Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Oh how Condo Fire Alarms and CityPlace Sucks.

Firealarm keeps going off again and again.

This is insane. This happens multiple times a year. All night.

I can't sleep.

I am going to have to look into moving to a non CityPlace building.

Does anyone know of fire alarms that allow you to adjust the volume (within reason) of their alarms? (our speakers are unnecessarily loud... you could hear it though 10 foot walls)

Does anyone else have stupid fire alarm problems with their condos due to poor design (our alarms go off usually due to condensation in the piping or breakage of pipes in the sprinkler system somewhere...)?

Furthermore... I'm surprised I wasn't able to find a good source of info about condos. Like a Yelp/epinions of Condos. Anyone know of a well done one? I'd sure as hell contribute to it. The challenge I guess would be filtering out the noise/realtors/astroturfers. Which I guess could be eliminated with the use of some sort of identity/trust system (facebook connect?)

21 comments:

  1. My condo (pantages) has false alarms probably once a month, but it never goes on all night. Once they know what the reason for the alarm is, they will turn it off.

    In the meantime, there is a button on our wall that you can touch (it actually requires a finger to form a connection, not a typical button), and it will silence the alarm and it goes almost quiet (you can still hear it and you will hear announcements).

    Sounds like CityPlace was pretty poorly put together. With problems like that, I would move just because of resale worries.

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  2. I'm at 550 front (non city place) and we use to have the same problem a couple of years ago... For some reason it stopped, likely because the condo board was getting sick of paying the fire response fees.

    We also have the magic button that will kill the alarm in the condo itself.

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  3. Yeah, the magic button is also in my condo unit. Although the alarms don't sound very often at all that button comes in real handy.

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  4. Last night was brutal. I understand the fire alarm needs to be there, but why did it keep going for 45 minutes after the fire trucks left. Good luck looking for a new place dude, I just moved in and am probably stuck for awhile.

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  5. jevon: we have one of those buttons too -- but it does't work -- it doesn't really silent the alarms.

    jamie: hah, killing the fire response fees/contract would be an interesting solution. but might be dangerous ;)

    cam: yeah... well, last year it was worst... it was all night... for two nights.. 45 mins is nothing in camparsion

    --

    fwiw, wtf, why does't blogger alert me about these new comments? strange... it always did before. anyways, sorry about the late replies/comments.

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  6. That is nothing. I have a neighbor above me that works at home at night till the wee hours of the morning. I can hear the bastard when he walks. Management has done NOTHING after 2 letters from my lawyer.

    CITYPLACE SUCKS and their MANAGEMENT SUCKS!!!!

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. Your place really sucks. Wish my condo in the future not like that.

    Paula M

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  9. I live at Pinnacle Centre and we have alarms going off once a month or more. They often happen in the middle of the night. It always turns out to be a false alarm. We have an off switch but the worst part is not the loud, overbearing alarm, it is the security announcement that comes before during and after that tells you nothing: a fire alarm went off on x floor, keep calm, the fire department is on the way, they will give you an update, bla, bla. They repeat it each time in case you didn't get it all in your scratch pad first time around. They often sound caught off guard, in a panic and seem to pause a lot wondering what their next line is. That endless yabber you can't switch off and it is super loud. Start to finish an episode goes for around 45 mins to an hour usually. Sometimes we have been lucky enough to have two in one night.

    I just love laws that are made to protect officials and keep fire fighters doing busy work. What a waste of resources and an unnecessary disturbance to occupants. The technology needs to improve and the procedures should start serving the occupants instead of ass-covering city officials, fire department, legal process, condo boards and security companies. All it does is puts occupants off guard, ignoring every alarm they hear. It defeats the purpose, wastes money and causes undue stress.

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  14. Yes omg. I know I'm Late to the party but I had top complain! I live in 2230 Lakeshore Blvd West and we don't have the magic button. What we do have is regular false alarms at 1 am. There are two speakers in each unit blasting at about 120 decibels. This is eat damaging and our goes on for 30 minutes at a time and there's nothing you cam do about it. One night two people actually disconnected their speakers because it was so god damn ridiculous. There were notices in the elevator telling them to plug them back in the next day. Management is shit, they ignore all complaints. Oh and the elevators ate always broken and there's only 3 for 50 floors. So ya this building is shit, do NOT move into here.

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