Hey, fellas! What's everybody up to?
It was Detective Alan Rentsch, also known as American Lightbar & Alarm Nut (ALAN) on the Fire Alarm Bulletin. He had recently been assigned to EXIT due to his interest in fire protection technology, and was also here for lift training. Don’t tell anybody, but I think he and Amendoa are dating.
You're late, Alan.
That's reassuring.
The apartment building he was referring to was Grundown Heights. It had three floors and a Fire-Brite SkinnyMan 424A which was always in trouble. Many moons ago, my dad used to rent the office space on the first floor for his computer repair business, until he caught the landlord stealing his computer parts as “payment” for overdue rent. It would be cool to finally see the Matchlock 7002T horn/strobes in action, assuming they were still there. And catch the perpetrator, of course.
But first, we had more immediate matters to attend to. There were three smoke/heat combos in the closets, and four pull stations – one at each garage exit. These were conventional, meaning that we’d have to reset the panel after each alarm.
Not if it's a pull station.
I let her know that I was ready, but she had to get the keys from Ashton to unlock the closets. That took a while, as Ashton was busy talking shop with Amendoa. Prissy didn’t want to interrupt – and neither did I, since they were talking about some pretty interesting stuff. Apparently, Merlin panels had a feature called TetraSynchro, which allowed strobes of different brands to be synchronized together (they still had to be on separate circuits, though). I could listen all day, but it was time to get moving.
Electrical closet, smoke element.
We repeated this process for the other combo detector in the IT/phone closet. We were interrupted when Prissy heard a bell go off in the shop. I peeked my head outside to check, and it was the delivery guy. Ashton was already on his way. It was probably his new “toy”.
Discreet delivery for Mark Ashton of 2120 Prospect Boulevard. Your big, black... um... Lucifire SPF-400B fire panel just came in. Where do you want it?
Good one, Steve. Do you see a sign that says "Dead Panel Storage"? Leave it right by that door.
The storage closet was our next stop. We offered to help open the package, but Ashton didn’t want us touching his precious baby. It was a conventional panel from the year 199X, and somewhat rare because it was branded as Lucifire instead of Fire-Brite. So we just tested the combo detector and moved on to the pulls.
It must be Tuesday.