Well I decided that our house should have a commercial grade fire alarm system and I diverted a few hundredays bucks into a special savings account.
I like the Edward Signaling brand and will be gething them from lowvoltageproduct.com.
So wishe me luck 
Byron R
Get the Edwards genesis’s they are very attractive. For locations outdoors or garages, get integrities. I would strongly recommend ebay as thus will save you tons if money when buying initiating and notification appliances
I would recommend against purchasing used if this system is going to be used for life safety.
In fact let me start off with a disclaimer: I’d recommend against putting in a commercial life safety system in your house at all unless you’re qualified to do the work and have permission of the AHJ and understand all of the codes this system would be expected to adhere to.
Used products could potentially have defects, do not have an appropriate paper trail, and open up a world of liability issues should the system fail to operate in a fire, or worse, cause a fire. Purchasing new is the only way to go for peripheral devices.
A fire alarm control panel, on the other hand, can be purchased used IF AND ONLY IF you are purchasing it directly from the manufacturer or an authorized retailer/listed repair shop, as all panels that are refurbished by a manufacturer-approved technician are then guaranteed to perform like new and have been put on a professional test bench and found to conform to the standards to which it had been designed.
Unless you are a fully qualified technician with vast access to Edwards technology, I’d advise against Edwards for an addressable system, as programming an Edwards becomes incredibly expensive incredibly fast, aside from the fact that they are incredibly touchy systems and highly prone to strange malfunctions.
That being said, if you want to use Edwards Genesis signaling devices, that’s fine, just make sure your control panel outputs Filtered DC and not FWR.
If you’re going to use a conventional control panel, pulls like the 270-SPO or 278 series (there is one type that is conventional although the specific model number escapes me) are great choices.
Exactly how experienced are you with fire alarm equipment? A little background would help us work with you better. I wouldn’t want to be throwing out terms that are way over your head, or holding the conversation back by trying to explain simple things you already know.
Agreed. While I’m sure all of us here believe that the idea of a full-house alarm system is cool, and there have been many examples of demonstration systems that have proved successful, we do not recommend the use of user-installed fire alarm systems as a replacement for proper life safety devices on these forums.
Yeah, I’d say the best thing is to install interconnected hardwired smoke alarms, preferably the dual-sensor type if you can afford it and either install them yourself (that is if you know how to) or have an electrician install them. These are designed to protect residential homes and will alert you in case of a fire, especially if you’re asleep.
Smoke alarms are the way to go because they have been tested, approved in codes for residential fire protection, and provide adequate warning if a fire were to break out in your home.
There are two types: ionization and photoelectric. Photoelectric has proven more reliable in most modern house fire scenarios, but ionization alarms are more common because they’re cheap, although they may not go off during a fire. Here’s why: a photoelectric detector has an infrared beam in its sensor to detect large particles of smoke, the kind given off by a slow smoldering fire, usually when a piece of furniture is burning, because of the design of the furniture and the foam contained within, will release heavy smoke LONG before igniting into flames. But make no mistake, this kind of smoke is EXTREMELY toxic and deadly due to the chemicals in building materials (not just furniture) and carbon monoxide and will kill you if you are exposed to it long enough. Many modern fire deaths are due to smoke inhalation, not due to burns like many people speculate.
Ionization uses a small amount of radioactive material called Americium 241. Ionization alarms were common back in the 50’s and 60’s when fires were caused by, say, someone dropping a lit cigarette in a trash bin full of paper and other combustibles. These are fast flaming fires, which are intense more in the flame aspect and not in the smoke aspect. The only reason they’re still super common is because they’re cheap to manufacture and cheap to buy, which is unfortunately why many people and builders choose them. Many people also don’t understand the difference, and just choose the cheapest kind.
Fire departments recommend dual-sensor types as they have both kinds of sensors built into one unit and will protect you in both scenarios.
But that’s just what I would recommend instead of installing a commercial grade fire alarm system which is not designed for homes.
It’s not so much that the system is not designed for homes per se, but rather that the system is listed to protect life. Just like a 120V home interconnected smoke alarm system is. Technically, you shouldn’t do more than change a battery or swap a broken detector head on your home system without the proper permission. Any change to the wiring, unless you adhere to code and have the permits/licenses, and the life safety system is potentially compromised. And then the liability would be on you if the modified system failed to detect a fire or caused a fire.
The principle is the same with commercial fire systems, but because commercial fire systems are so much more complicated, and are designed to meet an entirely different set of rules than 120v interconnect smoke alarms, it’s harder to adapt a professional system for home use. Most people aren’t fire alarm enthusiasts so they don’t know or care whether their home system is commercial or residential anyway.
NFPA 72 allows the use of commercial fire systems in homes but the local AHJ has the final say on what codes to adopt (if any). That being said, if you jump through all the legal hoops, a commercial system would work just as well (in fact, quite a bit better if you configure it properly) than a home system.
Personally, I think there’s a big argument to be made for the fact that commercial fire systems are safer and more reliable than home smoke alarms, due to comprehensive system monitoring, more careful smoke coverage, extensive diagnostics, etc, etc, and I’m actually looking to professionally install one myself (given the appropriate permits and using the appropriate resources). But it’s much more complicated than a circuit drawing and a good distributor.
So, now we need to know:
Are you installing this system just to play around, or are you trying to use the system to replace your residential smoke alarms?
If you’re willing to jump through all the hoops to get commercial fire alarm equipment properly installed in your house, you can. However, there are far cheaper and easier options available to you.
For instance, if you want to use commercial-grade smoke detectors, you could have a combination security/fire panel installed in your house like the Ademco Vista 20P and use it for both your burglar alarm and your fire alarm system. You’d have i3 detectors with sounders in every room that needs one, and an i4 in rooms where you need carbon monoxide detection. However, the alarm sounds would come from the i3s built-in sounders and not from dedicated signaling devices, unless of course you install a 12v siren.
Interlogix also has a similar solution, with that being the Concord 4. It uses ESL detectors instead of System Sensor’s ones, but you achieve the same effect.
An even cheaper option, like everyone else has suggested, is to just nix the commercial system altogether and go for interconnected 120VAC hardwired smoke alarms. If you get the right kinds, they are just as reliable as a commercial system, and are far easier to set up. For one thing, it’s super easy to hire an electrician to do all the dirty work for you. If you were to ask one to do that for your commercial system, he’d probably end up asking a bunch of questions like “are you licensed to have this system put in?”
Of course, the absolute cheapest option (but one I don’t recommend) is just buying a bunch of standalone 9v smoke alarms and installing them where they need to go. While they’re far easier to install and they’re pretty cheap, they don’t interconnect, so depending on the size of your house you may not hear the one that is going off.
I can even give you specific model numbers of devices I recommend.
[list]
As these are all of the BRK/First Alert brand, they will all interconnect with each other and will all sound when one alarm goes off.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask us!
Also there is a BRK heat detector:
Heat detector: HD6135FB
It is rate of rise and fixed temp (135F) and it does not need replacement after activation like most heat detectors. It is electronic, not mechanical.
I personally would not recommend BRK’s detectors. When I lived in Indiana, my family had our house built, which was completed in February of 2005. The alarms that were installed were 9 BRK 4120SB’s, the predecessor to the 9120. For a few years or so they held up without any false alarms whatsoever. But around 2008 (when I was in second grade), they falsed one night. I remember being so terrified that I even wrote a story at school about it called ‘Smoke Alarm’ for some writing project we were doing or something. I still have it, but it’s in a filing cabinet somewhere. Anyways, they were obviously interconnected, so when one went off, they all did. Keep in mind that while I was a little kid, I was by no means oblivious to fire safety. The shrieking sound of the alarms woke me up, I jumped out of bed, felt the door, then opened it. Since this was the first time this had happened, we took it literally and congregated by the front door while my dad ran around the house trying to figure out which one was the one in alarm (when the unit in alarm went off, it’s red LED flashes while interconnected units’ red LED stays solid). Obviously they went on and off so it took my dad awhile to find out which one went off, which we did, it was in the basement. There was no fire or no steam (since we were all asleep anyways), so my dad vacuumed out the detector, thinking it maybe was dust. Didn’t work. It went off so many times that night that my dad took the detector, unplugged it from the ceiling, took the battery out, and stuck it on the kitchen counter to deal with later. This might seem stupid but there was an alarm outside the guest bedroom (which was the one that went off), so there was no coverage gap. We found out there was a spider in the detector which caused it to go off. Once that was removed, problem solved, right?
My dad called First Alert and they gave some suggestions if it were to happen again, and that was that.
But it wasn’t too long afterwards that the same thing happened again and again and again on various nights during the months and years that followed. Eventually, we gave up on the reliability of the alarms since they would go off for seemingly no reason. Of course, they still worked because one time my dad forgot to open the flue in the fireplace in the basement. A bit of smoke wafted into the room and the detectors sounded. So yes, they still detected fire. But that never stopped the false alarms from happening. By 2012 or so, the detectors were old (manufactured between 2003 and 2004), and we were long fed up with the nights of the false alarms (it actually happened on one occasion on a summer afternoon).
We found out the detectors may have been recalled for some reason. And we believed it too; most times there were no bugs or dust that caused the alarms to go off, they just randomly did.
We ended up calling the electrician and had all the BRK smokes replaced with Kidde smokes. After the Kidde smokes were installed, we only had one false alarm before I moved away in 2015.
My current house was built in 2012 or 2013 and has Kidde/FireX smokes and a Kidde smoke and CO combo alarm. They have never falsed in the two plus years I have lived there.
To make a long story short, I don’t recommend the BRK alarms. However, the 9120B probably has little of the issues that led to the voluntary recall of the 4120 series. However, if you want to avoid false alarms, get Kidde stuff (or a photo alarm or dual sensor in general). My current house uses ion smokes, which I plan to replace with Kidde photoelectric smoke/CO combos or dual sensor devices when the time comes, which I might do early too.
The nice thing about using Kidde stuff is that most of their mounting brackets and harwire jacks are universal, meaning you can just swap them out if need be. BRK stuff uses different brackets for different models, so it might not be as easy if you were to replace them once their 10 year life cycle was up.
I agree! IIRC, Edwards basically invented the low-profile notification appliance.
However, Edwards now makes weatherproof Genesis horn/strobes.
http://edwards-es.com/Data%20Sheets/10%20–%20Strobes,%20Horns,%20Bells,%20Chimes/E85001-0628%20–%20Genesis%20Outdoor%20Horns%20and%20Strobes.pdf
I’ve personally never had problems with BRK detectors, and have had a similar experience with Kidde/FireX detectors. A very long time ago, a mulch fire broke out in Helotes, a suburb of SA, and the smoke caught the wind and found its way to our neighborhood. We were the only house in the neighborhood whose smoke alarms went off (in the middle of a school day, when nobody was home), however, when I accidentally left the stove on and caused a nearby pot holder to smolder and nearly catch fire, absolutely nothing happened.
There were even times where one detector just seemed to go off at random, and woke the entire house up in the middle of the night.
Once ten years passed I ripped every single FireX detector out of the house and replaced them with shiny new BRK ones. Haven’t had a problem since.
I think bugs were a problem looking back on it because we lived in a wooded/marshy area.
I would agree with Robert A that using an integrated fire/security system may be an easier place to start. For one thing, they are available for considerably cheaper. I have most experience with DSC systems, and find them to be more user-friendly than Honeywell/Ademco. DMP is another excellent manufacturer from what I have heard.
The only drawback is a lack of a dedicated NAC output for fire. A workaround is to use a product like the ELK-941 or one of the programmable outputs to trigger a NAC panel. (Be aware that this approach is not completely supervised.) Or in my case, just use 12 volt horns (no strobes) on the bell output. The panel gives continuous for burglary and temporal-3 for fire.
One plus of DSC PowerSeries is that you can use this product to monitor and control it remotely. I’ve been playing with this on my own setup.
I won’t say you should never install a commercial system in your home, but it is important to be aware of all the potential liability and code issues that the others have brought up many times on this forum.