s-style ADA Faraday strobe replacing the original light. The student lounge, the kitchen and cafeteria have Faraday U-HN horn/strobes, but also in the cafeteria is a Simplex 2903+2901-9833 horn/light (obviously replacing a Standard horn/light some time in the 1980s.) I believe coding for the non-renovated areas is Continuous.
The renovated areas of the building have Notifier NBG-12LX pull stations; one of them has a Stopper II cover. They blink red, due to them being hooked up to a non-ONXY addressable Notifier panel (in this case, the AFP-200.) Non-renovated areas generally have Faraday F1G Chevron pulls on Space Age/Faraday ADA-extension adapters, and in the kitchen and one end of the library, there are Fire-Lite BG-12 pulls (replacing the last two original Standard 200177 pulls early this year.)
In the renovated areas and at the elevator, there are Notifier FSP-851 smoke detectors. At the elevator they are on the older-style System Sensor base, but in the renovated areas they are on the newer conical base. Everywhere else uses heat sensors; mostly old Chemtronics 500-series mechanical heats rebranded by Standard, but in the kitchen there are Chemtronics 400-series heat sensors, and there is also a Simplex 4255-5 heat sensor (rebranded Edwards heat) in the library. A few of the old Standard/Chemtronics heat sensors were replaced with new Chemtronics 601 heat sensors.

My class this semester is in the Technology building. It and the adjacent Science building share a Notifier NFS2-640 system rebranded by Johnson Controls, with Wheelock Exceder horn/strobes (many of them on large red trim plates, covering up where old Standard horn/lights and then Space Age VA4 horn/strobes were), NBG-12LX pulls on Space Age ADA-extension adapters, and addressable Notifier/Johnson Controls smoke detectors (they look like SD-651s). Also in the Technology building is a gutted Faraday FireWatch II panel that’s now just used for terminal wiring, left over from the previous system.
The Business building has a similar setup, but with an NFS-320 panel rebranded by Johnson Controls. IIRC, they are all on Code-3.

The Liberal Arts and Humanities buildings share a Faraday MPC-7000 system, with Space Age VA4 horn/strobes, addressable dual-action Faraday Chevron pulls, and FireSmart smoke/heat detectors. This is the only non-Honeywell system on the campus, I think, and is up for replacement soon (probably with another Notifier system.) These two buildings were originally built in 1978 with Simplex 4207 systems with 4051+4050-80 horn/lights and 4251-20 T-bar pulls.

The Fine Arts building also has a Notifier NFS2-640 system, with the panel located in an electrical room. The panel has an NCA-2 annunciator incorporated into it. At the main lobby, there is an FDU-80 LCD annunciator, replacing the original Simplex 4308 annunciator from when the building was built in 1978.
All the alarms are SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes on adapter plates (probably P4Rs), replacing Space Age VA4 horn/strobes and Simplex 4051+4050-80 horn/lights (with the latter, it’s just like what happened at my old school!) In the background/prop storage room in the basement, the SpectrAlert Advance in there is not on a trim plate, but mounted by itself on the wall, as the previous alarm in there was mounted on a backbox.
Most of the pull stations are the original Simplex 4251-20 T-bars, but in the auditorium, there’s a Faraday F1G Chevron as well. The majority of the pulls have Stopper II covers over them (some with sounders and some without), except in the TV studio and in a small room between the Little Theater and one of the corridors. (The pulls in the auditorium and on the stage had Stoppers installed on them early this year.) Smoke detectors are mostly System Sensor 2151Ts, along with a few 2451THs and i3s, and the elevator machine room in the basement (for raising and lowering a portion of the stage so it can be used as an orchestra pit) has one of the original ESL 523C smoke detectors intact. Also in the basement there are some of the old Simplex 4255-1 heat sensors (rebranded Chemtronics 500), and the TV studio has a couple of Simplex 4265 heat sensors (rebranded Chemtronics 400.)

The Administration building has a similar setup as above, but none of the original smoke detectors are intact, and all the pulls are Simplex 4251-20s; all but two have Stopper II covers. The building also has a Potter fire suppression system in the computer server room, with newer-style Potter Select-a-horn/strobes (and a SpectrAlert Advance as well.)

The Field House building has a Fire-Lite MS-9600UDLS system, with the main panel located in the main lobby, linked up to a junction box where the old Faraday RDC-700 annunciator was. In an electrical room, there’s a gutted Faraday MPC-2000 panel that has a Fire-Lite power supply cabinet plastered to its’ front. All alarms are, again, SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes on adapter plates, and the pulls are mostly Simplex 4251-20 T-bars, while the swimming pool room and the girls’ locker room (I saw through an open door) have Faraday F1G Chevron pulls. The pulls in the gymnasium, swimming pool room, and a couple of short hallways have Stopper II covers without sounders. The only smoke detectors are one above the panel in the main lobby and in that electrical room, which are Fire-Lite SD-355T detectors. Everywhere else uses heat sensors, mostly Simplex 4255-1s (though the boys’ locker room has a Chemtronics 600 detector as well.)

My school finished construction this year and we are the first students to go there. We have a combo of EST wiffleball and cone shaped smokes, combo of ceiling mount and wall mount genesis horn strobes, and Siga-278 dual action pull stations. All of them are on a EST 3 panel which malfunctions A lot and shuts the A/C off.

Current School:
-EST 278 Series Pulls
-Genesis Horn/Strobes
-EST SIGA Smoke Detectors

Previous Place of Work:

  • Fire Lite MS-4 Panel (It was recently upgraded. Previously was some old mircom panel)
  • Fire Lite BG-10’s and Fire Lite BG-12’s
  • Wheelock 7002T’s and Wheelock AS’s

Brand new to the forums, hello everyone.
At my elementary school it was a mixed bag of beans. The original system (never got to see the FACP) was just a couple Wheelock 7001Ts put in some of the hallways for “meh” coverage. Ran in continuous, and I can still remember them clipping when the strobes would flash. That system is the reason why to this day being in college I still get anxiety attacks from fire drills!! Obviously only having a couple horns wasn’t going to fly for a school so they added Wheelock 34Ts in the classrooms, mounted next to two Gentex Commander strobes… (one flashing the same direction as the horn, the other flashing 90 degrees away since they were all mounted on corners). Also continuous…and these were added in the early 2000s so I don’t understand how they got away with using a tone other than code 3. Then, after they did a little bit of renovations, they added about 6 EST Genesis horn/strobes in random places (some were in places where there were already 7001ts present in the same room… they actually did code 3 and I don’t remember them being all that loud. The original 7001ts are still continuous to this day. And then…they added two additions to the building, got something like a separate Notifier panel with Gentex Commander 1 horn/strobes all over the place, code 3 horn. Somehow that half of the building went off with the original system but I don’t get how it did. That school also has 2 outbuildings, one has a small system of 3 Commander 1s, and the other has 2 7002Ts and a EST mini horn of some sort. The main building had a mixture of Simplex T-handle pull stations, Fire Lite BGs-12 and BG-10s, and siemens pulls. I remember that there was a bell on the main floor that I never heard sound. On the pump house outside if the alarms were activated with the fire suppression water flow sensor, there was an old crusty bell that would sound. otherwise if the alarms were activated by pull stations it would not sound. Sorry if I have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m pretty new to this! :roll:

At my current school the system was redone over the summer. The old system (installed in the 1998/99) renovations was a Simplex 4010 based system, it had 2 LCD annunciators, on the first and second floor it had 4903-9236s and 4904-9137s, in the breezeways they had dual action 4099 series pulls. In the gym it had Single Action 4099 series pulls with Stopper IIs with the horns in, but the silencer key in. The rest of the school was 4099 SA pulls. The smokes were addressable TrueAlarms. In one breezeway a random TrueAlert was installed with only its strobe hooked up.

After the upgrade, everything Simplex was removed & trashed (I was hoping to get some of the stuff, but didn’t :cry:)
The system was replaced with an EST3 panel with voice evac. 3 Annunciators were tied in. One by the front door, one at the side, and one with a remote mic in the office. In the halls and classrooms are Genesis ceiling mount speaker strobes set on 75CD 1/4 watt. The smokes are SIGA smokes and the pulls are dual action SIGAs. In the stairwell, gym and cafeteria there are red Genesis wall mounts set on 75 CD and 1/2 watt. The system does the female EST3 message, I am unable to find a copy of it on YouTube at the moment, but if I do Ill add it in.

Could you elaborate?

I updated my original post, i don’t know what i was on… :lol:

I meant the SIGA PS Smokes

While I was on campus today, I noticed that one of the buildings at my university received an upgrade over the weekend. The previous system, which was still intact when I walked through the building last Thursday, consisted of an addressable Simplex panel (almost certainly a 4100U) with two 4602-series SCU annunciators, bilingual 4099-9001 pull stations, TrueAlert horn/strobes, and TrueAlarm smoke detectors. Over the weekend, an EST3 panel was installed : the pull stations were replaced with bilingual EST SIGA-270s, the TrueAlarms were replaced with SIGA detectors (many SIGAs were also installed where there were no TrueAlarms previously), and a huge EST3 annunciator with LED annunciation modules was installed where the 4602 SCUs were previously mounted. Oddly enough, the TrueAlerts were left in place : the combination of SIGA-270 pull stations and TrueAlert horn/strobes is definitely an unusual sight! I was also surprised to see that they opted for first-generation SIGA detectors instead of newer SIGA2s, which seem to be the default choice for newer EST systems in my area.

This upgrade is most likely related to the major addition currently being built behind this building. If that’s indeed the case, I’m suprised that they replaced such a recent system (less than ten years old) since I’m sure it would have been possible to expand the Simplex panel to serve the addition.

My high school, despite it’s age, doesn’t have a very interesting system. The N/A’s are a mixture of Wheelock NS’s and Exceders, the pull stations are all Notifier NBG-12LX’s, and the smoke detectors are some addressable Notifier things. There’s one disconnected Simplex 4041 on the exterior of the building, next to an ASWP.

Don’t feel bad. I found that most high schools know seem to have common, unvaried and boring systems. My father’s high school has a mixture of Gentex Commander 3s, Simplex TrueAlerts and SpectrAlert Classics.

Update to my previous post: the TrueAlerts are now gone and have been replaced with red Genesis horn/strobes on G1RT trim plates.

Coincidentally, another identical Simplex system (4100U, 4099-9001s, TrueAlerts) will be disappearing from campus in the next few weeks. In this case, however, it is due to a building being demolished rather than a system being upgraded. I had my last class in that building two weeks ago, and demolition should be starting soon as I saw workers preparing the site today.

Do you know why the first building replaced their TrueAlerts?

The building’s Simplex 4100U was upgraded to an EST3 due to a major addition being built, so I assume the TrueAlerts were replaced to ensure compatibility with the new panel and with the new signals in the expansion (which will certainly be Genesis devices).

You mean that the old panel wouldn’t have been compatible with the new addition so it was changed to an EST3?

The previous Simplex panel probably could have been expanded to accommodate the new devices from the addition, but for some reason, the university opted to replace it with an EST3, therefore requiring the replacement of every device.

I guess EST was cheaper than Simplex.