Like other major metropolitan areas, the city of Chicago requires emergency voice and communication systems in its high rise buildings (over eighty feet in height). Rather than sound a general alarm when a detection device activates, the fire department is notified without any audible warning provided to the high rise occupants until the fire department [Read More]
Can Fire Alarm System Smoke Detectors Replace 120 VAC Smoke Detectors?
When it comes to renovations of multi-residential buildings or transient occupancies (hotels, SROs, etc.), one of the considerations that designers of record has is long term costs to the owner. An item the often gets overlooked are the living unit smoke detectors. Most assume that local, 120 vac powered (AKA ‘single station’) smoke detectors [Read More]
Elevator Recall Integration with Fire Alarm Systems
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What is elevator recall? When is it required? When should it be integrated with a fire alarm system? How is that accomplished? These are a few of the many questions both elevator and electrical contractors have when elevator work is performed. With the constantly changing technologies and capabilities of elevator control and fire alarm systems, [Read More]
Fire Alarm and Emergency Voice System Testing and Inspection
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In our last post, we talked about why it’s important to use a third party to test a smoke detector’s sensitivity level. In this post, we’ll cover another area of concern: verification of outputs. In a simple system that just activates the horn/strobes, that may seem to be an easy task. However, there is always more than [Read More]
Testing & Inspecting Fire Alarm & Emergency Voice Systems
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A fire alarm system is required to be tested regularly, the results of which are reviewed by the fire department. When scheduling a test of a facility’s fire alarm system, property managers have a vested interest in maintaining safety compliance and limiting their liability exposure while keeping an eye on operating costs. Operating cost reduction might seem [Read More]
Smoke Detector Testing
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At Affiliated Fire Systems, we often get asked about a smoke detector’s lifespan . Specifically, when should a building manager replace smoke detectors? There is no hard and fast lifespan for a commercial smoke detector. To be clear, commercial smoke detectors are connected to a fire alarm panel, not the battery operated devices you can [Read More]
Elevator Recall Activation
I recently had a question asked about whether two smoke detectors are required to activate simultaneously in a single elevator lobby in order for cab recall to be initiated. The answer is there is no current national code that requires two detectors to activate before recall occurs. The two detector activation is what we call ‘cross zoning’, and [Read More]
High Rise Fire Safety in Chicago, Part IV
As a recap, in our first post on this subject, we defined how the Chicago High Rise Ordinance originated. In our second post, we looked at why the compliancy rate was low. In our previous post, we discussed how a residential high rise life safety score is determined. Let’s now look at what the impact [Read More]
High Rise Fire Safety in Chicago, Part III
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In our last post on the Chicago Life Safety Ordinance, commonly referred to as the Chicago High Rise Ordinance, we looked at some of the reasons a majority of residential high rises in Chicago are not compliant with the ordinance. Let’s now look at what the owners & managers of these buildings are up against [Read More]
High Rise Fire Safety in Chicago, Part II
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Last week we introduced the Chicago Life Safety Ordinance and some of its requirements. Click here to review. This week we’ll answer the question we left off with: Why are some high rises fully compliant and some not compliant at all? As a response to the differences in economic and occupancy realities between residential high [Read More]
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