This is one of the notification appliances connected to my fire alarm system. I only installed one audible appliance, one is visual, and another remote strobe is going to be installed. I don't install electronic horns since these are horribly loud. One bell (with a piece of tape to diminish the strength of the bell sound) is way enough! The rest is strobes.
You should talk. I have to deal with those every month at Shoe City Contract/Brockton Area ARC when the program director conducts the montly fire drills.
They must be that loud in order to comply with code (the ULC in Canada, not sure for US). Most horns have an output of 95dB+, but I think 10" bells are even louder XD.
For quiet areas like hospitals there are chimes, which produce around 75dB if I remember.
Yes they are, many fire alarm companies like Edwards or Simplex still make them today. But electronic horns are increasingly popular and are many times prefered over bells.
Bells however used to be the most used kind of notification appliances. Only few places used horns before the 1990s, mostly in areas where fire alarm bells could be mixed up with other bells, like in schools. The one I attend for example has 80s Wheelock mechanical horns set in slow March Time (0.5 sec strikes, 60 times/min). Since the school used to have bells, they had to use horns. Today only a few bells have been left disconnected, and a jingle is played in the intercom system instead.
I already discussed about the school's fire alarm system with the teacher I had in my fire alarm class. He already did some troubleshooting on it and according to him, that system is a real nightmare. Several horns didn't work at all until they decided to do some repairs on the system in January. Last year during a fire drill we were in a room with a non-working horn, everyone was outside except us XD. The horn in the 3rd floor didn't work either, and during a fire drill last fall we had to listen very carefully to be able to hear the horns on the 2nd floor LOL.
My school has electric horns installed but in the newest wing (circa 1998-2000) the fire alarms make an ear piercing sound that i really can't describe that well. When you pass by one your hearing actually gets blocked out while you're under it. They're made by Simplex and look like this though there is no speaker, as the fire alarms don't make messages lol.
My school uses these clocks in the classrooms too. My elementary school had the same clocks, though the fire alarms are different. they have halogen lamps that blink on and off through a white window with "FIRE" on it and they sound like a robotic duck going "WAAA, WAAA WAAA ... WAAA, WAAA, WAAA". they're simplex as well, though they must be from the 90s when the school was built. my high school still has the old red electromagnetic bells for both the periods (they're silver) and fire, but they're disconnected, replaced by electronic bells and the simplex ones.
My elementary school had this style of horn in use but we still had a real bell to signal recess. My high school had this style without the strobe light which I guess it not original since it was built in the 60s. They played a chime over the intercom to signal the periods changing though.
yeah now it's just a "BOOOP" over the intercom. I'm guessing when they added the additional wing to the school they had a major renovation with new lights, new syncronized clocks like i linked above, along with a new intercom system that replaced the mechanical bells. The fire alarm system must have been upgraded at some point too and sprinklers were added along the way too i think in the 90s-early 2000s all the schools got them added in. All the hallways and classrooms have exposed ceilings and lithonia two lamp T8 wraps except for the new C2 wing which has a suspended ceiling with three lamp 2X4 Lithonia T8 troffers. The computer rooms scattered around have suspended ceilings too with 3-lamp 18-cell 2X4 parabolic lithonia troffers
Login
For quiet areas like hospitals there are chimes, which produce around 75dB if I remember.
Bells however used to be the most used kind of notification appliances. Only few places used horns before the 1990s, mostly in areas where fire alarm bells could be mixed up with other bells, like in schools. The one I attend for example has 80s Wheelock mechanical horns set in slow March Time (0.5 sec strikes, 60 times/min). Since the school used to have bells, they had to use horns. Today only a few bells have been left disconnected, and a jingle is played in the intercom system instead.
I already discussed about the school's fire alarm system with the teacher I had in my fire alarm class. He already did some troubleshooting on it and according to him, that system is a real nightmare. Several horns didn't work at all until they decided to do some repairs on the system in January. Last year during a fire drill we were in a room with a non-working horn, everyone was outside except us XD. The horn in the 3rd floor didn't work either, and during a fire drill last fall we had to listen very carefully to be able to hear the horns on the 2nd floor LOL.
My school uses these clocks in the classrooms too. My elementary school had the same clocks, though the fire alarms are different. they have halogen lamps that blink on and off through a white window with "FIRE" on it and they sound like a robotic duck going "WAAA, WAAA WAAA ... WAAA, WAAA, WAAA". they're simplex as well, though they must be from the 90s when the school was built. my high school still has the old red electromagnetic bells for both the periods (they're silver) and fire, but they're disconnected, replaced by electronic bells and the simplex ones.