Limited Area Sprinkler Systems in closets and crawl spaces are a good ideal but is anyone testing to make sure they work ?

 Limited area Sprinklers are a great idea I recently came across one in an apartment building  tenant storage room 

Its just 3 sprinkler heads run off the buildings main water line  NFPA 13 limits these systems to 6 heads and they make sense where you don't need a full sprinkler system but want extra protection. Like storage rooms and Trash chutes etc 

 

But the question is who or when are these to be tested if there ever tested ? 

I can find nothing in codes require them to be tested other than NFPA25. to make matters worse   valves serving them are not locked or electrically monitored  like regular sprinklers . Seems to be a AHJ call and the bigger problem is really old limited systems generally have no inspectors test valve or flow switch with bell which limits there inspection. 

So the next question is after they have been installed 20 to 30 years will they even still work? 

I have seen steel pipe sprinklers where rust was so bad heads did not activate  should not happened with a copper or plastic piping but still who is keeping an eye on them? 

Lots of questions no answers . 

 

 

 

Another Honeywell Honey-fail 5495 Silent Knight Horn Booster Failures

 Yes Once again Honeywell has failed when it comes to a quality product and how the hell did these 5495 Horn Boosters ever get on the market .

 

 

It seems every 5495 Horn Booster myself and other fire Alarm techs have installed have failed with in 12-113 years . Worst part no trouble signal from booster its not working .

This bad one was found during bi annual test  .

Well needless to say I will never buy or put in or replace another SK Booster it will be Potter Electric boosters from here out. 

because Honeywell will not address or fix the problem because as usual they just dont give a F#%k if you get hurt  

Verizon FIOS technicians putting public at danger as they upgrade Fiber interfaces for Phone Lines

 It is a case of shear laziness and Verizon not giving a Fu>k about pubic safety .

Technicians are taking the original Fios fiber interface boxes which had a Back up battery and would hold phone lines up and ripping out the original parts and installing a new interface has no battery back up

 You can see in picture above where battery sat.

I recently had a case where a Dollar General  fire Alarm went into trouble and would not communicate every time the store in Ross twp  P on 3 degree road lost power which is frequent and this is the mess I found.

 You now have to request battery back up and they give you this flimsy enclosure  holds 12 D batteries or you can use a UPS

Isn't that nice of Verizon putting peoples lives on the line and this is not the first one I have found. 

 

 

Addressable Fire Alarm systems once seen as great advancment over Convntional Systems . But now proving to be a legacy problem as systems age and parts are no longer available

 Addressable systems are fantastic when it comes to there flexibility especially in large buildings and multiple properties .they let you know exactly know which device is in alarm or trouble. 

Because with old conventional systems in some cases you could have as many as 20 or more devices on a run and trying to find the bad one can be a real pain finding it.

 

But as Analog Addressable systems are now going into their 2nd and 3rd generation of design

The legacy systems in the field  are becoming a Night Mare for Building owners .

Because of mergers and changes in protocols how panels communicate  in the industry many parts are now no longer available.

Take the case of   Silent Knight and Fire Lite

Silent Knight offered 2 protocols SK and Hochiki  Silent Knight now has dropped the Hochiki Protocol

and Fire lite has dropped Clip Protocol for Hyper Speed.

So now you as a building owner who has a 25 year old system who needs parts can not get them.

So you have choices.  Try and find old stock expensive or replace the whole system.

Which is thousands of dollars.  But what many are doing is eliminating devices and bypassing them  and  going without protection in certain areas.

Not a good situation at all. But they are doing it.

So you say well the building owner should have been told and prepared for the systems to be upgraded

But when you put the wrong protocol in even 5 years ago spent $20K for a  new system and now its going to cost you another $20K or more  how do you call that fair.

So  because no one has been keeping their eyes on the situation we now have unsafe buildings because of it.

 

Fire Investigation and AI it could open up a world of new tools for Investigators , But it can also do the same for Arsonists. So who is keeping an eye on it

 As a Fire Investigator new tools and procedures are always welcomed to help prevent and catch those who will do harm to others.

However AI Artificial Intelligence opens up a new world of totally unbelievable possibilities one can not even imagine. So lets look at some of the Good and Bad aspects of it .

For the Investigator AI could help solve previously unsolvable Arson and even Accidental Fires and how they started. AI could be put to task in solving old cold cases as it finds clues missed by investigators .

Imagine you go to a scene do a full 360 video of scene  put it into your AI assistant and it spits out all the possible scenarios as to what happened and when saving painstaking hours of research. Identifies the source of accelerate and spits out possible suspects and where the accelerate was recently purchased

But of course there is always a give and take its the law of nature.

So what could AI  for the Criminal Arsonist 

It could teach them better ways to set fires and not get caught . How to better fool investigators and cover their tracks.

It could develop even more highly flammable substances which do extreme damage before firefighters even arrive on scene  

  So yes there are all kind of possibilities and who is keeping there eyes on it to prevent it from getting out of Hand ?

Simple $30.00 Weather Alert Radios could have saved many lives in Texas flood why where they not mandated.

 It is absolutely the worst case of incompetency I have seen when over 100 people are now dead after the Guadalupe River in Texas took them downstream during extreme weather conditions.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/10/texas-flooding-death-toll-missing-search-updates/84529818007/

They know this is an area with tragic level floods frequently yet no warning sirens  and a delayed Red Alert by the 911 center  and a Austin  Fire Chef denying aide. who has been asked to resign over his DEI hiring 

https://www.theblaze.com/news/dereliction-of-duty-dei-obsessed-fire-chief-on-hot-seat-following-deadly-texas-flooding

 But much of the deaths could have been avoided had simple $30.00 Weather Alert Radios been mandated at those campsites to warn campers 

 They come on  and are activated by National Weather Service and have battery back up if there is a power failure . they work and alert 24/7  They even make small personnel weather alert radios with flashlight and AM/FM Radio built in 

Why where they not mandated as part of the Texas Approved Emergency plans ?

Simple effective and very cost efficient . Placed where people are sleeping or who are on duty 

the tones come on and messages are delivered. you can even listen to local weather forecasts .

Of Course if there not maintained with battery's when needed  or warnings are ignored. tragedy will still happen but a lot more people would have survived.  

I have had a weather radio in my home since 1981 when a tornado came into Pittsburgh area  

I keep my eyes and ears on weather all the time due to Radio towers I maintain and other critical property's and weather radios alert me when bad storms are coming thru area so i can take precautions necessary.

 Maybe now officials will get a clue i doubt it we have talked about tornado sirens in Pittsburgh area for over 30 years and its still nothing but talk.  

  

 

Alarmax Distributors just screwed every Small Alarm Dealer in Pittsburgh

 I have been a loyal Alarmax distributors customer from day they opened after Rodger Graff started it after Triangle Electronics  which he worked at went out of business in late 80s.

There location on Liberty ave  in Pittsburgh not always the easiest to get into but they always where able to get me the parts I needed for alarm and camera systems.

 Since I am a smaller company I always paid cash and what ever the price was like all the little company's who buy there. averaging 50 to 100 K+ in Purchases every year .

It was the little guys like us who helped keep Alarmax flush with cash   when they ventured into providing the Big Regional company's   with hundreds of alarm systems etc. and adding more branch locations .

The Big Company's dictating what they would pay and when they paid it.

Rodger knew this and always took care of us little guys. 

Unfortunately Rodger passed away and things started changing and it was getting harder to get Parts we needed especially special order items .

Now going to the supply house was always a good networking thing you got to see other dealers  and talk shop over what was going on in the industry over a cup of coffee and manufacturers reps would come in and show latest new products , and some times offered a nice simple lunch . and training classes .

BUT NOW THAT'S ALL GONE 

Alarmax now has changed the branch to the Big Dealers only and they expect us to order everything from their Cleveland Branch which has had a bad reputation  for years  and now  have our product orders  dropped shipped to our home office. 

No more just walk in and get what you need when you need it. no more seeing other dealers who I will probably never see again unless I bump across them in the field 

The Corporate Suits who decided to go with the big money and screw the little guys have taken over and

Rodger has got to be turning in his grave.

Needless to say I will no longer purchase from Alarmax  . There are plenty of alternatives available.

Why they would take such a risky chance and deal with large alarm company's that are highly leveraged and a house of cards financially and have little to no real assets other than locked in contracts which people will break if economy goes south  I will never understand . But I can see the coming down fall of Alarmax. Every Electrical Distributor who played this game failed in 5 to10 years in this area. 

 SHAME ON YOU ALARMAX SHAME ON YOU

Was David Croyle Framed on a Child Molestation Charge ?

 

 I meet Rev. David Croyle  back in the early 20s when he was interested in purchasing  the then WAVL 910 AM Radio station in Apollo Pa. 

He asked me if I could stay on and engineer for him  while he was under a LMA agreement with the current owner and he eventually asked me to do some engineering and security work for him at his location in Kittaning where he owned WTYM 1380 AM.

Unfortunately the agreement with WAVL fell thru and station was sold to some one else but stayed on their as engineer and for David.

 David owned several joined buildings in downtown Kittaning  on N Jefferson Street .One store front was his community Newspaper operations and also served as an small entertainment venue in the rear 

 

the next store front was the family life chapel where he was minster the next store front was the Radio station Operations which included a low power TV studio and finally the last storefront was his apartment and storage

 

I took care of station engineering and also did minor electrical work for David in the buildings and  fixed minor computer networking issues when he had them on a casual as needed basis.

Many in the community did not like David they saw him as a grifter and conman and a little on the weird side.  

But David was a good man who did a lot to help his community.

He Ran for and became a Armstrong County Commissioner and that's when the problems started .

Including several break ins and having to update his security alarms and cameras.  Some one was not happy he had become commissioner and was determined to see him done in.

 

But Davids world would come crashing down 2 days before he was ready to launch his new FM translator  when he and a Fire Marshal from community across river from his where Arrested

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/church-pastor-fire-marshal-teen-boy-sexual-assault/

 

David had little money for defense and a friend put up most of the money to defend him. 

While he was out on bail David came to my fathers funeral and swore to me he was innocent and was being set up by those who he had dirt on who where corrupt and stealing from the public. including  high ranking Armstrong  politicians and Judges .

Davids attorney asked for and was denied a change of venue this should have been automatic grounds for appeal due to fact David was a commissioner.but appeals judge ignored Davids appeal after his conviction.

After reading the trail transcripts I saw many legal challenges which where missed and should have been explored including the Grinder Account a gay meet up site  on Davids computer which I never saw when working on them for him. 

Plus knowing there had been several small break-ins that as far as I know David reported  to police  it would have been easy to plant  evidence.

The 14 year old in the case also had a history of lying and false accusations according to David who hired him to deliver copy's of the paper he printed.  

 David claimed photos of him supposedly having sex with the kid where not true and he had marks on him he could prove that it was not him. 

But despite all the questionable stuff to the case David was convicted and served his sentence of 5 years  and was denied an appeal ..The fire Chief was convicted and committed suicide while on bail.

 Davids friend who paid for his defense and kept his apartment paid for called me and said he had He developed cancer while in prison and asked for compassionate release again he was denied and he died just a few days after release.

David swore  the truth would come out by Gods own hand when he was  released ,and who knows Karma is one of those strange things. 

Was David lying to me the whole time ? who knows and now we will never know . Hopefully some group or person in the years to come who has the time and money to take a hard look at the case come along and prove or disprove Davids Accusations .

In the mean time I hope David and the victim have found peace.