Fire alarm control panels, the main box every detector, pull station and horn connects to, don’t last forever. Manufacturers stop making them, then stop making their parts. If yours is getting old, the time to plan a replacement is before it fails and the fire department’s clock starts.
Signs your panel is near the end
- The manufacturer has discontinued it. Support and replacement parts get harder to find every year after that.
- Repairs are getting harder. A simple board or module replacement takes weeks to source, or can’t be found at all.
- Recurring trouble signals that keep coming back after they’re cleared.
- You can’t expand it. A remodel or tenant improvement needs more devices than the panel can take.
- Its detectors are discontinued. See below. This one surprises a lot of building owners.
When the detectors are the problem
Detectors talk to the panel in a specific electronic “language,” and manufacturers retire detector lines too. When a detector line is discontinued and there’s no exact drop-in replacement, the newer detectors often can’t share a panel with the old ones. One failed smoke detector can then mean replacing every detector on the system, not just the one that failed.
That’s a costly thing to find out during an emergency service call. It’s much better to find out during a planned check.
What can be reused
It depends on the manufacturer and the system, and the only way to know for sure is to look at it. But often all of the existing field devices, the detectors, pull stations, horns and strobes out in the building, can be reused with the new panel as long as they’re compatible. Reusing them cuts both the cost and the disruption of the upgrade.
That’s why every replacement starts with a site survey: our System Health Audit (below).
Keeping the building protected during the switch
Replacing a panel means the fire alarm is briefly out of service, and in an occupied building that window needs to be as short as possible. We prepare the new panels before cutover day, so on site the work is the switch-over itself. On two recent university residence hall projects, each cutover was completed in a single day with less than two hours of fire alarm downtime, one of them with the building fully occupied.
A replacement is also new fire alarm work, so it goes through the same steps as any installation. Washington’s fire code requires the drawings to be reviewed by a NICET Level III (or an equivalent designer or a PE) before the permit, which we do in-house. We pull the permit, program and test the new system, and complete the fire department’s acceptance test.
Upgrade to an open system
A replacement is a chance to get off a proprietary system, one only the manufacturer’s chosen dealers can service. We install open, non-proprietary lines, including Kidde FX Series, Potter AFC Series, Silent Knight and Fire-Lite, so you can choose who services your system from then on.
Start with a System Health Audit
We look at your panel’s age and support status, how it reports to the monitoring center, and whether any of your detectors or devices are discontinued. Then we tell you, in plain English, what can be reused, what can’t, and what an upgrade would take.
Is your fire alarm panel on borrowed time?
Book a System Health Audit and plan the upgrade before it becomes an emergency.
Request an AuditHow your panel reports to the monitoring center matters too: phone lines are being retired →
Sources
- Washington Administrative Code, WAC 51-54A-0907, section 907.11.2, Design review.