Sounds like a variety. It would be funny if they start using Autocall. Unfortunately these old systems are getting replaced for newer stuff that isn’t as reliable as the Autocall. Im glad Old School Fire Alarms save some systems, i wish there were someone that salvaged the systems with the old Federal Signal equipment.
Simplex Truealerts, don’t now what coding because thank god I have not heard them go off, I work at the Ann Arbor, MI Holiday Inn West. Here’s a list of each Ann Arbor school and their alarms
Clifford E Bryant, all Wheelock 7002Ts
Pattengill Elementary, Mostly Wheelock 7002Ts with an Wheelock Exceder
Tappan Middle School, Mostly Wheelock 7002Ts with a few mixes of different Models
-Gymnasium; a 7002T, red bell of some sort, an unknown Cerberus pyrotronics alarm, and a Wheelock AS. 2nd floor by computer lab: unknown faraday horn, one unknown faraday alarm near the pool entrance and one in the pool room itself. Pioneer High School; all wheelock NSs with RSS strobes in the main school, portables(now gone)had MASS system sensors. Regardless of what they were; they were LOUD and you did not miss the sound; though funny thing is at Pioneer HS, we missed a drill since all of the alarms were somehow disconnected in the portables and then in Pattengill elemetnary; we missed two and the staff were not happy about it.
Did he Salvage any Federal Signal Model As or B-9s since that what we used back in the 50s
Fire alarm system at my school:
Indoor alarms
Notification devices
Simplex TrueAlert horn strobe
Simplex TrueAlert remote strobe
Simplex QuickAlert horn strobe (old and new version)
Simplex QuickAlert remote strobe (new version)
Initiating devices
Simplex single action t-bar pull station
Panels
Simplex 4010
Simplex 4009
Outdoor alarms
Notification devices
System sensor P2RK
Potter 6 inch bell
Update as of today:
They replaced the gym alarms (both versions of the QuickAlerts) with System Sensor L-Series horn strobes. Idk if the entire school is undergoing a replacement yet. But if it is, it would be because the school got struck by lightning and most likely killed the panels. We haven’t had a fire drill yet this school year, and school started in August. It’s December now. Anyway, I’ll update y’all if any more alarms get replaced.
Final update:
The entire school system has been replaced. We now have a Firelite system. So we should have our regular fire drills now, but this time with System Sensor L-Series instead of Simplex TrueAlerts/QuickAlerts.
Pre-K - Wheelock AS (?) I dont really remember well / didnt pay attention as I wasnt into it back then
Kindergarten - Gentex Commanders (Actually went off for a fire)
1st - upon further research Gentex Speakers, though I swear they were horn strobes when I was there (first year it was open)
2nd - 5th - Fed Signal / ADT Vibratone 450 and VALS Strobe with ADT Pulls
2 Replacement Spectralert Classics in main hall
Siemens UMMT in 5th Grade area & Gym with strobes in bathroom
Fire Lite BG-12’s in above mentioned section
Gentex Commander 3 in Cafeteria
Annunciator was Fire Lite LCD-80 with Panels being a Notifier
something (mustve been pretty new) and a Fire-Lite MS521OUD.
coding on Fed signal is cont. while other signals are code 3
6-8 - Gym, Cafeteria, 2nd Building - Simplex 2903 light plates on Simplex 2901-
9806s with a 4903 also in the Cafeteria
(Note - Cafeteria & Gym Light plates were
replaced in 2021 with Red L-Series (4903 stay)
Main halls aside from renovated area - 9833s
unlabeled ceiling mounted with sporadic
strobes (no light plate)
front of nurses office - Simplex 12901-9508
Renovated part & small hall - True alerts
(small hall truealert replaced for louder L-
Series in 2020)
Band Room - Maybe gentex commander (?)
Pulls are classic simplex T-bar minus a newer
one below 4903 and a fire-lite BG-12
Panel is a Fire Lite MS-10UD, Code is
Continuous minus truealerts and L Series.
*two mech. horns are replaced with advance
ceiling as of 2020.
Current (9-12) - Siemens voice evac, All alarm units are rebranded LEDs from
Eaton / Wheelock.
White strobes all over ceiling mounted, red
strobes in some bathrooms.
Gym, parts of cafeteria have red speaker
strobes as well as white ceiling speakers in
several rooms without a newer intercom.
Annuciators located in several spots though
all of them except one powered down
Panel is a big siemens panel and system is
Addressable.
Pulls are Siemens X-Series
Message is T3 and a enhanced voice message
played through the intercom.
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I’m new here, but I’ve had some interesting alarm systems.
The first school I went to was a rural Class 1A school where every grade was on one campus, with the elementary having their own building and the middle and high school shared the building (sadly the high school closed right before I started Kindergarten).
-The first building I was in from K and 1st was built in 1999/2000. The system was I believe some sort of an FCI system (maybe an addresable 7200?) with the pull stations being FCI MS-6s, FCI rebranded Spectralert Classic horn strobes and strobes, and some form of an FCI ASD smoke detectors (can’t remember).
-The second building I was in from 2nd-4th was built in 1976, and originally had a 2 Simplex 4251 pull stations that I believed were tied to the school bell system. But I guess after the new building was built, the old elementary building had Gentex Commander 3 Horn Strobes in the hallway and Commander 3 strobes in the bathrooms. The pull stations were addressable FCI MS-7 (BG-12) pull stations, and some form of an FCI ASD smoke detectors in the hallways.
-The “mini gym” built next to it sometime after the 76 building also featured 2 FCI MS-7s (at the exits), 1 Gentex Commander 3 Horn strobes, and 2 strobes in the bathrooms. (Surprising, there were no stoppers).
-At the old school, the building was built in 1936, and only had one bell, one Gamewell Century in the office, and an ancient alarm panel. But, the detached cafeteria had a fire alarm system that was added in when they expanded it, because some of the alarms were on conduit, and some were mounted in the wall. The pull stations were Gamewell Centurys and Gentex Commander 3s.
-In 2011, a new “middle school” building was built with 4 new classrooms, a cafeteria and front office. And with the new building, came a new Gamewell-FCI E3 Addressable system. The pull stations were Gamewell-FCI MS-7AFs, the NAs were Spectralert Advance P2Ws and SWs, and some form of Gamewell-FCI ASD smoke detectors, along with 2 annunciators (some form of a black E3) in the new building, as the control panel was placed in the 2000 building.
-However, at the end of 5th grade I moved to a new school with quite an interesting mix of systems. The school I went to was built in the early 60s, and was continually added on up until 1999. As the elementary school would get its own campus in 2006 (it has Simplex Truealert Speaker-Strobes, Truealarm smoke detectors, Simplex 2099 pull stations, and I assume the voice evac panel is a 4003 because the building is only 1 story.
-The system is a Harrington Signal System (not sure how rare those are) that was installed in the late 90s. The NAs were rare Space Age Electronics VA4s in the hallways, gyms, cafeteria, and ag shop/home economics kitchen, and VA3 strobes in classrooms and bathrooms. The smokes were mostly Honeywell 2400s with some modern smoke detector replacements (I think SD335Ts?). One of the VA4s in the “mini gym” were replaced with an EST Integrity. The pull stations were Harrington Signal RMS t-bars with key resets.
-The band room was built in 1996 and was given a small FCI system, which had FCI MS-6 pull stations, FCI HE-8F horn strobes, FCI STW strobes, and some form of FCI smoke detectors. IN 1999, the band room got a science classroom/lab which got an additional 2 FCI rebranded Spectralert Classics and 2 additional MS-6s.
-In 2018, a new Gymnasium was built as the first part of a new high school. The new gym was given an Gamewell FCI E3 system with a voice evac panel, with the NAs being L-Series Spectralert Advance Speaker Strobes, and some rooms receiving L-series Ceiling mounted strobes, with pull stations being a mix of Gamewell FCI MS-7ASF single action and MS7-AFs dual action pulls. Don’t remember the smokes, but if I had to guess probably some sort of Gamewell-FCIs.
And they did another such upgrade this week, with the Back To School season upon us. This time, it’s the Science and Technology buildings, each having its’ own NFS-320 system installed, with the same devices as the buildings in the quote. But the system it’s replacing was only installed in 2011-2012! A Notifier NFS2-640 system rebranded by Johnson Controls served both buildings, with Wheelock Exceder horn/strobes, JBG-12LX pull stations and JC-rebranded Notifier smoke detectors and heat sensors. I suspect they did that because there was only one master box covering both systems, even back when they had separate fire alarm panels (Standard Electric Time “Alarmatic” systems when they were built in 1972, and then Faraday FireWatch II systems installed in the 1990s). When the NFS2-640 system was installed, they just put the new devices right where the old ones were, using adapter plates and such. But with these NFS-320 systems, they put in a second Gamewell master box to cover one of the new panels, and they plated over where the old devices were and installed the new ones in different locations, so now there are more horn/strobes in the buildings, even in classrooms (while the restrooms have remote strobes). The renovated science labs in the Science building kept their Wheelock Exceder horn/strobes (installed in the rooms during renovation), possibly because they were considered adequate enough in providing alarm signal coverage. Each NFS-320 also has a Potter PSN-106 power supply installed underneath.
Sorry for the Late response, You were right. The system did not contain a MXL, the whole system was (And still is) Conventional. The current Panel is a Simplex 4005, Not what I thought of previously.
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I’ve got an interesting new discovery I made while working earlier this week. I was buying lunch in the cafeteria when I noticed a Gaylord Industries C-1357A pull station near a kitchen entrance! For those of you not aware of what Gaylord Industries is, they’re a company specializing in fire suppression systems for kitchens. The pull station model, in particular, is based on a vintage Edwards 270-SPO (or AIP AI270-SPO), except it’s yellow in color (with silver vertical stripes). There was a round Ansul pull station mounted directly next to it, so I’m guessing the kitchen area has more than one suppression system in place.
Something like this? It might be an emergency ventilation switch
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Exactly! I don’t recall seeing the sticker at the bottom, though, unless it fell off at some point.
I saw a red version of this for sale on eBay once
at my school we have the EST Genisis along with the sega and like 3 spectra alert classics. we actualy had a false alarm recently.
I think there was on with a sticker in my elementary school.
My school was built in 2001 and has a very unique system of alarms.
Pulls : Notifier NBG-12LX
NA’s : System Sensor H1224K (x2), Gentex Commander 2s (the earlier model without the candela window), some System Sensor MA’s, and a Gentex GMH-24R in the cafeteria.
Detectors : Notifier FSP-851’s.
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That is a unique mix, especially since you rarely see Gentex signals in buildings.
Ikr! I expected my school to have bland SS devices.
My school has Gentex Commander 3s & 4s (rebranded by National Time), Sigcom SG Pulls, Sentry Stoppers, 1 Inactive NT P-804, & a few dozen NT 411Fs.
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Ooh, I’ve never seen a flush version of the 411! Hope they get saved at some point given their incredible rarity.
I’ve never seen Commanders with that National Time logo either; the NT-rebranded Commander 3 I have has the older National Time logo like that on the pull station.
I’m actually working with the school right now to obtain them!