“System Sensor devices are working together in a networked fire alarm situation, thereby providing increased fire protection for one of the crown jewels of theSeattleschool district.”
— Dennis Lane, Sales Engineer at Chubb

Renovation of the 230,000-squarefoot Chief Sealth was completed with an emphasis on life safety issues and energy and environmental conservation, while revitalizing the school’s appearance inside and out. The objective was to create a superior educational environment, including classrooms with technology upgrades, new foreign language classrooms, a renovated auditorium and full Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility.

Catering to roughly 1,000 students, who comprise one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse student bodies in Washingtonstate, Chief Sealth has undergone periodic upgrades to its fire and life safety system prior to this renovation. Already equipped with NOTIFIER^® and System Sensor products, the newly designed system was required to maintain that standard and reuse as much as possible.

Because of its specific experience with NOTIFIER and System Sensor devices, Chubb Fire & Security, a UTC Fire & Security Company, worked with Tres West Engineers of Tacoma, Wash., to design and manage the installation of the fire and life safety system for the school renovation. Chubb is a fully licensed fire, life safety and security contractor with expertise at retrofitting properties to current safety standards.

Because Chief Sealth has serviced the community since its opening in 1957, the school district was concerned about maintaining its heritage and existing architecture, including its beautiful, arched ceilings. This was one of the factors that played into the fire and life safety system design.

“There were some complications in the actual design of the fire alarm system related to accommodating unblemished ceilings, which in turn created obstacles in installing the devices,” says Tony Bartling, Project Manager at Chubb. “The goal was to do as little exposed pipe work as possible, which caused some additional challenges in determining the locations of the smoke detectors and of the audible visible devices.”

Overall, detectors and notification devices were placed throughout the campus in accordance with the International Fire Code. But that didn’t always prove to be easy. “One of the challenges in the building was the number of beams that crossed corridors.” saysDennis Lane, Sales Engineer at Chubb.

The driving factor was to provide a code-compliant system. “The nice part about the current fire alarm system is it is easily expandable to accommodate additional notification devices or the smoke detectors, beam detectors, heat detectors, what have you. The device compatibility and expansion becomes a nonissue,” says Bartling.

“System Sensor devices are working together in a networked fire alarm situation, thereby providing increased fire protection for one of the crown jewels of theSeattleschool district,” says Lane.

SpectrAlert^® Advance Dual Strobe and Dual Strobe with Speaker Expander Plates provide dual strobe and speaker strobe functionality that’s easy for a single person to wire and install. Simply mount the plate to a junction box and connect the field wiring to the terminals. To complete the installation, hinge and attach the strobe or speaker strobe device with a single captured mounting screw.

Dual Strobe and Dual Strobe with Speaker Expander Plates are designed for use in 12 or 24 volt, DC or FWR (full wave rectified) systems. Amber lens strobes are UL 1638-Listed (Visual Signaling Appliances) for Private Mode General Utility Signaling. All SpectrAlert Advance products are suitable for use in synchronized systems. To learn more, visit systemsensor.com/ecs.

The master plan for the site breaks down into four phases, which will allow eBay to consolidate leased data center space currently spread across three states. The first phase of the project is a 240,000 sq. ft. building housing three 20,000 sq. ft. data center halls – one for eBay Marketplace, one for PayPal.com, and a third for expansion space. The facility has 7.2 megawatts of capacity in phase one with an onsite 30 megawatt substation. This flagship facility is the second LEED^® Gold-certified data center for eBay.

eBay managed this feat through a range of built-in energy-efficiency features, including 400 V power distribution, cooling from a water-side economizer system, in-row cooling units for close-coupled cooling, a hot air containment system to isolate the hot and cold air within the server area, and support for power densities of up to 30 kW per rack using this design.

Because maintaining and operating this $287 million data center is an absolute necessity, fire and life safety systems help meet the goal of continuous operation and mission continuity. The fire and life safety system design complexities were handled by Schmid & Associates, P.C. Fire Protection Engineers of Maryland. Getting the system up and running was awarded to Fire Protection Service, Mountain Alarm of Ogden, Utah.

“The new eBay data center requires reliable and redundant fire protection. The unique requirements demand more, especially in the generator rooms and four chiller plants,” says Boyd Ferrin, general manager for the fire side of Mountain Alarm.

“The new eBay data center requires reliable and redundant fire protection. The unique requirements demand much more, especially in the generator rooms and four chiller plants.”
— Boyd Ferrin, General Manager for the fire side of Mountain Alarm

The fire and life safety system design was specified to use 50 percent capacity loads, which coincides with eBay wanting to achieve high levels of redundancy while using as much as 50 percent less energy than other facilities that it leases.

For the fire system, this was achieved using several loops, which increased programming. “The devil is in the details,” says Ferrin. “With numerous designated preaction zones, we had to make sure that if something happened in those areas, there was redundant protection and confirm that the formulas and calculations were accurate and written correctly in the programming – let alone the vast number of very early warning fire detectors used.”

And they’re relying on System Sensor and NOTIFIER’s broad portfolio of products to make it possible – from very early warning laser smoke detectors that can provide warning of incipient fires before disaster strikes to duct smoke detectors and addressable photoelectric smoke detectors all networked to three NOTIFIER^® NFS2-3030 panels. Even the several hundred track units are networked into the panels for complete localized monitoring.

According to Ferrin, the key to dealing with all the intricacies involved was collaboration with the electrical engineer and the electricians onsite. “There were a lot of drawings and interfacing with the engineer going back and forth to make sure it was correct and minimizing change orders. The technician was well trained and handled the detail in which things needed to be programmed. And now we’re in there doing test inspects on the facility. Everything is still working up to par,” he says.

NFPA 72-2010 code focuses on intelligibility and the need for voice evacuation systems to provide alerts with information that is audible and understandable. It defines intelligibility as the quality or condition of being intelligible (3.3.124) and intelligible as capable of being understood, comprehensible, clear (3.3.126). The code also adds a key term, ADS, that helps to clarify intelligibility requirements.

Acoustically Distinguishable Space (ADS) is an emergency communication system (ECS) notification zone, or subdivision thereof, that might be an enclosed or otherwise physically defined space, or that might be distinguished from other spaces due to acoustical, environmental, or use characteristics, such as reverberation time and ambient sound pressure level (3.3.2).

Establishing ADSs is foundational to planning an intelligible system. An ADS is any space that can or cannot have intelligibility. The ADS needs to be determined at the beginning of the project.

In Chapter 18 – Notification Appliances, NFPA 72-2010 states that within the ADS, where intelligibility is required, voice systems shall reproduce prerecorded, synthesized, or live messages with voice intelligibility (18.4.10). In each of these spaces, measuring for intelligibility may or may not be required.

ADSs shall be determined by the designer during the planning and design of all ECS (18.4.10.1). Each ADS shall be identified as requiring or not requiring intelligibility (18.4.10.2). Where an ADS is required by the authority having jurisdiction, ADS assignments shall be submitted for review and approval (18.4.10.3).

Chapter 24 – Emergency Communication System provides requirements for designing an intelligible voice evacuation system for an ECS. The speaker layout of the system shall be designed to ensure intelligibility and audibility; intelligibility shall first be determined by ensuring that all areas in the building have the required level of audibility; and the design shall incorporate speaker placement to provide intelligibility (24.4.1.2.2.1).

To meet NFPA requirements, the following is needed: the average ambient background noise level of the area; room characteristics such as length, width, and height of the ceiling and reflectivity of the surfaces in the room; and the coverage angle or polar plot of the speaker.

Annex D provides guidance on the planning, design, installation, and testing of voice systems. The annex also contains recommendations for testing intelligibility methods and requirements for testing.

When testing intelligibility, Annex D.2.4.1 recommends that 90 percent of all measurements in an ADS meet required intelligibility scores to be considered acceptable. These scores fall on the lower end of the intelligibility scale: a measured Speech Transmission Index scale (STI) of not less than 0.45 (0.65 CIS – Common Intelligibility Scale) or an average STI of not less than 0.50 (0.70 CIS).

Designing a system to meet current intelligibility requirements can be challenging because of the many factors that influence intelligibility, such as room dimensions, building materials, ambient sound, and usage. However, the NFPA code has been designed to limit the complexity of these systems by minimizing the potential for over-design. Therefore, the best approach is to be familiar with NFPA requirements and definitions before attempting to design a voice evacuation system for intelligibility.

Mike Knoras is a Project Manager for the Atlanta regional office of Aon Fire Protection Engineering Corporation (Aon FPE). Aon FPE consults on matters of life safety, code and fire protection, which includes emergency voice systems, mass notification systems and other systems that require audibility and intelligibility. As a licensed professional engineer with master’s degrees in electrical engineering and fire protection engineering, his vast experience spans fire alarm and life safety systems and emergency voice systems placed in high-rise buildings, public assembly areas, and large mixed-use occupancies.

How have you seen intelligibility come to be part of fire alarm systems?

It’s actually been a “requirement” in NFPA 72 since 1999, although it simply stated emergency voice alarm systems had to have messages with voice intelligibility, with most of the information provided in the annex of NFPA 72. Essentially, the annex provides additional information and guidance the engineer or designer can use when applying the code sections. As of the 2010 edition, Annex D is entirely devoted to intelligibility and how to approach design, how to look at a building, how to divide it into different segments, and how to test for intelligibility. This edition also defines a new term called an acoustically distinguishable space (ADS), a specific area that has common acoustical properties. This could be a room, or just a part of a room. However, the annex is just additional reference information and not a part of the code or its requirements.

What is intelligibility’s role in an actual building notification system?

What’s interesting is that intelligibility is now stated in several sections, both for emergency voice communication systems, which is fire alarm based, and for mass notification systems (MNS), which is now also identified in NFPA 72. The code states the system (fire alarm or mass notification) must have intelligibility, but is non-specific and stops short of applying a value of intelligibility as “acceptable.” There are scales to measure intelligibility, which are referenced in the annex of NFPA 72, but not in the body of the code.

Although intelligibility is slowly being required formally, primarily by the Department of Defense for military projects, it is being placed into the hands of the engineer or the designer to determine which areas need to have intelligibility. That puts more pressure on the engineer and the authorities having jurisdiction. A janitor’s closet, for example, wouldn’t need to meet the requirement of intelligibility. As an engineer, you need to evaluate whether the ADS needs intelligibility, at what level, and then how to provide that intelligibility.

Intelligibility and mass notification have their roots in the U.S. Department of Defense Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) document 4-021-01, the Design and O&M: Mass Notification Systems design guide. This document spells out the MNS requirements for any military base or property. It defines a 0.7 value for intelligibility on the Common Intelligibility Scale (CIS) throughout the facility. While a hard number is required, it also recognizes that many areas don’t lend themselves to promoting intelligibility. However, this document also puts the responsibility of deciding where intelligibility is possible into the hands of the engineer or designer. Intelligibility is required throughout the building. Where it isn’t reasonably possible to meet it, the standard evacuation audible tone must be audible to notify personnel and allow them to reach an area where intelligibility can be achieved within a defined travel distance. Therefore, even though the military has a defined requirement of 0.7 on the CIS scale, they still recognize that intelligibility isn’t an exact science and allow the engineer and designer to determine when it can be accomplished.

One very important thing to remember, while you can define where intelligibility can, and cannot, be achieved, you had better be ready to defend that decision to the local authority. Whether it’s the municipal fire department or the base commander, you need to have sound reasoning based on life safety to support your decisions.

How do you approach life safety design for intelligibility in a building?

Before I address intelligibility, the first objective is to determine what is needed to meet the code requirements for audibility in the building. Then, I determine device locations and calculate the audibility in the different rooms by using simple logarithmic equations. If you have an existing building, an actual sound test can check the audibility. Once you have a design that meets the requirements for audibility, then you look at the features of the space or room and determine how the design can be applied to meet intelligibility.

“ …while you can define where intelligibility can, and cannot, be achieved, you had better be ready to defend that decision to the local authority.”
— Mike Knoras, Project Manager, Aon FPE

It’s important to find out what acoustical surfaces are involved in each area. I have to determine if the features of the room absorb or reflect sound, and then determine the best location for the speaker in that area: Is it better to put it on a wall, or on the ceiling? Am I more concerned about the sound penetrating into the room, or will that actually cause more of a problem and I need to limit where the sound goes? If it’s a decent size room, I may need to have more speakers added to other walls, then there could be multiple signals reaching the listener at different times, and it actually garbles the message. Maybe I need to put them in the ceiling to distribute the message more evenly throughout that space, or maybe even a combination of wall and ceiling speakers. Once I decide where I want to mount the speakers, then there are different patterns that can be used to achieve the most uniform sound coverage. These patterns are actually derived from audio engineering to achieve the best sound dispersion, intelligibility, and audibility. There is always an element of trial-and-error in designing, but using these patterns can greatly simplify the process.

Most buildings have areas where designing intelligibility can only be estimated and field adjustments are necessary. The real world can be very different from what you have calculated and designed. You’ll want to plan to have enough devices to evenly distribute the sound throughout the area using relatively low power. Otherwise, you may find that you have too few speakers, tapped at too high a setting, and your only option is to add more devices after-the-fact, which is always more expensive.

“ Do you spend thousands of dollars to meet the letter of the code, or do you meet the intention?”
— Mike Knoras, Project Manager, Aon FPE

When you have a very unique or challenging environment, it can often pay to hire an acoustic expert with the right equipment and software to model the space or area and predict the type and location of speakers that would give the best chance of meeting intelligibility. There are going to be points within an area where intelligibility cannot reasonably be achieved. That’s when you have to weigh the impact on life safety versus the cost to achieve it. Do you spend thousands of dollars to meet the letter of the code, or do you meet the intention? This is always a difficult choice and I haven’t come across any serious issues to date, but it is always a potential problem.

What do you use as your design guide?

There are some rules of thumb, and a lot of white papers by researchers for audibility and intelligibility that can offer some guidance, as well as several standards such as the National Electrical Manufacturer’s Association (NEMA) 50B, Emergency Communications Audio Intelligibility Applications Guide. However, nothing beats experience – making some mistakes along the way teaches you a thing or two as well.

There is also computer software specifically designed for estimating the audibility and intelligibility within a room or space. Some software is very basic and requires only a little information about the room, its construction, the speakers, and their layout. Other software can model an entire room and inputting the materials used for the surfaces within the room and other features can give a very accurate estimation of the intelligibility you can expect to achieve.

Are you looking to put intelligibility throughout the building or in select spaces?

Intelligibility in general is required in all occupiable spaces, similar to audibility. However, NFPA 72 exempts several areas, such as mechanical rooms, elevator rooms, individual offices, and private bathrooms. Each ADS needs to be considered on its own merits. The engineer or designer has to make the determination as to whether intelligibility should be required in the ADS, and then how to meet it.

How would the recommendation differ by type of building, such as a manufacturing plant?

In general, any time you have large groups of people, such as an assembly occupancy with 300 or more people in a single space or venue, a voice fire alarm system is required. This is also true of high-rises, large assembly buildings, and malls. Very challenging areas are airports, train stations, and subway and bus stations. However, even a common office building can have intelligibility challenges.

When you consider an industrial environment where a high noise level could interfere with hearing an emergency message, it poses a separate challenge. You may find you cannot achieve a message with intelligibility when the manufacturing processes are operational. Even if your message can be louder than the background sound, intelligibility still may not be achievable. We have to look at what we’re trying to achieve. I approach it the same way, but what I have to look at first is what affects the intelligibility. If the processes can’t be stopped so that the message can be sufficiently louder than the background sounds, then I’m going to look at alternative measures – which don’t necessarily have anything to do with intelligibility at all. I may need to use visual notification to alert people that there is a fire.

Is the emergency voice fire alarm system considered a separate entity from the MNS or can it be integrated?

You can implement each system separately, or you can combine the voice messaging. In fact, the UFC requires all new construction have a combined fire alarm/mass notification system installed. Integrating the voice portion of the systems makes perfectly good sense because both fire alarm and mass notification systems have extremely close requirements as far as their performance, where and how well they have to perform, and the configuration of the system. The fire alarm speakers, amplifiers and wires are physically the same for the fire alarm voice system and an MNS.

Also, the UFC requires audibility of the mass notification system everywhere the fire alarm system is required to be heard. Technically, if both systems are designed properly, then the speakers for both systems would be placed in the same locations – combining them makes a lot of sense. Where they differ is visual notification. Both NFPA 72 and the UFC normally require mass notification systems to use a different colored strobe, typically amber, although the UFC does have variations depending on the branch of the service. This would then require separate wire, strobes, and usually separate raceway for the mass notification strobes, although they are still connected to the fire alarm system for power and control. MNS may also be installed separately from the fire alarm system, which can actually be more cost-effective if you are adding the system to an existing building and don’t want to upgrade or replace the existing fire alarm system.

“ The challenge was to bridge the gap between the building’s automated system and the fire and life safety system.”
— Adam Querker, VP Engineering of FIRETECH

Soon to be a certified LEED^® Platinum Plan, the building is the first of its kind to be recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council in the Pilot Neighborhood Development Program for exemplifying the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green design prior to, during and post-construction.

360 State St. Multi-Story Residential New Haven, Conn. Opened August 1, 2010 32-Story 700,000 Sq. Ft. 500 Residences Green Construction 840 Speakers, Speaker Strobes 370 Detectors 250 Monitor Modules 80 Relays 15 Duct Smoke Detectors

As part of this project, FIRETECH Engineered Systems of West Haven, Conn., designed and installed the complete fire and life safety system. In addition to being sensitive to the green building demands, FIRETECH understood the relationship between a fire and life safety system and complete building automation.

“The challenge was to bridge the gap between the building’s automated system, which is a typical sustainable design element, and the fire and life safety system while meeting model building and fire code requirements,” says Adam Querker, VP Engineering of FIRETECH.

A creative, integrated approach was used to design the fire and life safety system for complete integration with the building automation system. FIRETECH accomplished the highest level of protection by having a fire panel with corresponding notification devices on each level of the building.

“In order to integrate the most reliable system, the design was broken down to have a panel on each floor, allowing the system to go live one level at a time before moving on to troubleshoot the next level,” says Querker. “On the back end, this plays into easy servicing, knowing exactly where the fault occurs.”

In a complex, modern, multi-use building such as this, any changes to the building’s architectural design is a significant factor. “When a design change occurred, such as when the ceiling changed to use soffits, the system parameters and detector placement was affected,” says Querker.

“That was the great thing about the intelligent detectors,” continues Querker. “It allowed us to go from one position, tweak our design calculations and keep on track. Hands-on interfacing to the building automation system alleviated these demanding instances.”

The building is fiber-optic based, so FIRETECH built in multiple points of control as added backup to the system; one in the basement and one on the roof. “Survivability of system integrity was accomplished with redundancy, so all systems will still operate in a fire or emergency,” says Querker.

An added bonus of integrating with the building automation system was the inclusion of a digital audio network for transmitting fire personnel messages. This enables emergency responders to interface with building occupants as well as firefighter access. “For example, due to all systems being integrated, a door lock control can be programmed to happen during certain emergency situations, like containing a single-floor fire,” he explains. “This allows clear egress and ingress routes in an emergency so that people can exit safely and EMS teams have a direct route to the incident.”

Besides being the second-tallest building in downtown New Haven and the city’s largest residential building, 360 State Street incorporates a spectrum of energy efficiency measures, including the largest fuel cell to operate in a residential building worldwide. The building’s performance is tracked in real time and available publicly via a Web portal and lobby display, showing electric, natural gas, renewable energy, and water consumption patterns. Utilizing the latest innovations in smart grid technology, tenants will be able to track their own water, electric and thermal energy usage.

The B200S adopts the same address as the attached sensor head but as a unique device type on the loop. The fire alarm control panel (FACP) can then use that address to command an individual sounder or group of sounders to activate. The command set from the panel can be tailored to the specific event, allowing selection of volume, tone and group. The B200S must be used with listed compatible FACPs. Please consult your panel supplier for compatibility information.

To learn how one system designer used B200S bases to overcome application challenges, read the Silvercreek Premier Retirement Living case study at systemsensor.com/casestudies.

System Sensor has posted a free whitepaper online, Guidelines: Meeting NFPA 72-2010 and DOD Intelligibility Requirements. This whitepaper helps designers and installers understand the concept of intelligibility, new terminology included in the code, how to determine which spaces must meet intelligibility requirements and factors that affect intelligibility.

NFPA 72-2010 includes a new section with intelligibility requirements for voice evacuation systems. The inclusion of these requirements will necessitate changes in how these systems are designed and installed. The whitepaper features an overview of the code and some best practices to ensure voice evacuation systems meet the latest intelligibility requirements.

If you are installing, designing or approving voice evacuation systems, the information in this paper can help you understand the new requirements. Download a free copy of this whitepaper at systemsensor.com/av.

“With the System Sensor ECS devices, customers get all the time and money-saving innovations they have come to expect from SpectrAlert Advance. This includes plug-in designs, field-adjustable settings, universal mounting plates with onboard shorting springs and accessories that extend the versatility of the products,” says Josie Slaughter, System Sensor product manager. “Emergency Communications is a growing marketplace, and all of these familiar features make it easy for businesses to grow with the ECS market.”

All SpectrAlert Advance indoor and outdoor ECS devices are compatible with the rest of the SpectrAlert Advance line. Amber lens strobes, speaker strobes and ALERT-printed devices meet a range of ECS and MNS requirements, including those for the Department of Defense and NFPA 72, 2010. For added versatility, plain devices with decals are available for general signaling applications and color lens attachments can easily convert any clear strobe for ECS or general signaling purposes. To learn more about SpectrAlert Advance ECS and MNS devices, visit www.systemsensor.com/av.

The ability to provide real-time information to all building occupants or personnel on a business campus during emergency situations has become a critical concern for those who manage and safeguard facilities and their occupants. As a result, interest in ECSs and Mass Notification Systems (MNSs) is growing rapidly. But with this accelerated growth comes confusion.

The new Web site is dedicated to providing the latest information on all aspects of ECS, from its roots in military mass notification mandates to the latest solutions that meet communications, signaling, and intelligibility requirements for public and private applications.

A learning hub for building owners, facility managers, architects, engineers, and end users, the Web site provides links to downloadable white papers, articles, case histories, newsletters, webinars and more. You can also tap into the Honeywell Fire Systems Group Services capabilities for design and applications services.

A complete, integrated life safety solution has been shown to be a very effective means to notify occupants of the necessary response and appropriate action to take in the event of an emergency. By basing systems on its existing commercial Fire Alarm and Signaling platforms, Honeywell Life Safety provides timely, high-performing solutions to the marketplace. Significant solutions are provided on the www.emergency-communications-systems.com Web site and are available through NOTIFIER by Honeywell, Gamewell-FCI by Honeywell, and System Sensor.