CSAA Signals
Vol. 10, No. 8 —June 22, 2004
440 Maple Avenue East, Suite 201, Vienna, VA 22180
703-242-4670; Fax 703-242-4675


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Effectiveness of Monitored Systems Project

The CSAA Standards Committee would like to survey CSAA members for data in two specific areas.

  1. The committee would like to collect data for monitored commercial fire alarm systems that will measure, over a years' time, how often a service call resulted in the discovery of equipment problems that would have gone unrecognized and would have eventually caused missed fire alarms, fire alarm signals or false alarms in fire systems that have been averted. This data is needed to build our case for certificated fire alarm systems. While intuitively it is apparent that maintained systems will perform better, nonetheless the actual data itself will be invaluable to the committee.
  2. In addition, the committee is also attempting to acquire data regarding the reliability of POTS lines for fire alarm signaling.

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Effectiveness of Monitored Systems Questionnaire

Please send the completed questionnaire to Celia Besore at communications@csaaul.org (or just reply to this e-mail) or fax it to 704-242-4675 by Friday, August 13, 2004. Naturally, all data will be handled confidentially.


Company ___________________________________________________________________

1. Please provide data showing better performance of certificated fire alarm systems or at least for fire systems that had maintenance contracts in force versus systems without maintenance agreements for a certain population of fire alarms monitored, over a years' time. Since such data is difficult to document, you may document instead situations showing that routine maintenance may have averted a system failure. This information may be easier to document and is as valuable.

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In addition, what is the false alarm rate for non-maintained systems as opposed to maintained systems?

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2. The committee is also attempting to acquire data regarding the reliability of POTS lines for fire alarm signaling. Therefore, please provide similar data on failed telephone lines that have or might have prevented a fire alarm signal from reaching a central station.

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Thanks for your participation.