Manual pull stations: placement, height and travel distance
Measure to the handle, put one by every exit, then walk the floor to check nobody is more than 200 feet from one.
The manual fire alarm box, or pull station, is the simplest device in the system and the one most often measured on a walkthrough. NFPA 72 Chapter 17 covers what it is used for, how high it goes, where it goes, and how far anyone should have to walk to reach one.
Height, colour and use
The operable part of a manual fire alarm box sits between 42 inches and 48 inches above the finished floor. The box is red, unless the environment rules out red paint or plastic, and it is mounted on a contrasting background. It is used only for fire alarm initiating purposes.
From the field
Measure to the handle, not to the top or bottom of the box. This is the single most measured item on a walkthrough. Red pull stations wired to door releases or used for other kinds of drill confuse responders.
Placement: exits first, then travel distance
Placement is two separate requirements in Chapter 17:
- A manual fire alarm box goes within 5 feet of each exit doorway on each floor, so somebody leaving passes it on the way out.
- Enough additional boxes are added that the travel distance to the nearest one never exceeds 200 feet, measured horizontally on the same floor.
Meeting the 5 foot rule at every exit does not excuse you from the 200 foot travel distance in a long building.
From the field
It is travel distance, not straight line distance. Walk it around the furniture and the walls.
Wide openings
A grouped opening over 40 feet wide gets a box on both sides, each within 5 feet of its side of the opening, rather than one in the middle.
Conspicuous, unobstructed and accessible
A manual fire alarm box has to pass three separate tests: you can see it, nothing is in front of it, and you can actually reach and operate it.
From the field
Storage stacked in front of a pull station is the easiest finding in the building and the most common. Accessible is the test people forget, and it is the one that fails behind a locked gate or above a built in counter.
When a system needs one at all
Under NFPA 72 Chapter 23, a fire alarm system connected to a supervising station that initiates from automatic fire detectors or waterflow devices has to include a manual fire alarm box to send a signal to the supervising station. Systems dedicated to elevator recall control and supervisory service are exempt. This lives in Chapter 23, not Chapter 17, which is why it gets missed. Sprinkler only monitoring jobs are where it is missed most, and the one box usually goes at the panel or the main entrance.
Boxes that are not for fire
NFPA 72 Chapter 24 covers manual boxes for non fire emergencies. Such a box carries tactile markings, is a contrasting colour to the fire alarm boxes on the premises, and is not red. Otherwise it is mounted and located like a manual fire alarm box, and it is listed as a general purpose signalling device rather than as a fire alarm box. A different colour without the tactile marking does not satisfy it.
Keep reading
Fire department access: the address, the road, the hydrant, the key box and the FDC
Everything inside the building depends on the fire department getting to it. Five things to check from the street before you walk in.
Fire alarm audibility: sound levels, ambient measurement and the evacuation signal
A horn passes or fails against the room it is in, not its data sheet. Measure the ambient first, then check the margin, the ceiling and the signal itself.
Heat detector spacing and temperature ratings under NFPA 72
Pick the rating against the hottest the ceiling gets, keep off the corner, and only halve the spacing in the direction the code says.
Smoke detector sensitivity testing: measured, not sprayed
Canned smoke proves a detector responds. It does not prove it is in calibration. Here is the schedule, and how the longer interval is earned and lost.
Waterflow and supervisory signals from the sprinkler system
The 90 seconds is the device, not the horns. What the waterflow and supervisory devices have to do, and how many go on one circuit.
Fire doors: self closing, latching and what actually voids the label
A door that closes but does not latch has lost its rating. Not every hole drilled on site has, and the listing laboratory is who decides.