Rare old fire alarm pics from my college!

Here’s some more vintage fire alarm goodness I have to share. The community college I went to used to have some rather rare old fire alarm devices (I started going in 2006.) As of now, not much is left. The campus was first built in 1971-1972, and these buildings had Standard Electric Time systems. Then five more buildings were built in 1978 and had Simplex 4207 systems. Now it’s mostly Notifier with some Faraday (as well as a Fire-Lite system in the mix), as the campus had replaced/upgraded most of their fire alarms to stay compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.


Standard Electric Time panel! This picture was taken in 2010, and is located in the Maintenance department. IDK if it’s still used; they probably have a small Notifier panel there now or something. The other buildings still have these, but gutted and used as junction boxes. Here’s what the old alarms were in the 1972 buildings:


Standard Electric Time 450 horns on flush-mount light plates! This one I found still intact in a room that was part of a secret passage in the Student Union, and is most likely exempt from ADA upgrades due to its location. There used to be a LOT more on the campus, but nowadays in this building, most of them had ADA-compliant Faraday strobes installed where the lights were:

I have to admit, they actually look pretty cool this way. This was mostly done in 2007-2009. A few of them had U-HN-MCS electromechanical horn/strobes installed to replace them instead. The one in this picture had its old horn break down a year after the strobe was installed…

…so they went and replaced the whole alarm, but this time with a U-MMT (it was obviously new-old-stock, as by this time the campus was using more Honeywell equipment but occasionally still used Faraday products.)


The original pull stations were these Standard 200177s. Many in this building were replaced with Faraday F1G Chevrons on ADA-extension adapters, because these pulls are in no way ADA compliant. The current panel is a Notifier AFP-200, right next to the abandoned Standard panel.


This alarm was in the student lounge in the Student Union; note the pre-ADA Faraday strobe replacing the old light, and the Faraday 6120 horn behind the grille. This was replaced with a U-HN-MCS in summer 2007. The cafeteria also had a Simplex 2903+2901-9833 horn/light installed in the 1980s, which is still there today.


The Business, Science and Technology buildings had Faraday horns behind the Standard light plates for some reason. At the time this pic was taken (early 2007), Science and Technology had Faraday FireWatch II panels, and Business had a Fire-Lite MS-4424B.


There were a few replacement Faraday pulls in the Science building as well. Unlike the Student Center, pretty much nothing from the old systems are intact now:

The three buildings now have addressable Notifier systems rebranded by Johnson Controls (Business has an NFS-320, Science and Technology share an NFS2-640!) All the alarms are now Space Age VA4 horn/strobes (on Code-3), and the pulls are NBG-12LXs on ADA-extension adapters. The old heat sensors were replaced with Notifier 2151 detectors as well.

Here are pictures of what the 1978 buildings originally had:

Simplex 4308 annunciators. These were found at the main entrances. (Liberal Arts and Humanities had four-zone 4207 systems, while the Fine Arts, Field House and Administration buildings had eight-zone 4207 panels.) This one is in the Fine Arts building, and is still intact to this day (panel is now a Notifier NFS-320 tied into a Faraday MPC-2000 from 1992.) The Administration building still had theirs intact as well (though the panel was then a Simplex 4020!) until last summer, when a new Notifier NFS2-640 panel and FDU-80 annunciator replaced them. The Field House had a Faraday RDC-700 annunciator slapped onto theirs (they also had a Faraday MPC-2000), but now a big junction box sits there, wired to a new Fire-Lite MS-9600UDLS installed two years ago. The LA and H buildings just had theirs gutted.


The original alarms from 1978 were Simplex 4051 horns on 4050-80 light plates! The horns were on Continuous while the light plates would flash in a Slow March Time of some sort (the 4207s here had coding wheels.) None of the 4050-80s on the campus had any “FIRE” lettering, to my knowledge. This was photographed in mid-2007 in the Fine Arts building, and was replaced a while after.


This 4051+4050-80 in the Field House building was installed upside-down, in a team meeting room adjacent to the mens’ locker room. I find that unusual, due to how others in this building had the light on the bottom like usual. This survived until 2009.


This 4050-80 had a Simplex 2901-9833 horn on it! This was in the Little Theater in the Fine Arts building. I’m not sure if this was original (I recall hearing -9833s were around back in 1978), or a replacement in the 1980s. This was removed in early 2008.


Naturally, the pull stations were Simplex 4251-20s. The LA and H buildings no longer have them (an addressable Faraday MPC-7000 system was installed in those two buildings during a renovation in 2005-2006), but the others still do, many of them now with Stopper II covers over them. All the pulls in the Fine Arts and Field House buildings had the zone numbers written on them.


The original smoke detectors were these old ESL models (they even had ESL logos on them!) There is one left in the Fine Arts building elevator machine room, but the others were replaced (this one in the Administration building has since been replaced with a System Sensor 2151 detector.) With the exception of the Faraday detectors in the LA and H buildings, all the 1978 buildings now have different kinds of System Sensor smoke/heat detectors (mostly i3s and 2151Ts), including replacing old mechanical heat sensors.


Some old Simplex smoke detector that was located in the Administration building’s computer tech room, which was part of an old fire suppression system.


There were also three old wiffle-ball detectors. This one was photoelectric, but the other two were ionization detectors. They were all replaced with i3s last summer when the fire suppression system was redone.


Simplex 4308 annunciator showing an “ALARM” condition. This was from when I was at the Administration building one day when they were doing “silent” testing on the 4020 system, and this was shortly before the Notifier system replaced it all.


This 4051+4050-80 in the Fine Arts building survived until summer 2011. While the others in the building were replaced with SAE VA4 horn/strobes, THIS one was replaced with a SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobe on a trim plate. The Field House also now has SpectrAlert Advances, while the other 1978 buildings have the VA4s (though Administration does have a 4051 horn on a Faraday 2701-K strobe plate!)

with the slow march time, was it like what sae av32s do on continuous?