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Group E emergency voice/alarm communication

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SteveR

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Joined
Sep 28, 2021
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3
Location
Illinois
The 2015 IBC requires emergency voice/alarm communication for a Group E fire alarm.

Where do I find the requirements for locating the speaker appliances? Are they required in every classroom, or just in the corridors? Or are they required in every occupiable room?
 
SteveR said:
The 2015 IBC requires emergency voice/alarm communication for a Group E fire alarm.

Where do I find the requirements for locating the speaker appliances? Are they required in every classroom, or just in the corridors? Or are they required in every occupiable room?
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Welcome

Whichever year NFPA 72 you have to design to.

Normally see a speaker / s in almost every room.

You still have to meet 15 Db above ambient, for the alert tone,,, thru out the entire building.
 
SteveR said:
The 2015 IBC requires emergency voice/alarm communication for a Group E fire alarm.

Where do I find the requirements for locating the speaker appliances? Are they required in every classroom, or just in the corridors? Or are they required in every occupiable room?
Click to expand...
It seems the code says every room.
 
NFPA 72 has this comment
cda said:
Some do not need them, and some can get away with just a visual,

Sorry did not finish my thought.
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Can you elaborate or provide a reference?

I guess I'm missing the whole point of having the audio messages for a fire alarm. I'm not sure what else they would say besides "There is a fire, evacuate the building". And it seems like that same message could be conveyed by the basic horn/strobes. I don't think this is intended to be used to announce other emergencies. And it also seems somewhat redundant since most schools already have some type of paging system.

And just for background, this is an existing school with an existing FA system. But they need a fire alarm panel replacement, and looks like NFPA requires the annunciators to be upgraded when the panel is replaced.
 
SteveR said:
NFPA 72 has this comment

Can you elaborate or provide a reference?
Click to expand...

Let me look

Do you have access to NFPA 72??? And if so which editon



SteveR said:
I guess I'm missing the whole point of having the audio messages for a fire alarm. I'm not sure what else they would say besides "There is a fire, evacuate the building". And it seems like that same message could be conveyed by the basic horn/strobes. I don't think this is intended to be used to announce other emergencies. And it also seems somewhat redundant since most schools already have some type of paging system.
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With a voice evac, if set up correctly, there is supposed to be three rounds of the temoral three pattern, than the voice message. and that cycle repeats.
With a voice evac system, you also get a microphone at the panel. Yes it can be used for other emergencies. Kind of where these started out was in high rises, with an idea, you can talk to the entire building or select which floors you may want to convey a specific message to.

The voice evac/ fire alarm is just a better designed system than most pa's , and has battery back up, if power goes out.



SteveR said:
And just for background, this is an existing school with an existing FA system. But they need a fire alarm panel replacement, and looks like NFPA requires the annunciators to be upgraded when the panel is replaced.
Click to expand...


Now this is an AHJ question, unless the contract, or school district wants a voice evac.

If it is just a panel replacement, sometimes you can get away with just that, and not repleace any other components.
 
I'm using the 2013 version of 72.

The IBC requires visual devices if "an existing fire alarm system is being upgraded or replaced, or a new fire alarm system is being installed." I kind of assumed that would include a panel replacement, but I may have to reconsider that.

At any rate, there doesn't seem to be any similar exception for voice/alarm devices. So I assume a panel replacement would trigger the need for the voice devices.
 
We normally allow panel replacement only, but do not require an upgrade of the entire system.

Would be an AHJ, or contract, or school call, or all three.
 
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