Unnecessary fire alarm system replacements?

Has anyone here seen some sort of unnecessary fire alarm system replacement before? I’ve heard of this happening before with a perfectly code-compliant Autocall TFX Network system at one of the high schools in my district be replaced with a Notifier NFS-320 network and I just cannot believe it at all.

At the middle school I went to for 6th grade, they had an old (likely Simplex 4002) system with 2901-9838 horns on 4903-9101 strobe plates mounted on the ceiling all throughout the school. The smokes were standard Simplex conventional smokes and there were 4251-20s and 4251-30s everywhere.
When they used the building for a PSAT prep class back before I was a sophomore in high school, most of the alarms were still there but a couple of AH horns replaced some of the dying 9838s and a couple of RSG SP-series pulls replaced a couple of the old Simplex pulls. I remember seeing an EST-3 in the front office but I wasn’t sure whether they were using it with addressable modules or anything.
Then when I came back to help give a concert to the incoming freshmen from that school a couple years later, I noticed that the whole system was replaced by the EST-3 system with SIGA-278 pulls, Signature series smokes, and Genesis signals. Usually the system components are replaced as needed but for some reason they decided to gut the whole system and do a complete reinstall.

I think my dad told me they’re going to do the same thing at the school he works at too. With any luck I might be able to get a couple of Silent Knight SD-500-PS pulls, some Spectralerts, and hopefully the old IFP-1000. Maybe I can get it to work.

My old school district has replaced two reasonably new systems in the past year. Two schools, both with 2009-2012 Fire-Lite MS-9600UDLS systems with the usual Honeywell devices had full replacements this summer. Both schools now have Siemens Cerberus PRO FC924(?) systems with HMS-D pulls, H-Series detectors and Z-Series signals.

My middle school, from the end of my 7th grade year up until the end of the following summer, had added a new wing (well, not exactly, it’s kinda hard to explain), which had SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes and Notifier NBG-12LX pulls flashing green just in that part of the school alone. This was in the front of the school. There were also two weatherproof Advances with weatherproof enclosures over them on two opposite sides of the entrance. The hallway also had an EST Genesis horn/strobe (with trim plate) next to the elevator that was carried over from when it was just an elevator corridor (again kinda hard to explain).

This, I believe, was part of a Notifier NFS-320 system (or something like that) tied in to an unknown panel (probably an older Edwards system given the notification appliances, pull stations (even though most of them were the ESL pull stations that were similar to the dual-action push and pull Simplex T-Bars), and the annunciator. Speaking of annunciators, the Notifier system had the Notifier version of the Fire-Lite LCD-40 annunciator.

That’s what was there during my 8th grade year.

The following year, the Notifier system was no more. Back story: Although I may have moved on to high school the following year, parent-teacher conferences were going on there one night, and I had a younger sibling who attended the school at the time. Long story short, my parents couldn’t find a babysitter, so I was forced to come inside the school.

Going back to the system, all the Notifier devices were replaced with their respective EST counterparts. The Notifier panel was replaced with an EST3 system; the NBG-12LX’s were replaced with SIGA-278 pulls, and the rebranded LCD-40 annunciator was replaced with an EST3 annunciator. The Advances were kept though.

I’m thinking that my elementary school might be one because they all to my knowledge had ADA-compliant strobes but I’m not really sure. Anyway the roof was beginning to collapse (while I was there, it had already collapsed once in the library. Not good. The year after I left it happened again) and they needed a new boiler. OK good that’s fine. However why do we need to get rid of the fire alarm system? It was fine I thought. Certainly got me out of there.

If anybody’s wondering, it was mostly Simplex. I never saw the panel. The principal always did the drills by keying a random pull station. The pulls were Simplex 2099-9795s on the first floor and basement and Simplex 2099-9756s on the second floor.

Majority of the alarms were Simplex 4903-9219s. There were 9 total in the school. Three on each floor. The elevator room, the storage room, boiler room (both at the back of the teacher’s lounge), entry vestibule for the cafe-gymnasium, cafe-gymnasium itself and the cafe-gymnasium kitchen had Simplex 2901-9838 horns on 4903-9101 strobe plates. 4 in the cafe-gymnasium, 1 in the cafe-gymnasium kitchen, 1 in that entry vestibule, 1 in the storage room, 1 in the boiler room and 1 in the elevator room. The ESL classroom and literacy/reading classroom had older-style Gentex SHGs. The enrichment and band classroom had a Wheelock AS-2415 that was set to code-3. All bathrooms except the two in the cafe-gymnasium had Simplex 4904-9138 remote strobes.

Come 2013, I go back there and the school is completely overrun with SpectrAlert Advance speaker strobes. Since the school is in the middle of being renovated, I wonder if the school will get L-Series speaker strobes now.

One that was a minor one was my college. They were replacing the non-ADA compliant Simplex 4051s on 4050-80 light plates (think wiley’s kindergarten school) but they originally started with Wheelock Exceeders. The next semester, they changed their mind and used SpectrAlert Advanced speaker strobes instead. The few that were installed were replaced.

To end this text-wall of a post, ironically my middle school still has the oldest alarm system in the district since EVERY other school had gotten upgrades. They still have surface mount Simplex 4051 horns on 4050-80 light plates with black “FIRE” lettering and Edwards 270A-SPO pull stations since the 4051s replaced what I assume was originally Edwards 360 horns.

Autocall? They probably can’t service it anymore or get parts for it, so they have an upgrade path planned. Otherwise they might get caught with their pants down if something breaks, or handed a $10,000 bill for something minor.

My elementary school received a fire alarm upgrade in the early 1990s. They replaced the original system from the 60s with a Radionics system. The horns were Wheelock MTs, and I don’t know what the pull stations were.

Here comes the unnecessary replacement part: The school was renovated in 1997, and a new wing was added to the school. As a result, the entire Radionics system was thrown out and replaced with a Simplex 4004 with GX-90 horn/strobes. The Radionics system, including the Wheelock MTs, were up for only five or six years, which is unbelievable. There are still some MTs around the school today, but they are disconnected.

[quote="The Big Green" post_id=79530 time=1520982330 user_id=2562]

My elementary school received a fire alarm upgrade in the early 1990s. They replaced the original system from the 60s with a Radionics system. The horns were Wheelock MTs, and I don’t know what the pull stations were.

Here comes the unnecessary replacement part: The school was renovated in 1997, and a new wing was added to the school. As a result, the entire Radionics system was thrown out and replaced with a Simplex 4004 with GX-90 horn/strobes. The Radionics system, including the Wheelock MTs, were up for only five or six years, which is unbelievable. There are still some MTs around the school today, but they are disconnected.

[/quote]

From the dates given I assume the Radionics system sounded in continuous and the Simplex system sounded in code 3, is that right? If so, then at least something was gained from the upgrade.

[quote=MayerFire post_id=79531 time=1520983249 user_id=3566]

From the dates given I assume the Radionics system sounded in continuous and the Simplex system sounded in code 3, is that right? If so, then at least something was gained from the upgrade.

[/quote]

The Simplex system was (and still is, actually) installed in continuous. Even some newer (2006) systems installed in my town are in continuous, so I believe the AHJ requires it.

[quote="The Big Green" post_id=79530 time=1520982330 user_id=2562] The school was renovated in 1997, and a new wing was added to the school. [/quote]

There was new construction and renovation. That means there was an architect and engineer writing the plans and specifications. They wanted to turn over the building with the equipment under warranty. The existing Radionics was long out of warranty, so a new system was installed.

Only thing I can think of like that is at my college, two of the buildings had gotten “unnecessary fire alarm upgrades” to Notifier NFS2-640 systems, partly because the service company my college went with early this decade was trying to eliminate all non-Honeywell systems on the campus. The Fine Arts and Administration buildings were originally built in 1978 with Simplex 4207 systems.
In 1992, the Fine Arts building had a Faraday MPC-2000 panel replace their Simplex 4207, and in the early 2000s the Administration building had a Simplex 4020 panel replace their 4207. Both buildings kept their old Simplex 4308 annunciators. In these cases, both panels obviously began to fail at those times, hence the replacing. The signal coding remained in Continuous. For the most part the old devices stayed (Simplex 4051+4050-80 horn/lights with blank lenses, 4251-20 single-action pulls, ESL 523C smoke detectors and Simplex 4255-1 heat sensors), but during the 90s and 2000s they did some replacing; the majority of the old Simplex alarm signals got replaced with Space Age VA4 horn/strobes during the 2000s as an attempt to get in some ADA-compliant alarm signals, though the Administration building had a couple of 4051s retrofitted onto Faraday 2701-K strobe plates (it was pretty neat to see.) Also during the 90s and 2000s, many of the old heat sensors were typically replaced with smoke detectors (initially with System Sensor 2451THs, then with i3s and eventually 2151Ts), which makes sense because smoke detectors are quicker at detecting a fire than heat sensors. (Though in the restrooms they replaced the old Simplex heat sensors with newer System Sensor heat sensors, presumably so they could be consistent with the smoke detectors.) Over time many of the old ESL detectors were replaced with System Sensor smoke detectors as well.
Then in 2011-2012 came the “unnecessary” upgrades. The Administration building had its’ Simplex 4020 replaced with a Notifier NFS2-640; same with the Fine Arts building’s Faraday MPC-2000. The old Simplex annunciators got replaced with Notifier FDU-80 annunciators (the one in Fine Arts is apparently new old stock: it has the older “NOTIFIER FIRE SYSTEMS” logo on the bottom.) ALL of the existing alarms, the Space Age VA4s and any old Simplex 4051s, got replaced with System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes on adapter plates (just like the school I went to for kindergarten), and the system was now programmed to Code-3. Then they replaced most (if not all) of the System Sensor i3 detectors with 2151Ts; surprisingly they kept any remaining 2451THs. Then they started replacing some of the remaining Simplex 4255-1 heat sensors with newer Edwards heat sensors (in that case, they wanted them to be newer; my college tries to be as modern and up-to-date as possible with many things.)

Working in the field, I can see why systems may be replaced even if they’re recent.

Most times its because the panel just goes faulty. I’ve replaced several panels this year that weren’t that old (10 years or younger), and even the other day, we were replacing a panel because of some faulty buttons, and the new panel right out of the box was so screwed up when we powered it up we had to put the old one back.

Other times its because the building is being renovated or parts of the building and the old system may not be compliant anymore. I see that a lot in apartments, when elevators get upgraded or if they put generators in and what not. Plus, most apartments are grandfathered in and suites don’t have any mini horns or devices (which is pretty much mandatory now given the 75dBa at the pillow rule), so another reason why they put in a new system.

I have seen some unnecessary ones, like where if the panel were to fail or something, the company will replace the entire system instead of just the panel. At my local church, they just replaced the 2280 Edwards panel with an addressable Notifier system, new pulls and everything, which I thought was unnecessary. We recently had to replace a 2280 too, but we replaced it with a Fireshield Plus and left the rest of the system intact. Only thing we switched out were all the EOLs. My local library also had a bit of system upgrades, It started out with an unknown panel (Edwards), 270-SPOs, and Edwards 439-10AWCs. Then a few years later they had replaced the bells with EST Genesis’, and there was an EST Quickstart up front. Then, the building got a reno, and the system was replaced with a Simplex 4100 with Simplex T-Bars and Simplex Truealerts.