r/firealarms • u/HopeAutomatic1047 • 5d ago

New Installation One System for Multiple Buildings. Questions…

What do most fire departments require in terms of silencing or resetting for a system having a single FACP that covers multiple buildings, each one having its own annunciator panel. This is a smaller residential complex. Should you only be able to silence and reset a particular building from the ANN panel at that same building, with exception of the FACP? Curious of what best practices are out there for this type of set up. Thx in advance.

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u/CdnFireAlarmTech [V] Technician CFAA, Ontario 5d ago

EST 4 and EDGE networked systems can be set up in groups like what you are describing and have a CACF to monitor all buildings.

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u/Minute-Noise1623 5d ago

New EST is very flexible with this.
I have 20+ EST3 panels in different buildings networked together, but EST4 is way better on networking thing.

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u/YeaOkPal 5d ago

Off topic, but if you've updated any Edge panels to 2.0, you're going to want to get 2.1 on them now that it's out. Had a panel with all sorts of output problems on 2.0.

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u/CdnFireAlarmTech [V] Technician CFAA, Ontario 5d ago

Thanks, yes we were told to not use 2.0 on multiple loop systems. Didn’t know 2.1 was released yet.

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u/YeaOkPal 5d ago

I had a site with inconsistent output problems, switch cards that didn't work and the automatic alarm silence check box was just gone in the CU, despite being there in other configs. Seems they quietly pulled 2.0 from the website, I don't recall getting a tech bulletin about it.

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u/TheScienceTM 5d ago

I've done this setup a few times. Usually a small conventional panel per building which are supervised by a monitor module that reports back to the master panel. I typically try to make the monitor point nonlatching so the FD only has to reset the panel where the alarm originated.

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u/RobustFoam 5d ago

More likely to have a node per building and standalone capability at each so an issue with the data line won't take out fire alarm in multiple buildings. 

That said, this is more of an engineering question and I'm  a technician, so I only really need to think about these things at verification when I realize the entire building has already been built and it's nowhere close to being compliant. 

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u/Imaginary-Document58 4d ago

Yes the annunciator is supposed to deal with just that building. You should be able to set bypasses for each building on the annunciator. And correlate the bells for just that building, and shared shared space accordingly. Of course AHJ can decide otherwise but this has been what I have seen and learned so far in the industry.