Hi, I can see your problem as a high school near me has a fire activation about 4 times a week. They have a GENT vigilon networked system and a number of callpoints rising over the hundreds.
Because the school was linked with an ARC (alarm receiving centre) they have to conduct a full evacuation because they dont have time to get to a telephone, choose their right option from a switch board, get put through to somone and cancel the alarm signal because the chances are the fire brigade have already been called and on their way to the site.
Their solution was to set up a delay time of 3 minutes so if any device was activated a pager system would be activated in the same idea as an autodialler on a burglar alarm so key members of staff can make their way to a control panel and locate the device which was activated, but at the same time during the delay period a continuous sound would be emitted by a sensor sounder or or a wall sounder strobes strobe would flash while not making a noise.
If they locate the device and it was false they would walkie talkie a member of staff near the control panel to silence the alarm. If the timer runs out the sound pattern will change from a continuous tone to a warble tone but will further delay the alarm receiving centre by 4 minutes if they took a bit longer to reset the device or notify the silence. If there was a fire the person at the control panel would just press the U2 button which is a user programmable button to notify the ARC and to make the sounder tone change.
So as a summary of events the below would happen in a sequence:
Callpoint or sensor activated
Pager activated (staff on their way to panel to find investigate, continuous sound pattern and strobes only active started)
False- device is reset and someone at contol panel resets alarm condition. REAL- someone at control panel presses the U2 button to change sound pattern and notify ARC (warble tone) !!!FULL EVACUATION!!!
If more than 2 smoke detectors activate the alarm just goes into delay perion but if 1 smoke and 1 heat activate then a full alarm is initiated. If more than 2 callpoints and a detector are activated then a full alarm is initiated but if 2 callpoints activate then only a delay is active for staff to investigate.
If the school needed to do a system test or practice evacuation you would simply phone the ARC saying that you are going to test the fire alarms so they ignore the condition. You would have to ring them after saying that you have finished testing so the system is active again.
It sounds complicated but this fucntion wouldnt be available if it wasnt safe. Just you would have to make your own fire acion notices noting your evacuation procedures.
Sounds complicated but it actually isn't that hard to understand and it saves fines to the building for the fire brigade call-out
What is the model of your fire alarm system??? I will be able to tell you if it is possible to do this.
If you need any more help just ask.
