If you have a dry system with a compressor and the power goes out, would you turn off the dry system and THEN call the alarm monitoring company to let them know or would you call them first? Thanks in advance

Much cleaner design... arguably better in some ways

So I'm new to this industry in the sense of im working for my first fire protection company and am 1 year in now. Through my CFAA course it pretty clearly states that 100% of the devices on a site must be tested for an annual inspection to be conducted properly with the only exceptions being devices you couldn't access for various reasons.

An issue I'm running into with my company is it seems like 75% of the annual inspections we do have not been bid with enough time to do everything, primarily the end of line resistor testing. Im not sure if my company was aware they were creating this issue but it seems as though their previous technicians just skipped end of line testing and marked them as tested. So now my company has all these contracts that they've previously done in a single 8 hour day by rushing through them and they're pressuring me to keep meeting those time frames. It's not a small amount of EOLs either it's literally hotels that have like 40 end of lines and my company has never even checked voltage on them.

I've set my foot down with their lead technician and said I'm not putting my name on any 536 forms saying we've done everything properly if were just skipping these as I essentially see that as taking liability onto myself for my company to profit (being exploited). However I'm starting to wonder if they've just dug themselves into a hole they aren't going to be able to get out of.

Almost all of their jobs have been done with cutting these corners now. So there isn't really a way for them to suddenly add all this additional time to their job bids without their customers wondering why the inspections suddenly take way longer.

Just not sure how to handle this. Their company is only 3 years old but I'm just not sure if they'll survive now that their bids are based this way.

I am starting a job being a fire alarm inspector soon but I have some safety concerns. I was told that I need to do inspections on elevators and for each floor going up and down I need to physically open up the elevator door with my hands and I also need to get on the elevator car to do inspections. Is that typical practice and is that safe?

EDIT: My text messages with the boss goes as follows

Me: Quick question, when we work on elevators do we coordinate with an elevator tech?

Boss: Yes our coordinator reaches out to the elevator company most of the time to schedule this where we both are there at the same time .

Me: Okay thanks for clarifying. Do we ever pry open the elevator doors ourselves and go on the elevator cars ourselves? I just want to make sure in case I misheard you

Boss: We have on occasion yes.

What do you guys think?

Hi im a newer tech going to be troubleshooting an intermittent ground fault common trouble on a mircom fa1000k. The only issue is its an intermittent ground fault that comes and goes. It is not constant. I will be heading to the site soon. Anybody know what causes an intermittent fault would create? What's the best case of action to troubleshoot this?

I know this is something that’s likely been asked a few times on here but it’s worth asking again as something new might have been released.

I just want a basic app for phone/tablet where I can upload PDFs of plans then drop icons to show where my devices are, I also would like to mark cable routes on it.

Is there anything out there that’s simple (and cheap)?

Currently, it might look fine, but isn't working as it should. It is a hifire 4400, firerays aren't working. Most frequently encountered error seems to be the E-12 so far, the place where the fireray is installed has light/somewhat reflective surfaces, which might be interfering. Everything appears to be connected correctly. We have no idea how to fix it. I as an apprentice have little to no idea, even to my colleagues this system is new. Hope someone who's more experienced and knowledgeable could help. Thanks for reading. These are all the infos I could provide.

Would it make sense that a nac panel is located right next to the main fire alarm panel?

I entered in my work history and had my employer complete the verification on their end. After putting in my work history I clicked the ‘finalize’ button at the bottom but my application shows ‘Edit Application’ now. Is my home page suppose to look like this and say ‘Edit Application’ or should it say something like ‘Pending’? I also understand it takes up to 90 days to review

Older guy I’m working with mention that you can use a laptop to program devices. I just added 98 smokes and a dozen modules. He normally does it by hand, I don’t want to be there all day. How does the external connection work?

Edit- MS-9600. Found a picture.

One of the places I work at has multiple of these in service. I was wondering if anyone had information on them or paperwork. I have no model numbers.

i have one but i got no idea in the world on how to program it using a computer

I have 3 potter panels AFC-100, i am trying to program using a laptop, i am using the statis IP address 192.168.150.10 and subnetmask 255.255.255.0 but it always fail to connect.

Can anyone help/guide me to connect these panels to my laptop?

I’m called to a building next week that is a nightmare. First floor is a mix of mercantile and restaurants, each with their own system. Floors 2-5 are a half hazard mash of hotel with privately owned condos intermixed all on one system. Two top floors are businesses on another system. The condos often refuse to play nice with the hotel system because “they don’t need it” and refuse entry for maintenance. Code says they don’t need it, but it’s all still connected from when the condos were part of the hotel. I have a mix of 20+ owners on maybe 8 different systems from an array of companies. Going to try walking this mess down next week and see. Trying to convince the hotel to replace their stuff to keep owners and hotel suites separate. Trying to refrain from crying trying to unravel this.

I have no questions, but I wanted to vent about the mess in front of me created from decades of parcel splits, maintenance, owner changes, occupancy updates, and lack of people caring about doing it right. If I’m not heard from again, I’m in a catatonic state in a dingy pre-1930s creepy industrial basement.

Carry on…

New installation, 3 floors residential and 1 floor shops on a single loop, 18 flats total. On the top floor there was a short on a sub distribution board for a flat, leading to a small (but contained) fire on the sheathing of the cabling. Of course there was a smoke detector in the room that went off (this was 3am) now this system hasn't even been in a month so it's understandable people are still getting used to it however what one of the residents did was crazy and put lots of people's lives in danger... on the first floor, he cut his sounder out as it was annoying him...if the fire spread the loop would be compromised.

1 - yes I know the system should have been on more than one loop but the customer was cheap. 2 - residents were made aware the system was commissioned and online. 3 - I'm not sure how many of the other residents left the building but I can't imagine many did.

Had this stack of batteries at EOD Friday.

I’m wondering what brand of canned smoke you guys are using and what you like best?

So we have this wired smoke and carbon monoxide alarm in the hallway, and a few nights ago, it started beeping 3 times every 30 seconds or so. When I press the hush button, every alarm in the house starts going off as if there was a fire being detected. Afterwards, the 3 beeps stop, and the light goes green. When it is doing the beeps, the light isn't on and blinks red when the beeps happen, then turns off again until the next set of beeps. We've tried taking out the batteries, but the beeps still happen.

Here's some other bits of info that might be important.

It runs on AA batteries instead of a 9 volt.

The beeps will start up randomly at anytime of day, then stop for a few hours.

I've tried to see if I can remove it from the ceiling, but there's a thing blocking me from removing the plug.

I would try to take some pictures of the alarm but it's 1 am and I need to sleep and figured I'd ask about my problem here before I went to bed, and I want to sleep before the beeps start back up. I'll try to respond to any comments in the morning.