Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/37034
22 FIRE SYSTEMS INSTALLATION www.securitysystemsnews.com AUGUST 2011 SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS School vacation = work for fire alarm installers Continued from page 1 R.M. Systems of Placentia, Calif., a Silent Knight fire alarm dealer with many schools as customers, told Security Systems News in June. “This is the busiest time of year for school contractors.” The company of about 20 employees this summer has five projects installing fire alarm sys- tems in a nearby school district. Across the country, Mid State Fire & Systems, a Silent Knight fire alarm dealer in Ocala, Fla., is starting a retrofit this summer at a 320,000-square-foot high school in Marion County. The company has already installed Silent Knight’s Farenhyt line of fire alarm systems in 15 of the county’s schools. The work at the high school an SKE-450 voice evacuation sys- tem, and nine power supplies, wire runs of the network’s 500 initiating and notification devic- es, and a remote annunciator. “We only have eight weeks to involves installing an IFP-2000 addressable fire alarm panel and do the whole project,” said Monte Guerrette, senior project manager with the 11-employee Mid State. Jim Orrell, operations manager, said, “There are probably 1,200 man hours in the job, so eight weeks is a fast pace.” Mid State, which has a new web site at www.midstatefire&systems. com, also this summer is install- ing a fire alarm system in a project at a high school in another nearby county in Florida. The two companies talked to SSN about the challenges and benefits of working in schools. Johnson said that it can be “a difficult market to work in.” In California, he said, the state Does Your Inspection Reporting System Deliver the Critical Data Your Customers Need? BuildingReports’ web-based inspection reporting system and unique bar code technology can deliver device specifi c reports for your customers with more detail than any other system! requires schools chose the lowest bid for the job, but R.M. Systems always bids as a subcontractor, with an electri- cal or general contractor as the prime bid- der. “So we don’t have a lot of control over the final number that determines Jim Orrell whether you get the job or not,” Johnson said. That’s why “relationships are very *0 1 1 0 2 1 0 0* Trusted reporting data your customers need: • 3rd Party Verifi cation • Inventory & Warranty Report • Time/Date Inspected • Automated Product Recall Alerts • Service Authorizations • Discrepancy Reports • 24/7 Access • NFPA Embedded Codes & Standards important,” he said. Sometimes a contractor will use R.M. Systems’ bid even though it’s not the lowest, “because they know ... we know what we’re doing,” he said. Developing relationships with school districts is important too, because R.M. Systems does maintenance and service as well as installation. “They’re going to go to the people they know and trust,” Johnson said. Orrell said Mid State’s relation- ships with school districts “gives us other opportunities” that gener- ate RMR. SSN NIGHTCLUB Continued from page 21 finally was coming up for a final vote, Waggoner said. He said he told Chattanooga fire officials: “We played the fac- tual part of this for the last year, and now maybe we should go for the emotional side of it.” So Waggoner helped arrange for Feeney, burn survivor of The Station nightclub, and The Station owners Jeff and Mike Derderian, to offer testimony. Those two brothers in 2006 pleaded no contest to 100 counts each of involuntary man- slaughter in connection with the nightclub fire. Michael Derderian served pris- on time and Jeffrey Derderian had to do community service. Waggoner said the Derderians were not able to attend the Chat- tanooga meeting, but sent a letter. “No business owner … ever 770.495.1993 sales@buildingreports.com www.BuildingReports.com inspection reporting solution The world’s most trusted wants to be us—where you go to sleep and wake up every day thinking about what happened in a business you owned, and that a sprinkler system would have changed the outcome in some way,” the brothers wrote. SSN