Fire Marshals will often give you a report of violations that need to be corrected on your building and many times those reports will include fire alarm violations.
- Sometimes your building will be grandfathered with the old system that you have in the building. You can replace smoke detectors or horn strobes that go out without getting a permit or permission from the fire marshal and this is done as maintenance although you cannot add to or take away from the fire alarm system without getting written permission from the fire marshal. Normally smoke detectors should be replaced every 10 years and they should be cleaned on a regular basis and if you have the sensitivity tested and follow the cleaning scheduled they may last longer than ten years.
- When you remodel your building the fire marshal often will want you to submit plans, battery calculations and he or she will want you to bring the building up to current code with the fire alarm. Invite fire alarm companies out to visit your facility to interview them. It is best that you hire someone to design your fire alarm such as a NICET tech or Professional Engineer and then you can provide the fire alarm companies that you want to bid with drawings showing the locations of all the new fire alarm equipment. This will help you get apples to apples bids.
- Insurance companies look for any reason not to pay the claim if you have an incident so make sure you comply with State Law by getting your fire alarm system tested annually and tagged. The fire alarm company that does this will provide you with an NFPA 72 report that you need to keep on file.
- If your building has a fire sprinkler system know that this needs to be tested and tagged separately and the fire alarm system will tie in and monitor the flow switches, tamper switches and other items on the system such as pressure valves, post indicator valves and such.
- Fire Alarm Systems may or may not be required depending on your occupancy, type of business, size of building etc... The IFC International Fire Code will help determine if you need a fire alarm and then NFPA 72 will outline the ins and outs of installation such as spacing for smoke & heat detectors and how many pull stations you need.
- One last item is PHONE LINES. Fire Alarm systems especially older system communicated using 2 analog phone lines and now many of the phone companies don't provide you with true analog lines. They tell you they are analog but the voltage is much different and many fire panels will not send signals using digital or VOIP lines so get your fire alarm company to provide you with a high supervision cellular unit or an AES Radio so you can turn those phone lines off. Analog or POTS lines normally cost you about $50 per month per line and you will need 2 lines for the fire panel and lines for your elevator phones unless you get cellular communicators install to take care of those items.
- Call Larry Love at Peak Alarm [email protected] 435 710 7906 for more information. Please feel free to send any comments or corrections to the email above.
