I am adding here that we perform installation and Simplex provides "parts and smarts"
The System was Simplex and it was too late to do it the way we should have. Simplex is still learning how to best use their addressable NACs. So, the system was designed as follows:
- Full coverage smoke detection and CO in the corridors and common areas
- Full coverage smokes on the first floor with CO in certain areas
- Full sprinkler system
- Addressable NACS in the corridors first floor, and common areas.
- The rooms had a smoke detector with a sounder base. they don't make an addressable sounder base yet, so they were conventional zones.
- CO detectors by the way are in the base of the smoke detectors and that includes sounder bases. There were only in five rooms in a single area thankfully.
So Simplex addressable NACS are spectacular once you get them. They can be programmed to send temporal code three upon fire alarm activation and temporal code 4 when a supervisory CO comes in. That means all the corridors were covered. Code doesn't require global notification of CO so the sounder base in the rooms need not activate. Had the customer desired, the system could have been set up where only the nearest horn give a code 4 audible for any individual CO detector activation. Pretty cool.
The rooms were the problem. Simplex failed to properly design the 5 rooms that had CO detectors. After much problem and of course, at 7:00 at night the day before final occupancy inspection we had the solution. In order for conventional NACS to give forth both code 3 and code 4 signals, it has to be done at the Power supply. Not only that, but it requires a separate zone, so a 4 zone FCPS can use three zones for temporal code three, but the fourth zone has to be reserved for code four and all the devices on that zone will switch from one to the other when demanded. This is also complicated by the fact that a sounder base triggers a local alarm, so only the base that activates will sound. So we had to pull a separate zone for those five rooms and add an FCPS at the last minute to fix it.
As an afterthought, I told Simplex, that if we ever do it again, I will insist on standard addressable detector bases in the rooms and an addressable minihorn. The cost would actually be about the same with the exception that the power supply zones are a little more expensive. That way you need a CO, put a CO base in and reprogram the NAC.
I know this is deep for anyone else who has read this far, but I am betting that you (gadfly) was asking in this depth.
