Smoke / fire / heat detector recomendations

[relay]

I am installing a wood stove insert in my fireplace shortly and want to beef up my safety equipment.
Right now we only have basic hang on the wall smoke detectors around the house working on batteries.

I would like to expand my Elk M1 to include monitoring for smoke, fire and heat if possible.
I have looked at Automated Outlet and other stores and I am overloaded as to choices and appropriatness of solutions so I am asking the wonderfull folks here on Cocoontech for opinions and specific models that would work well with my Elk and for the purpose I need.

FYI: I lean toward the best buy catagory for most purchases, rarely in the premium and rarely in the cheap if that helps to narrow it down a bit.

Thanks!

 

[Del91574]

Depends on wiring or RF.

RF, I'd go Ademco/Honeywell for the units, then there's really only a couple of choices.

Hardwired, I'd go with System Sensor I3 series, 2WTAB's or 4WTAB's depending on your wiring scheme, then add the appropriate reversing relay. 2 wire units, I like adding the maintenance module, then supervising the maintenance signal.

 

[gatchel]

+1 For Systems sensor models mentioned above. I use the 4WTA-B.

 

[AlexCuster]

If you have the option to run a wire or utilize existing wire I would also recommend the System Sensor 4WTA-B or if you only have existing 2-conductor wire the 2WTA-B.

If you must go wireless check out the GE crystal for wireless (TX-6010-01-1 / NX-491NT). Keep in mind that if you go wireless you will also need the GE receiver for your ELK (ELK-M1XRF2G).

 

[Del91574]

Personally, though GE has some better items in certain cases, Honeywell RF has them beat in case of variety of devices in addition to a better smoke detector in respect to build quality. They also have commercial grade RF transmitters with EOLR's that are installed for circuit supervision, so hardwired heats could be wired back to the transmitter, away from enviromental problems.

There's a case for either a GE or Honeywell compatible receiver, however if looking for variety and flexibility, I'd install something other than GE, barring the cost.

 

[relay]

THanks for the recomendations!!!!
I can somewhat easily install the wiring. I would much rather hard wiring than wireless.
I think most folks reccomed installing 4 wire smokes if possible, right?

 

[Del91574]

Depends on your wiring skills and wire routing.

I use 2 wire most often, less involved for reset, power supervision, tandem ring, etc.

Some people like to use 4 wire and install each smoke on it's own zone, but that opens up a lot of issues with power supervision, EOL relays, more conductors needed in some circumstances.

If you really want multiple zones of fire, I'd use System Sensor 2WTAB's and then run back to a 2WMOD-2 and then use a zone for the smoke and another for maintenance supervision. In my house, I just have a continous loop with a RRS and a 2WMOD-2 and a single zone of fire for 12 smokes in my house. Heats are a separate loop, same with the garage.

 

[nov0798]

If you have each as a separate zone, can you still make them all sound at once? Im going to add smokes and heat detectors in my house this winter, and am trying to figure out the best possible solution. I know I want to be able to look at my panel and it tell me which smoke caused the problem, so I assume separate zones are in order.

 

[Del91574]

There's caveats to each way.

If you have tandem on 2 wire, then the unit that caused the alarm will have a red LED on the I3 detectors.

If you're going to do multiple 4 wire zones, you're going to need a power supply, isolated from the panel, a DPDT relay and a temporal 3 pulse to that relay, as well as a way to remove power for a reset.

 

[ddennerline]

I purchased four GE 449 CTE, and will be looping 4-wire FPLR to each detector. The 449CTE has a built-in power/trouble supervision relay. I will be running individual 2-wire FPLR from each detector's supervision relay back to Elk zone. I could have used 6-wire FPLR for all four detectors. As other posts have highlighted, who really cares which fire detector triggers – get out of the house. For Smoke trouble alerts, allowing the Elk to flag faulty device and programmatically send alerts is potentially useful – especially if away from house.

I did go back-n-forth on whether to purchase the GE 449 CTSE (sounder) along with reversing relay. Instead I am going to replace all the Elk speaker wires with FPLR and add one additional speaker.

I am still thinking about adding a CO2 detector to this loop and placing at bottom of staircase.

As a side issue, I purchase 100ft of 18g 4-wire Southwire FPLR at big box store tonight for .40/ft. I am not sure this was a fluke as I had never seen this on the wheel of wire before. I really don't need 500ft. of special purpose wire. I will have to suck it up for 2-wire supervision and speaker wiring; 2-wire FPLR much cheaper.

 

[nov0798]

Well I can completely understand the "get out of the house" theory, but at the same time, knowing which sensor was set off could possibly save your house from complete loss. A fire may be able to be extinguished, rather than letting it get out of control. So many scenarios that cant be covered here.

 

[nov0798]

Im sorry, what is a temporal 3 pulse?

 

[russban]

Im sorry, what is a temporal 3 pulse?

Fire alarm sounders are to emit a "3 pulse temporal pattern evacuation tone" when activated. It sounds like "beep, beep, beep, pause, beep, beep, beep, pause".

 

[nov0798]

So when the above poster states I need a temporal 3 pulse to that relay, how do you apply a tone to a relay? Im obviously missing something.

 

[nov0798]

Could I just use a power supply like the ELK-TRG2440? I figure with 16 smokes, at max of .13 amp each, that a little over 2 amps total. This thing will put out 40 amps.