Did you know that early fire alarm pull boxes were springwound, made of solid brass, and they were not painted red?

The clockworks would complete a circuit and the bells would chime out the alarm box number.

Box number 24 would ring twice, pause, four times, long pause (repeats four more times).

To continue the alarm, you would have to pull the lever again after it stops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tkY08MhfoU[/url]

And when was the last time you did a fire drill?

That's right. You didn't.

Fire Marshal Spider saves the day.

/\/\([::,,::])/\/\

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:

Did you know that after taking down the smoke detector and removing seemingly an insignificant amount of web material you can find the little culprit crawling on your arm?

And that’s how the fire started…

Some tricks I learned long ago....Change all the batteries at the same time. If one is going bad, so are the others that were installed at the same time. To the above poster, yes, the high dollar batteries are best and let you sleep for the next 10 years. Money well spent.

My batteries all get changed yearly.
The one in the kitchen gets tested often. My bloodhound runs and hides by my wife when i cook anything.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
My batteries all get changed yearly.
The one in the kitchen gets tested often. My bloodhound runs and hides by my wife when i cook anything.

We actually had to remove the one in our kitchen in a prior house. One of our dogs was so frightened of the beep, she would go hide in the upstairs bathtub whenever my wife started cooking. My wife tends to generate smoke when she cooks.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
Did you know that early fire alarm pull boxes were springwound, made of solid brass, and they were not painted red?

The technology is still in use in a lot of places today. My department got rid of the mechanical boxes awhile back in exchange for radio boxes however they still trip the bells the same way they used to. Generally speaking the bells go off about 10-15 seconds before dispatch gets the signal so we're already getting ready by the time they start to dispatch us.

Here is the inside of a mechanical box. The brass wheel in the center is cut with spokes which hit a telegraph bar which sounds the bells and punches a piece of tape that shows the box number. It's done in real time similar to pushing a doorbell, except if the doorbell button was miles away.



This is the punch register and take up wheel, they are placed about 2' apart from each other so you can read the number that's been punched into the tape.