Are they actually fire alarms, or are they used for a different purpose? Whenever I see them in buildings (rarely), they are always lonely. I’ve never been in a building that had more than one of them.
Oh, so an Adaptahorn? I know that I’ve seen them in places from a freezer alarm at a grocery store to on a warning beacon for pop-up road blockers on the road, but no, I’ve never seen them used as fire alarms as I have never seen Adaptebells used as fire alarms.
The HS I went to used to have them as fire alarms, infact I have a red one in my collection that came from my old HS. Most of them I see are gray and used for various purposes though.
Most, if not all Adaptahorns I’ve seen in person have been gray, and often used for general signaling purposes. Although some places in Canada are known for using these as fire alarms, like one of twoplyboy’s YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/twoplyboy#p/u/75/sFFbh89YtBE
Edwards sometimes used them as fire alarms, painted red. It was one of their most popular alarm signals back in the 1960s and 1970s. Nowadays, they just use them for general signaling, but I imagine they MIGHT still make a red version, if they need to replace a broken Adapt-a-horn in an old system.
My college’s Fine Arts building uses one outside as an alarm for when the basement was leaking/flooding, and was tied into the sewer system. Here’s a video of it going off when it was accidentally activated during some sewer work:
I think it was installed in the 1990s.
Edwards still makes a red Adaptahorn, but in a hazardous locations model.
One of our local arenas (Riverside Arena) has flush-mount Adapatahorns, along with 270s and some older Edwards heat detectors.
I’ve seen a couple of systems that use those horns as FAs. I usually see them used for general signaling, like my school for example had one used for an outdoor recess bell. I know of a couple schools that have adaptahorns only for their recess bells.