Silent Knight alarm system and pannel

hello folks - Greg here. I’m a 30 year EMT who is currently charged with handling safety at a 24/7 animal hospital in NJ, and I have a frustration to share and I hope to obtain some advice. We occasionally have false alarms due to smoke or smoke-like mists setting off our detectors, and I would like to know a little more about the control of our Silent Knight panel. I know how to “Acknowledge” in order to ID the detector location and time of activation, etc. - but I’d like to know a little more so I can be more helpful. (We had addressable heads at the High School where I previously worked, and it made it SO much easier to identify precisely which head had activated!) HOWEVER— Silent Knight absolutely REFUSES to call me back or answer the most innocuous question I ask them when I’m lucky enough to get them on the phone. After three of four calls its pretty obvious that they don’t want to talk to me and are not going to help me. The Q is == “WHY NOT?” I’m wondering if there is some kind of industry-wide protocol which says - “NEVER talk to anyone but a registered alarm specialist!” ?

Can anyone please give me some input on this problem? We HAVE a company that takes care of our system, but they are NEVER available and almost never call us back when we call them for information or advice. Pretty much the only time we see them is on the annual inspection day, or if there is a SERIOUS problem they need to come here to take care of.

Thanks,
Greg

Hi Greg, glad you have found us at this forum. It sounds as though you have a conventional Silent Knight system like the 5208. With a system like that you unfortunately don’t have the ability to pin-point the detector that caused an alarm. The only information the panel has is the circuit (aka zone) containing the detector or pull station that went into alarm. These zones can have anywhere from one to several dozen devices on them. I agree that addressable systems are much easier to use, which is why almost all new systems we install are addressable.

Once you have identified the zone, you just have to look for the detector with red LEDs lit steadily, or a pull station with its handle down. If you have typical mechanical heat detectors, the heat collector disc will have popped off, of if you have sprinkler waterflow switch, you will probably see water coming from a sprinkler head somewhere and an outdoor waterflow bell ringing.

Depending on how well the system was installed, you will have descriptive labels show up for each zone eg. “EAST OFFICE SMOKE DETECTORS”, or else just zone 1, 2, etc. leaving you guessing where the fire could possibly be. If the latter is the case, I would recommend having a fire alarm company re-label the zones so you don’t end up wasting valuable time in an emergency.

If the local company you have is unresponsive, you can absolutely shop around. Silent Knight is non-proprietary and any decent company will be able to address your issues and train you on proper use of the panel. It’s true that manufacturers like Silent Knight are not helpful or responsive to end users. That’s just how this industry is, but you can certainly find local installation/service companies that are quite the opposite.