Someone did screwed up I remember when I was at my sister’s and grandma old job we called the company to take it offline for testing and fire drill and they forgot to take it off and when we did the drill the fire department responded to the alarm they sent the fine to the fire company
I think my school has an FCI system, and we've never had a false alarm to my knowledge that wasn't an actual fire drill. Commander 3s and Wheelock NSs, Gamewell FCI BG-12SLXs (I think, they're single action lock addressables) and older FCI Pull stations I don't remember the name of. I assume everything was at least redone in 2012 around the time the new elementary school was built, and it works so well that it's actually very unremarkable because we hardly ever hear the fire alarms go off. I guess Honeywell makes the best stuff.
Yep, no doubt about it time to go Honeywell. After seeing this I'm now 100% convinced that SPX didn't do Edwards any favour when they bought them out in 1998. I miss the old 6500s so much. Nowadays what's left of Edwards/EST is now owned by Carrier whose expertise is HVAC/Air Conditioning so it's no surprise no one installs EST new anymore. As for the detector; I guess we know one candidate that isn't going to pass the next durability test.
@@nics-systems-electric My middle school’s EST3 is the biggest piece of junk ever. It always finds a way to go into trouble or false alarms. When i went there the false alarms were so bad that the school just used those alarms for the fire drills. Today I hear it is driving the admins crazy with how useless and problematic its being. To make matters even worse I remember when i helped out with the fire drills back when i attended like 6 years ago, it took 30 seconds to trip the system.
@@Emmisullivan14 LOL!!! I’ll tell you EST has a really bad reputation for crappy alarm appliances. Although recently they took another step in the right direction with the EST4 which is a start but work still needs to be done across the board to make EST as good as its former “Edwards” Glory. The moral of the story? Embrace the Simplex. The Simplex is the way.
My schools fire alarm system is a silent knight either 6504 or 5604al address able panel woth their bg12lx version and spectralert advances,the 365 rebrand smokes as a replacement for some older still remaining 355s,false alarm the exact moment of the day after a real alarm
I have heard that before, EST systems use Ohms as an identification code and scary if 2 devices go off at the same time, the panel gives no location and can even miss going into an alarm cause EST system do not touch the red and black wire to start the alarm sequence. Simplex 2120 Systems invented knocking, worked almost like telegraph wires, the devices knock over the wires to send messages Simplex works that way. First the device makes resistance between the red and black wire to tell the panel to go into alarm then knocks over the wires for the address code. Im a Fire Alarm engineer for Simplex but I do know EST stuff and I like their systems. Whenever I have to work on a system I always disable the NACs so no sound will go off when work is being done but the downside to that is the whole system is out of commission.
From my understanding the devices still have an address ID but they use resistance for mapping the system something that definitely causes problems luckily mapping can be turned off
@@nics-systems-electric I see ok. I like EST but your video does provide an example of the problems they can have. I knew a very large EST system with like 2000 smoke detectors and 300 heats and I still know the system like the back of my hand. It only had 3 false alarms for the 9 years of service it had.
@@alexandersalarms5380 the school doesn't have a choice it's not the schools money schools get their own budgets completely different than district budgets also different than facilities operation and maintenance budgets also major capital projects have their own budgets
I often have problems with Telus or Bell monitoring stations. Unfortunately a lot of good old monitoring stations are being bought by bigger companies that don’t have experience in that industry…
This is why that when I test the fire alarms at where I work, I always like to unplug the telephone line from the panel. I tried the putting it on test and I have actually had the fire department show up even though we put the fire alarm system on test. This is why I always like to unhook the phone line from the panel.
@@nics-systems-electric On the fire alarm panel at my work, we have an ethernet cable hooked to the panel. No, on most security panels, the fire zones can't be bypassed. But yes. It must be different up where you are because, down here, you have to have a phone line going straight to the fire alarm panel.
We work a lot with those QS panels, and it’s not even worth repairing them anymore, we just replace them with IO panels as they’re newer and just slightly better
Do you think that someone should’ve stayed at the panel or annunciator to silence the fire alarms just in case they go off while doing some work on the fire alarm system?
Completely depends on what scenario you were speaking of, in between the two alarms we did not know the system would activate again, and after the second one, I did stay nearby the panel to silence
Well unfortunately the elementary school my cousin wife works at. They are replacing their Simplex system with a EST system with voice evc. With the new EST LED Speaker Strobes. And it seems like a lot of schools in my home down in ILLINOIS. They old systems are being replaced with ESTS.
4:45 it would be great if my old middle school had that policy so I wouldn't have had to listen to a fire alarm for half an hour that one time it went off 3 times in a row
Nothing worse when smoke detectors fail and keep setting of alarms, it the same with intruders alarm with mag sensors on door's just branded different. I once put three doors on one circuit, but I did ask engineer how to wire it. I not electricians or intruder engineer but If I want to learn a new trick I ask the right person, it's nice to know just enough to get an idea how it works to make fault finding a easy process but new systems are getting harder to fix as monitoring is the in thing
When I put a system on test, expecting an audible; I always also call FD dispatch and tell them what we're doing. With >9000% of people having cell phones these days, even if the monitoring station doesn't call them; you can assume that at least one person in the building will call 911 from a desk or cell phone to report the alarm. (eta: and I always get an operator number from the monitoring station and FD).
Yes we often times do call the fire department as we have so many problems with monitoring company not putting the system on test correctly we've never ever actually had a problem with somebody calling in an alarm themselves though
@@nics-systems-electric I don't do any school work, but when you're talking about an 8-storey city-block sized building; you're pretty much guaranteed to get a call or 2 to 911.
@@nics-systems-electric be glad you’re not an electrician or fire alarm technician in the states at least in my state kf PA a lot of the buildings I’ve been in have Simplex systems of various ages and complexities I’ve seen an EST system at the local DMV and the Walmarts around here have Bosch Radionics systems with wheelock and system sensor stuff but majority are Simplex
Oh, did I tell you about the stupid protocol my local Walmart has for testing fire alarms? It is to set them off and THEN tell everyone it's a test. They do that about 30 times per test
Essentially what you are describing I think is what my local department calls a “fire watch” (London, Ontario). If a system is either faulty, or there is a history of false alarms, LFD will issue a “notice-to-building-owner” and impliment a fire watch. The fire alarm system is still online, and sending signals to the monitoring station, but if any alarms come in to the monitoring company, they will first contact a key holder to verify that there is indeed a fire emergency, and only after verifying will they contact the local PSAP (public safety answering point) to have crews dispatched. It actually happens a lot more often than you would think.
Yeah, just like simplex very proprietary and non-user-friendly as they have to be programmed in with a barcode and laptop. You can’t just set the address on it.
@@nics-systems-electric That's super lame, at least the tech was cool. Being able to learn from smart and skilled techs is worth more than any school or book knowledge gets you. I'm an electrical engineer and I'm constantly learning new things from our EE techs every day. That resistive mapping seems like a cool idea in theory but I bet it's dodgy as all hell in the field; all it takes is one contact to get slightly corroded or loose and it messes up the whole map
Well they should probably change the system because smoke detectors never should do that. It never does it ever in my elementary school im not in high school yet im only 9 years old. Its never common in my school it only happened once last year when we only had a normal fire drill then when we got inside the fire alarm didn't stop going until like 1:30 or 1:45 that is the only time it happened i think it should get fixed soon.
The system will be replaced eventually it is not high on our priority list of systems to be replaced even though it should be it will be a while before this one is done
I think school needs replacement new notification system. Bad EST… Better replacements to Simplex or Wheelock company. If has new technology. Please don’t purchase old technology system. Why? Old experience is user alarms, not accessibility system, may broken system, and oldest system. New technology is good accessibility, new design alarm, good quality system, new notification system, and not broken alarm. Remind school fund; saving money for new notification system or new fire alarm system.
@@nics-systems-electric You need replacement new technology for good quality products (whatever company), new notification, accessibility requirements for deaf and hard of hearing (strobe lights only or LED lights), new smoke detectors, and new fire alarm control system. This is may warning expensive costs for new technology. Please saving money on school funding. Better, you need discussion with school staff about school funding for new technology systems. Good luck with your school funding.
What a shitty monitoring company, like... what part of disregard do they not get? At least you guys switched from them, that's terrible. If I remember correctly, Telus bought an old monitoring company they originally had?
@@IanGSully a few times of not putting the right system on test and then another one of when we called to take it off test they didn't reset the alarm on their end and dispatched fire department once we weren't even on site anymore who then showed up to a system normal
