r/firealarms

Howdy,

I've been working at a fire alarm and low voltage company for going on 7-8 years now as lead technician, picked up a bunch of stuff and have the knowledge to work on practically any panel. From older simplex, Harrington and edwards stuff to quick and ez honeywell family panels it's all getting to be old hat. not tooting my horn but I've been lucky enough to be a part of all aspects of the trade and the company doesn't just stick to one brand and run with it.

I'm in a position where I'm inheriting the entire company, like to run full kit and kabootle with my word as basically law. This is due to my father in law finding out he has stage four cancer, he is a Nicet 4 and has been in the trade for damn near 40 years. He's an old head but isn't nearly as gristled or shitty about keeping trade secrets or making an empire with an iron fist. Dude has been doing his thing and doing well for quite a long time. Now he's pushed it to me to handle and I'm not sure what I'm doing in regards to some of the aspects of things. I'll be one of the first ones to listen to someone else's opinions or to try and learn something new.

How in the world do you hire people these days that seem to both want to work, and also want to move forward without immediately expecting the world? I try to be, what I feel is, generous and everyone wants to start at $30 without any certifications or even their own tools. it feels like material prices are skyrocketing and same with wire, customers look at numbers and they are flabbergasted if the parts are 10% over cost or 200% over cost due to the price floor starting out so high.

A few tips or something like it would be appreciated, for the guys that run a crew or work in the office more, how do you balance things out where you are in the field as well as the office? I expect to work 7 days a week, almost 24/7. But even then it feels like I run out of time to complete things.

I can see great things in my future but I don't want to step over a dollar for a dime and get too big for my britches, or at least too fast.

If yall got insight, I'd love to hear it.

I'm curious how others would describe they feel about working in the industry. Personally I love it and I'm quite happy with my work, but it occurred to recently that it seems most of those I know find it just meh or sort of nothing to really think about.

Surprised me a fair amount to see most descriptions being that it's just good job but still just a job at best.

I obviously enjoy my life seperate from work, but since I entered the trade I've never again felt resentment towards the start of the week, or felt myself watching the clock at work.

I start my day, knock out a bunch of things I need to handle, work out some problems, learn some stuff, and by the time I'm done it's already the end of the day and it flew by.

I'm not brand new, but I'm not 5+ years in the industry yet. Does all the novelty eventually go away?

It's a shame it doesn't seem too common to see more people super satisfied long term

Im looking to use a key switch to disable 2 beam detectors in a gym.

I see there is a option for a disable mon in verifier tools but that then Grey's out the CBEs. How would I tie that to disable those 2 detectors? Id imagine a logic equation or is there a special function zone i could use for this?

I have a few more things I wanna add to my tool pouch for my hip. One of those things is a flashlight. Something that’s not gonna break the bank, but also bright enough to look at the 25 foot ceilings in the dark. I prefer having a hat clip as I wear one quite often and having it hands-free would be pretty nice.

What do people recommend for brands or exact lights?

Did a new inspection on a brand new mircom 4000, since I've finished the inspection the panel is beeping as if it had a trouble but the entire system is normal. A system reset starts the audible annunciation, acknowledging it silences it but it does resume after 24 hours.

I'm kinda perplexed how to solve a problem the panel isn't displaying.

My company is doing a fire alarm installation for a church expansion (you probably know where this is going.)

All of the "contractors" are essentially non-licensed handymen who go to this church. The "electrician" does concrete work for his main gig.

The job scope states that we are to use the electricians boxes and "conduit" to run our wire. Issue is, each and every box uses a 1/2" seal-tight 90° elbow into flex seal (not secured or fastened in the ceiling in any way shape or form) to all other boxes. With the fittings, we're already fighting 180° worth of bends without factoring in the endless coiling and spirals of the flex seal in the ceilings.

Not to mention, we're missing 8 boxes for devices on the prints that the "electricians" forgot to install. We're missing several smokes, a couple NAC devices, and they also completely forgot to put boxes in for any pull stations. All walls and ceilings are already up.

Obviously, this job is an utter shit show, and I can't count the violations on 7 hands, but do you guys have any tips for actually running the wire through this shit? We've tried steel and fiberglass fish tapes, pull string, even broke out the shop vac for the ol' string suck method. Even tried using wire lube, and we can't fish these damn wires. We've been pulled off of the job for now for obvious reasons, but I assume we'll be back there eventually.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for documents and manuals for both Zeta and Notifier addressable fire alarm systems.

I’ve noticed that having programming knowledge makes troubleshooting a lot easier and can also help you earn some extra money on the side.

I’ve been thinking that fire alarm programming is somewhat similar to coding — but instead of writing code, it’s more about logic and configuration settings. (Before getting into fire alarms, I studied web development, but I left during my internship period.)

I also have some hands-on experience with Eaton Cooper and Gent Vigilon systems (small scale, but I managed to work on them). Most of what I learned came from reading manuals and watching YouTube videos from different technicians.

If anyone has Zeta or Simplex manuals, programming guides, or advice on learning fire alarm programming properly, I’d really appreciate it.

I've been doing some research on fire alarm control panels for a small building project my cousin is working on, and I noticed there are a lot of options on Alibaba. Some of them look pretty legit in the pictures, but I'm honestly not sure how much of that translates once you actually receive the unit.

I haven’t published this anywhere or bought anything yet, just comparing prices and specs. The price difference from local suppliers is pretty wild which makes me both interested and a little suspicious.

Does anyone in here really order fire alarm control panels or other safety equipment from Alibaba? I was curious about how the quality, certifications and support played out.