A Michael’s Arts and Crafts store has a dual action pull station that is pulled. It’s been that way for years.
Is this against code?
The pull probably could not be removed from its location (Missing key, cross thread) so they probably left it in its activated position to notify that it is no longer functional.
My local Jewel-Osco had a BG-10 pull station that was activated for about 5 years by an emergency exit near the Pharmacy…never saw any alarms, disables, or anything on the annunciator by the door. It wasn’t until the system was replaced about 2 years ago that the offending pull was removed.
Looking back, I wonder if the pull had one of those faulty switches that got recalled a few years back which prevented it from reporting an alarm. Incidentally, I just replaced the switch in my own BG-10 today because it too failed last week.
I’ve only seen one example of what appeared to be a pull station that was activated and then reset without a key. This was at the former Jewish Community Center in Oak Park, involving a National Time 641 pull station with a crooked t-bar mechanism. My guess is the proper key was not available to reset the device (which is done from the top), so a user instead pushed the t-bar back up to deactivate the switch inside.
I went to a temple of some religion on an interfaity tour sponsored by my church in the community and they had a 270-SPO that was pulled. They had EST Genesis alarms (they were older) and nothing was happenening, so I assumed it was defective or installed incorrectly…I don’t know.
I was also in a restaurant in Indianapolis one time several years ago and saw a Simplex 4251-20 that was activated. They had these and 4903-9101 strobe plates with 9838 horns in steady, which I knew because the fire alarm went off when we were actually there eating; I saw the pulled station on my way out after dinner. Nobody was evacuated because staff knew a little kid pulled it. The FD never showed up. I assumed staff just silenced the system and the manager wasn’t there so they couldn’t reset the pull station. It was still weird though.
Once when we had a fire drill in elementary school when I was in 5th grade, our evacuation route took us past a pull station that was pulled by a kid in a self-contained class. Only time i ever saw a Simplex 2099-9795 pulled in person. I thought that it just went down and didn’t know it pulled out.