Whether you own, manage or have been inside any commercial building, there is always a commercial fire alarm system. You’ve seen the pull stations on the walls, the smoke detectors on the ceilings, and all of the other bits and pieces that you assume make up the entire system. However, do you really know what all of those bits and pieces that are piled together under the classification of a fire alarm system even are?
In layman’s terms, the purpose of a fire alarm system is simply to alert you, tenants/occupants, and emergency service personnel of a fire or threat in the building. These commercial fire alarm systems, depending on if they are addressable or conventional, can tell you where a threat has originated in your building. Now in a previous blog post, we discussed the difference between addressable and conventional systems so if you want to refresh yourself there you can check out that blog post here.
Components of a Fire Alarm System
A fire alarm system is a collection of devices with specific functions that make up the whole system.
There are 5 main devices/elements that make up any fire alarm system:
Fire Alarm Control Panel
The Fire Alarm Control Panel is the motherboard of the system. It controls the entire system of devices and monitors for an alarm or threat. When an initiating device is triggered, the panel sends an alarm to your monitoring company and emergency services. On an addressable system, the fire control panel displays the exact location of a triggering device (ie. Smoke 018- East Wing Garage). Meanwhile on a conventional system, which uses zones, the control panel displays the zone that a triggering device is in. The control panel allows users to reset, silence, and troubleshoot the entire system via a touch or keypad.
Power Supply
Main power supply to a fire alarm system comes from your breaker box, with backup batteries for the off chance of power failure. Battery backup sometimes may be contained inside your fire alarm control panel, or in a separate enclosure near your control panel. A generator may also be hooked to your system in the off chance that you experience a power failure for more than 24 hours.
Initiating Devices
The initiating devices of your fire alarm system are your pull stations, smoke detectors or heat detectors. These types of devices sense or detect smoke, fire/excess heat, and send alerts to your control panel.
Notification Devices
Your notification devices are your strobes and horns, in which they notify occupants that a threat has been detected in the building.
Auxiliary Devices
Auxiliary devices are your add-on devices. They can be anything from fire doors, elevator shutdowns, or remote annunciators. These devices work with your control panel and whole fire alarm system to add extra protection to your building.
What Happens When your Fire Alarm System Initializes?
Your fire alarm system has 3 modes Alarm, Normal, & Trouble. Your control panel will alert you when your system either goes into alarm or trouble. When your system is free of problems it is in normal mode; when there’s a faulty wire, bad connection, or battery backup failure your panel may go into trouble mode until the problem is fixed. The final mode is Alarm, and that’s what happens when your system goes off, in other words, when a fire or threat is present. As discussed earlier, when an initiating device senses a fire or threat, it sends a signal to the control panel that sends a signal to the notification devices to alert everyone in the building. When all of this happens, the control panel goes into alarm mode and sends a message to your monitoring company in order to alert emergency services.
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Our goal at Somerset, is to make sure you feel the safest you can in your home or business, we are Committed. Every Minute of Every Day.
If you need a new system, help monitoring your old, or regular maintenance and upkeep on your current fire alarm system give Somerset Fire Alarm and Security a call! We can help design, install, and maintain the fire alarm system of your dreams.
Somerset is here to educate, protect, and help the community. We are committed every minute of every day. Call us today with any questions or concerns and we will be glad to help you and your family out. Be sure to LIKE, COMMENT, & SHARE this post if you found it insightful or helpful in any way. Stay tuned for more Somerset FAS blog posts in the future.
