The topic for this week picked itself, the blog is going to delve into the murky world of fire alarm installation, written from the perspective of a novice - one blissfully ignorant of the slings and arrows that comes with fire alarm installation (in my wildest dreams I never thought I would ever write “slings and arrows” and “fire alarm” in the same sentence!). To give this tale justice I need to go back 12 months, for it was about a year ago when we heard the distance rumblings of disquiet from the fire alarm world.
Our plan was very simple, we have a working, and to-date, approved fire alarm for the existing buildings, so all we had to do to accommodate the new construction was slap a new alarm in the new areas and, as they say, “Robert’s your father’s brother!”* But not so fast. Early in the summer of 2020, rumors started to spread that the Fire Marshall was not too tickled with our proposed way ahead. By way of defense let me clarify that statement “our proposed,” simply put, and sad but nevertheless true, the Fire Marshall made it clear the proposal, delivered to us by a sub-contractor, did not present an acceptable design so it was, quite literally, a case of going back to the drawing board. There is nothing like 20:20 hindsight so benefiting from that wisdom to look back it’s quite easy to understand the Fire Marshall’s perspective. By any standards, the existing system was on the downhill slope of obsolescence, no doubt a fine system in its day, but by now very much an analogue system in a digital world that lacked a great number of features provided as a matter of course (and as is it happens also a matter of fire code) by new systems. Let me highlight a couple of functions you get with a modern system. First there is the automated exit instructions so if there is a fire the alarm tells folks in the building which route they are to follow to exit the building safely. Then there is the notification to the fire department that allows the fire fighters to know exactly where the fire is as they rush to the scene. All very clever stuff, and with a day school and a building with a much increased occupancy capacity all very worthwhile, if not a little more expensive than we originally thought (that’s one of those understatements we English are famous for). We were faced with a simple choice of either fitting out the old and the new buildings with a modern fire alarm system or never getting a certificate to occupy the new buildings, it was obviously time to accept the inevitable and a new system it was to be. Now my dear blog-readers, (actually I believe the correct term is” blog-followers” but that I find to be a bit presumptuous) I, myself, and quite possibly most of you, have missed a lucrative career as fire alarm system integrators. This is how it works, at least to me; architect gets a consultant to develop a fire alarm design that seems to be kept between the consultant and Fire Marshall. The Fire Marshall rejects the design, at this point mostly unseen by the customer (that is us), but no great loss because as you now know it was not “up to code.” There then follows a, slightly less than frenetic, re-design effort that results in an assurance the Fire Marshall will accept the design and a bottom-line cost for a shed load of equipment without any explanation. Customer queries the cost and equipment schedule and gets snowed under with “fire-system” speak justifying the design, the equipment schedules, labor hours and, quite possibly, winning lottery numbers as well as the final score in the Euro-Soccer Championship match between England and Germany next Tuesday night (England will probably loose on penalties because that’s what always happens when we play Germany!). I’m sorry I digress, back to the fire alarm. So, believing we have all the clarity we are ever going to get, and being aware the construction clock is ticking, the design is accepted, then the fun really begins. Fire Alarm cabling is brought to your Church buildings by IT’s Electric, Fire Alarm control station (the brain of the system) by SNS, Fire Alarm “addressable sensors” by a sub-contractor to IT’s Electric, programming the master computer by SNS and, because there does not seem to be anyone else, de facto force driving this forward is, of course, Scott Crumley! So, what do you call a bunch of contractors all working “fire alarm”? I have no idea, so I’ve christened them a “plethora” of contractors and trades. A “plethora,” the meshing together like the cogs in a slightly “unforgiving” gearbox (must be an MGB), that over the course of the past 3 or 4 months has ground out the installation of a fire alarm system……or so I thought. It was still early May when the email arrived, forwarded to me by our intrepid General Contractor (a.k.a. Scott), and originating from the depths of the “plethora.” An instruction, or maybe even a demand, that we the customer provide certain information with alacrity. Scott, a man with years of experience in the business, knows when he smells a rat of a task and so here I am trying to respond to the plethora’s siren call. Demand number 1: two 50v land telephone lines (contacted Verizon two lines installed, check). Demand number 2: fire alarm monitoring service (discuss whether we use our existing service provider, time to re-compete, run solicitation select new service provider, check). Demand number 3: plan of the old and new building that identifies rooms by number or name…..you have got to be kidding me! As you may know we have no such plan, just a couple of incidental room names! Somewhere at the beginning of this blog, I described how intelligent the a fire alarm system is, well it turns out much of that intelligence is based on being able to identify the location of a fire sensor by the nearest room number!! So, my fellow “Old Donationians,” when you walk around the new, and old, buildings and perhaps glance up at a lentil over a door and see a “number” and perhaps wonder why it seems such a haphazard scheme please, take it from one who really knows, there is a logic to the apparent madness!!! Before I sign-off from this week’s blog I’d like to report the visit to the new building of Betsy Morris, a stalwart of the new building planning program who moved away from Virginia Beach shortly before groundbreaking. Betsy was back in the area for a short visit, and it was a delight for Scott and me to have the opportunity to show her around the buildings last Friday and to see, and hear, her delight at how the plans and renderings she is so familiar with have been transformed into reality. I think she was “right chuffed*.” Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach “Robert’s your father’s brother”: Abridged version of “Bob’s your uncle” – "Bob's your uncle" is a phrase commonly used in the United Kingdom that means "and there it is" or "and there you have it" or "It's done". Typically, someone says it to conclude a set of simple instructions or when a result is reached. The phrase originated in 1887 when the then British Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew Arthur James Balfour as a Government Minister. The phrase 'Bob's your uncle' was coined when Arthur referred to the Prime Minister as 'Uncle Bob'. Apparently, it's very simple to become a Minister of State when Bob's your uncle! “Right chuffed”: Colloquial phrase in common use in the English County of Yorkshire meaning extremely pleased.
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AuthorDavid Beach is our Building Project Manager, and has been an active part of our parish family for more than a decade. He is retired from NATO and the British Army and is a joy and blessing to all of us. Archives
July 2021
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