shortcircuit1
Senior Member
- Location
- USA
Hello,
Hope y'all are staying safe. I wasn't sure where to post this question and figured this thread would probably be the best option. I am looking at 2012 IBC 907.5.2.3.4 which says that
[F] 907.5.2.3.4 Group R-2. In Group R-2 occupancies required by Section 907 to have a fire alarm system, all dwelling units and sleeping units shall be provided with the capability to support visible alarm notification appliances in accordance with Chapter 10 of ICC A117.1. Such capability shall be permitted to include the potential for future interconnection of the building fire alarm system with the unit smoke alarms, replacement of audible appliances with combination audible/visible appliances, or future extension of the existing wiring from the unit smoke alarm locations to required locations for visible appliances.
Me and my colleagues were debating over this code interpretation. Some were saying that all the units need to be prewired to be connected to the building fire alarm system where as I say in the last sentence, it says "shall be permitted to include" and then gives you three scenarios on how to achieve that capability which are
Hope y'all are staying safe. I wasn't sure where to post this question and figured this thread would probably be the best option. I am looking at 2012 IBC 907.5.2.3.4 which says that
[F] 907.5.2.3.4 Group R-2. In Group R-2 occupancies required by Section 907 to have a fire alarm system, all dwelling units and sleeping units shall be provided with the capability to support visible alarm notification appliances in accordance with Chapter 10 of ICC A117.1. Such capability shall be permitted to include the potential for future interconnection of the building fire alarm system with the unit smoke alarms, replacement of audible appliances with combination audible/visible appliances, or future extension of the existing wiring from the unit smoke alarm locations to required locations for visible appliances.
Me and my colleagues were debating over this code interpretation. Some were saying that all the units need to be prewired to be connected to the building fire alarm system where as I say in the last sentence, it says "shall be permitted to include" and then gives you three scenarios on how to achieve that capability which are
- Pre-wiring the units with an empty conduit with a pull string so that you can pull the cable in the future. (This will be expensive to run an empty conduit)(OR)
- You size your NAC circuits such that they have the capability to handle the future replacement of audio with audio/visual devices(Much simpler to put the extra buffer in the NAC circuit to handle the future load) (OR)
- Extension of wiring from smoke alarms to future visible appliance locations.