This article originally appeared in the December 2023 issue of Security Business magazine. When sharing, don’t forget to mention Security Business magazine on LinkedIn and @SecBusinessMag on Twitter.
The rules governing the fire alarm industry can seem overwhelming and difficult to comprehend. Moving into the office after several years in the field, I discovered I only had a cursory understanding of the codes and rules under which I labored.
In this series, I am providing an introduction to fire alarm codes, standards and rules in the hope that others may avoid some of my mistakes. In my October 2023 column, I mentioned that I like to think of fire alarm rules and regulations as fitting into six categories. The first category contains rules that apply to equipment and devices.
UL 864 11th Edition
You may already be familiar with one of the more well-known standards, UL 864 Standard for Safety: Control Units and Accessories for Fire Alarm Systems. UL 864 specifies the operating characteristics of fire alarm control panels. For example, UL 864 requires that the FACU power supply observe the standby battery voltage once every 200 seconds (90 seconds for the Canadian ULC version).
UL standards are published by Underwriters Laboratories, sometimes in conjunction with other standards bodies like the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). There are rules or standards for a comprehensive array of fire alarm products including smoke detectors (UL 217), strobes (UL 1971), wire (UL 1424) and so on.
I remember first hearing about UL when I was in the field. The 9th edition of UL 864 was published in 2003, and it had a wide-ranging impact on fire alarm systems. The 9th edition added roughly 300 new requirements, nearly doubling the size of the standard, with the addition of almost 100 pages.
The new rules for fire alarm control units included things like improved response speed, new synchronization capabilities and the re-sounding of active alerts every 24 hours. Now, 20 years later, UL has recently published the 11th edition of this essential standard.
Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories
For several years, I thought UL was a non-profit organization similar to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). I also thought UL was the only group that could test equipment and devices for compliance with its standards.
It turns out I was wrong on both accounts.
UL is a business. In addition to Underwriters Laboratories, there are several other companies in the United States and around the world that perform testing – giving manufacturers flexibility regarding where they choose to have their products tested for compliance. Fire alarm system designers and technicians rarely need to look up the rules for how a specific type of device should work. Product rules like the UL standards are primarily oriented toward manufacturers.
NFPA uses the term nationally recognized testing laboratory (NRTL) to refer to approved testing centers. In addition to authoring standards, UL also operates as a NRTL. Other common NRTLs include Factory Mutual and Intertek (recognizable by the ETL logo).
Despite the depth and breadth of its standards, UL is not the only source of rules affecting fire alarm devices and equipment. There are also standards from ANSI, Factory Mutual, NIST and many others. Nevertheless, UL’s impact on the industry cannot be overstated. Having been founded in 1894, the engineers and specialists at UL have had a profound influence on the state of the art of life safety.
The Impact on Integrators
If you are designing a fire alarm system or ordering materials, the important thing is to make sure to use products that are listed for fire alarm use by an NRTL and comply with the applicable standards.
For example, if you want to use a burglar alarm system to perform commercial fire alarm functions, make sure that the equipment is listed for compliance with applicable fire alarm standards like UL 864. This is not the case with all burglar alarms. Similarly, the audio system for making announcements in a school likely does not meet the requirements for fire alarm voice evacuation, since it was almost certainly not listed for that purpose.
Another application of equipment and device rules arises when considering mixing devices from different manufacturers. Generally, equipment and devices must be listed to work together. You need to be most aware of this when adding devices to an existing building.
For example, each line of Simplex fire alarm control units has been tested and listed to work with specific Simplex strobes; however, Simplex FACUs have not been tested nor listed to work with Siemens strobes. On the other hand, several Potter FACUs have been listed to work with a range of strobes, including Eaton (Wheelock), Gentex and System Sensor.
The biggest area of confusion may be when there is no specific fire alarm standard. For example, you may be using an IP communicator like the Bosch B465 to report fire alarm signals to the monitoring station. IP communicators send their signals over the internet. Numerous network switches and routers will be involved in the processing of those signals, including at the protected premises; however, there is no UL standard for network routers specifically for fire alarms.
It may seem overly simple, but if there is not a published or agreed upon set of rules, then no rules apply. The challenge is knowing all the rules so that you know what exists and what doesn’t. That’s no easy feat. In my next column, I will explain the second category of rules, which will help you know where to look when designing or estimating a fire alarm system.
With a career spanning nearly every role in the life safety industry and a NICET Level IV certification, Ben Adams is a sought-after author and speaker. In 2021, he launched FireAlarm.Training (https://FireAlarm.Training) to accelerate training for companies, shrinking time-to-value for new techs from months to just days. Part of this column was taken from the course Intro to Fire Alarm, which can be found at https://firealarm.training.
