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
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.
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.
@@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.
@@that_one_sax5054 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
@@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 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.
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.
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
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
@@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
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.
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
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.
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
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
EST : Every Single Trouble
"This system's GOT to go!" Good idea to get rid of it.
I wish
@@nics-systems-electric Would you rather deal with simple(not)x or EST?
@@KanoaDeCastrounsimplex
at least you go to hear some beatiful code 3 bells...
bells got a nice workout from the somewhat fucked fire panel.....
True
When you said about having phoned to ask them to put the fire alarm system on test, I thought to myself “I’m guessing that someone screwed up”
Someone definitely screwed up
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
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.
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.
I doubt it almost every system has had a false alarm at some point
@@nics-systems-electric well in my time there, it has yet to happen. The point is that some systems are clearly more prone than others
15:31 Your right, this system does have to go... Out the window of a 100-floor skyscraper!
the start of the video with the notifcation is darn funny.
notifcations threw out the whole video lol
Yes rendering issues
I'm going to count how many times nic said "disregard"
Can we get a follow up, please?
My high school has an Edwards io 500. Never had a false alarm since I've been attending.
FiRe AlArM cRaZiNeSs 🤪
And here ladies and gentlemen is a demonstration of Edwards EST quality. So reminds me of my old middle school’s EST3 😂😂😂.
Yes pretty pathetic
@@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.
@@achannelwithnopurpose1977 my high school’s EST3 has SO many troubles it’s not even funny anymore
@@that_one_sax5054 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.
@@achannelwithnopurpose1977 in some portions of the newer parts of the building at my school, they have EST4 signaling devices and it's so weird
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
The QuickStart can be replaced with a 320 or 640 by using Zone Monitor modules and replacing the est smokes with Notifier sd365’s or fsp-851s
Would probably be using 951s and I hope they would go all addressable that would make things easier
what would replacing the system fix
@@alexandersalarms5380 New panel... no more problems
@@IanGSully Not always the case, some schools won't want to do that as well because, money.
@@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 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.
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.
I see, we don’t have phone lines into our panels as they are monitored by the security system
@@nics-systems-electric doesn’t the security panel have a bypass mode tho
@@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
Yeah, they seem better but since my district is trying to switch to all notifier, I’m sure that would be the next step for the school
I have a question for you. Will a system sensor spectralert advance strobe sync with a spectrealert classic strobe on system sensor sync? Thank you!
It should
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
Hopefully they replace the entire fire alarm system with something better.
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.
EST isn't great but it's still better than Simplex from what I have found
My district did that except for my high school, they did genesis horn strobes and integrities
I used to live near this school
Cool
My high schools had a false alarm in Florida it is an edwatds genisus
Wow!
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
0:05 *DINGA DING*
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
Why couldn’t you have disabled the nacs?
They were disabled when we tested the new detector, but other than that we kind of had to leave them on
At least it's not a Simplex system :D
Almost as bad only difference is Simplex would’ve taken a few days to get here
@@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
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.
Wait a minute?? Students vape there??? Lol
Obviously
It’s a middle school… I mean seems pretty obvious, they think it’s cool and all
17:21 Was that Hayden in front of you?
Faulty dirty detectors, useless panel, time for a new panel.
For sure new monitoring company would be good too
0:05 😂😂
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
kinda weird
At my walmart you can't understand what they're saying when they announce and no one listens so if they test it no one will know
Since the panel is having issues, what if they turn off the system and have people around the school on guard for any fire emergencies?
Because we didn’t know, there was going to be reoccurring issues it’s impossible to envision the future not to mention that it is unsafe
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.
How did that happen
Watch the video
So when you decommission this thing in the winter, are you going to do a durability test on it? Because it totally f**king deserves it!!!
We'll see
You need an EST tech to replace a smoke? That's a bunch of crap imo
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
4:20 anyone else hearing an apple notification tone here?
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.
or maybe... it's an older building?
Simplex is just as bad we would go with notifier
@Marc Leslie the whole system is terrible. It is difficult to work with unreliable and annoying to work with
@@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.
Dont yall normally let the fire department know before the alarm tests
watch the video you will see us notify the monitoring company they were supposed to have it on disregard
cool video every time the school alarms goes off the kids should have pay a fiend in nyc the fiend is $250 by the fdny
This had nothing to do with the kids
@@nics-systems-electric ok nick thesystem needs to change
@@brianmohammed1790 not to be rude but hes not in charge
0:03 phone goes off
Yes
dirty detector is a problem and Jesus did u guys brough the whole population of firefighter's to the scene lol
I don’t think it was a dirty detector, but a connection issue to the device. I could be wrong.
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.
That is not time in the video dont click on it.
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
Could have disabled the zones lol
It’s an addressable system And it’s a Quickstart
@@nics-systems-electric even better, disable the nac circuits lol
@@nics-systems-electric insert your access key and press alarm silence disables the audibles in the building
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?
Yes they did and we have switched but in some regards the new company is actually worse
@@nics-systems-electric What is this one doing?
@@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
@@nics-systems-electric WTF?!? And I thought Telus is horrible, but this... this is a whole new level!
Is EST different than Edwards?
Kinda not really maybe
Let me guess Edwards purchased the est company for idk amount of money or maybe in reversed
EST is Edwards, it’s 2 names for the same brand
Newer systems are junk!
This is true
Yeah the Edwards/EST ones especially. Simplex is okay but their customer service is crap I hear. Notifier/Fire-Lite/Honeywell is good