Fire Alarms

[rockstar.esq]

Earlier this week I had to meet an inspector to get final approval on some fire alarm work my company did.  The building is a large entertainment venue with an arcade, bowling alley, theater, laser tag, etc. etc.   To avoid disturbing their customers, we scheduled the test before the place opened for business.  

I got there early and waited in the vestibule for the inspector to show up so I could let him in.  As I stood there, a good half dozen employees came in for work.  Their ages ranged from about 18 to mid 20's.  Given the hour and the fact that I'm a stranger standing in the vestibule, I gave each of them a friendly smile and said "good morning".  Not one of them replied to me, although they all made direct eye contact.  I thought that was a bit rude but I dismissed it.  

Eventually the inspector shows up and I put the system into alarm.  Since this place has a lot of noisy stuff like arcade games, music systems, movie's playing, etc., the fire alarm system triggers a shutdown for virtually everything but the lights.  It's funny in retrospect but the fire alarm in full alert is actually quieter than the normal noise level.  This particular system plays a recording that says "Emergency, please exit the building" on repeat with strobes flashing.  I've been told that these systems are typically required wherever the average occupant isn't competent enough to understand that a horn sounding signifies an emergency.  Places with lots of children, infirm and elderly occupants generally require these systems.

As part of the inspection, I have to take down the last device of the system to take a voltage reading for the inspector.  The last device was conveniently located across the entire building in the 15' ceiling of a vestibule.  This meant that I had to carry a 12' tall step ladder through the arcade, bowling alley, etc. and through a set of self-closing doors to get the ladder set up.  As I'm making my way, I'm constantly finding employees standing in my path.  None of them will move when I say "excuse me, I need to get through".  Since I've got an inspector in tow, and a fire alarm system in full alert, I just opted to walk around these living obstacles.  Thankfully the inspector decided to get the vestibule door for me so I could get to the doggone device.

Measurement completed, I hurry back to the panel to shut everything down.  All the employees are right where I last saw them, and none of them step aside to let me pass.  On my walk back after shutting the alarm off, I hear one employee say to another "Does this mean we can go home now?"!

To the best of my knowledge, none of these employees knew that there would be a fire alarm test that morning.  None of them asked me what was going on, or indeed, even spoke to me.  I'm obviously not one of the employees of this facility, yet none of them challenged my presence in the locked vestibule that morning.  

The whole experience was surreal to me.  Most of these employees were standing in groups blankly looking at one another.  Many of them were idly fussing with their hair.  I got the impression that they were more concerned with what their group was doing than anything else.  So long as the group stood around, they'd stand around too.  Nothing I said or did could affect that dynamic.

A few days later the client called me back out to the site because his theater had a problem.  It turned out that his vendor had supplied an undersized a transformer which got smoking hot before they shut it down.  I don't know how close they came to having an outright fire, but I can tell you that transformer stinks of burnt insulation.  They must have shut it down just before it got bad enough to set off the fire alarm.  

Fire alarm systems aren't perfect.  Everyone who hears or sees a fire alarm should get out of the building without delay.  Although it seems obvious to me, it bears mentioning that when a fire alarm is being tested, there is no active protection.  If a fire broke out during a fire alarm test, the system wouldn't know the difference and neither would the occupants.

After witnessing these people's behavior, I went home and reminded my kids that they need to be responsible for their own safety.  All of those employees should have challenged my presence.  At a bare minimum, if they'd responded with a "hello" we'd have the beginnings of a rapport where they might feel less uncomfortable asking me what was going on.  The whole experience led me to consider how being socially awkward could lead to life-threatening consequences for people.  

[jeremy k]

You may want to copy and paste your post and send to the business owner.

[John McPherson]

Herd mentality. If no one else is doing anything, then neither will I. Might I guess that they were all under 30?

[Glenn]

I know a fellow that worked for a company that occupied the entire 3rd and 4th floor of a high rise bank building. The building was located at a major street intersection in the center of down town.

There were 3 employees working in their office when fire trucks arrived and blocked the intersection.  They looked out the window, decided it was a car wreck, a common occurrence,  and went back to work. 

An hour later there was a knock on the door and there stood a fireman in full fire gear. He wanted to know what they were doing and why they were still in the building. Working, and this is our office. Did you hear the fire alarm? No. Did you see the flashing light? No. Turns out the building fire alarm and flashing light was at the other end of the hall and around the corner. The low volume electronic sound fire alarm could not be seen or heard at the other end of the hall much less inside the workroom. 

They followed the fireman to the elevator and down to the ground floor. As they left the building one of them ask the fireman if there was a real fire were they suppose to take the elevator down? No, your suppose to use the stairs, but this was faster. 

 

Do you KNOW what the fire alarm sounds like? Is it loud enough to get your attention? Does it have an audible "Fire - Fire" command so you can recognize the meaning of the alarm and type of danger? Do you know where the fire extinguishers are located? Are they charged according to the gauge on the side of the canister? And just where are the stairs anyway?

[Charles R. Stevens]

Is it easaly mistaken for a car alarm....

I think I know who Glenn is talking about! Lol

[rockstar.esq]

15 hours ago, John McPherson said:

Might I guess that they were all under 30?

You are correct.

Jeremy, you're making a good suggestion, I've sent a message to the owner about it.

A few years ago I was hired to inspect the panels in a chain of retirement homes.  One facility had a panel that opened into a public hallway outside of the kitchen that was arcing badly.  Making it worse, the panel was installed between the doors of the mens and womens restrooms so there were people constantly walking by.

I needed access to the main electrical closet to shut it down.  Being an elder care facility, we can't just turn off power indiscriminately because people are on oxygen pumps, health monitors, etc.  I ran to the front desk to explain my situation.  The facility manager was a 20 something girl who "was in a meeting".  I told the receptionist that we had a life threatening emergency to deal with and reiterated that I needed access to the electrical closet immediately.  The receptionist told me "it's being handled" and asked me to wait.  I ran back to the panel and my jaw dropped at what I saw.

Someone had stuck a piece of paper to the panel that said "Danger!" with a stick figure drawn surrounded by lightning bolts and the word "Zap" next to them!  The "manager" must have called down to the kitchen and instructed them to make a warning sign.  That poor fool could have been hurt touching the panel cover.

I realized I couldn't trust the staff to keep away from the hazard so I took out my phone, called the front desk, and told the receptionist that if they didn't send me someone to unlock the  electrical closet, my next call would be to the fire department.  That finally got results.  When everything was shut down, I got into the panel and found that the last person to put the panel cover on had run a cover screw into one of the conductors.  Ordinarily that would have tripped the mains.  However this building has what I consider to be on the short list of the very worst switchgear ever installed on large scale. Based on the dates, and grime on the panel, I'm guessing this wire has been arcing for the better part of fifteen years.  My report on that facility recommended replacing every single piece of gear as well as basic hazard training for all of the staff.  I specifically wrote that their staff should never touch an electrical hazard, not even to hang a warning sign.

It's worth mentioning that out of the twenty-odd buildings that I inspected in a half dozen cities, there were only two with life-threatening safety problems.  Both were in the same city, and both were in the kitchen area.  One of the conditions of my contract was that I had discretion to immediately remedy any life safety issues.  

Glenn,

You're making a great point.  A lot of commercial tenants do shade-tree remodels that aren't permitted or inspected.  When I worked for a GC, we got a lot of calls from executives who wanted more privacy in their office or conference room.  Tucking a bit more insulation in, or taking a partition wall up to deck often involves moving installed systems aside.  A lot of fire alarm devices get "bagged" to keep them from setting off the alarm during construction.  Sometimes a bagged device gets temporarily set above the ceiling and forgotten.  The bag keeps the device from detecting a fire, the insulation makes it harder to hear them, and being above the ceiling, there's no light visible from the strobes.

I can understand how the cost of permits and inspections can seem frivolous for a little job.  The thing to understand is that there's a lower barrier to entry in the market for small jobs.  A larger firm doing a smaller job might be more risk averse because a safety issue could cost them larger jobs.  A smaller firm that specializes in off the books work doesn't have that level of concern.  

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

I was part of the Lab Support Team once for a multi-million dollar computer lab; one day I pulled a panel from the raised floor and smelled hot insulation and immediately the entire team did a search till we found a high amperage power cord that was arcing in it's connector under the floor. It was replaced and all others were checked to make sure they had no loose wires in the connectors.    When I was taking courses towards a EEET, one of my instructors burnt each of the components we were working with and made the class memorize the smell of an electrolytic capacitor vs a transistor vs etc.  as a valuable troubleshooting aid.

[JHCC]

The starter in my van shorted out last Tuesday in the parking lot at my steel supplier, putting out quite a cloud of smoke until I got the cables off the battery. Not as smell I'm likely to forget any time soon.

[SLAG]

Sabotaging a fire alarm system,  or amateurishly modifying it,  without further inspection WILL void the building's fire insurance policy.

In other words, there will be no payout for the fire damage. The policy is void.

Inspectors will very carefully inspect the scene of a fire disaster to try to find such tampering or unauthorized modifications.

Indeed, the building's owners and tenants may be found liable for resultant injuries & deaths due to that fire.

Indeed, even more, the judicial system may find criminal liability for the owners or tenants or "electricians' or all or some of them.

SLAG.

[rockstar.esq]

Slag,

I have no doubt you are correct about the potential to be prosecuted for malfeasance.  I can also see how disaster inspections are likely to be done by well funded and equipped investigators.

The problem as I see it, is that a lot of shoddy work manages to evade notice because it didn't catch fire or hurt anyone.  Another problem is that it's very, very, difficult to prove what the inspector actually saw.  I've never heard of an inspector facing any liability whatsoever for failing to catch a code violation.

We're working on a job right now that exposed generations of hack work.  I'm talking about stuff that's obviously wrong from 50' away.  There was no place where you could look at the system without spotting a huge problem.  I know for a fact that all the generations of work were permitted and inspected.  It's tough not to question the inspectors integrity.  

In contrast, I've had inspectors who flipped out when we used a shovelfull of dirt as ballast to hold vertical sections of empty plastic conduit in an open trench.  They claimed we had  backfilled without an inspection!