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g/fire_alarm • Posted by u/suppression_sue •

Annual inspection findings I see most often, ranked, after 200 inspections this year Inspection

Ran the numbers on this year's inspection reports. Here is what actually gets written up, in order of frequency.

1. Documentation missing or wrong. By a mile. No record of completion, no as-builts, sequence of operation that does not match the installed system. Roughly 60% of buildings.

2. Devices obstructed. Storage stacked in front of pull stations, a strobe behind a new partition, smoke detectors covered from a renovation and never uncovered. About 40%.

3. Batteries past date or undersized. Either the date is expired or somebody added devices and never recalculated the standby load. About 30%.

4. Sensitivity out of range. Addressable systems report this and nobody reads it. The panel has been telling you for two years.

5. Sequence of operation not tested. Everybody tests devices. Far fewer test the actual matrix — does the elevator recall work, do the dampers close, does the HVAC shut down.

The pattern in all five is that the failures are not equipment failures. The equipment mostly works. It is the paperwork, the coordination with other trades, and the things nobody looks at.

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u/elevator_ernie •

Elevator side of number 5, and please take this to your next job: Phase 1 recall gets tested and Phase 2 firefighter operation almost never does. I find non-functional Phase 2 on maybe a third of the buildings I take over.

The fire alarm contractor tests the recall input, sees the car come to the lobby, and calls it done. Nobody puts a key in and runs the car in Phase 2. That is the mode the fire department actually uses.

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u/suppression_sue OP •

That is a genuinely useful correction and I am adding Phase 2 verification to my matrix checklist. You are right that I have been testing the input and calling it tested.

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u/fire_code_fred •

Number 5 is the one that matters most and gets skipped most. Device testing is straightforward and takes a day. Matrix testing requires coordinating with the elevator contractor, the mechanical contractor and the building engineer, which requires scheduling, which is why it does not happen.

And the matrix is the part that actually saves people. A strobe that works in a building where the HVAC does not shut down is a building where the smoke goes everywhere on schedule.

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u/bas_brianna •

Number 5 from the controls side too. HVAC shutdown on alarm is usually a relay to the BAS, and if anybody has touched the BAS programming since commissioning there is a real chance the point got overridden during troubleshooting and never released.

I check for stuck overrides on every fire alarm interface point during my own PMs now, because I found three in one year that had been in override since a service call.

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u/smoke_detector_steve •

Number 4 hurts. The panel is literally printing the answer and it goes into a drawer. On a Notifier you can pull a sensitivity report in about ninety seconds and it tells you which detectors are going to fail before they do.

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