As one of the largest school districts in the Pacific Northwest, Portland Public School District is comprised of 78 schools and is responsible for educating more than 49,000 students. A plan was recently enacted to provide updated fire protection systems to school buildings within the district.
Many new public education complexes have been constructed across Portland, as well as additions made to existing structures. A unified comprehensive fire alarm system needed to be present in every building, old and new, to ensure the continued safety of students and faculty.
Challenges
With their previous fire alarm system, Portland Public School District was limited in its ability to scale up its system due to signaling appliance synchronization restrictions. A challenge for any extensive, large-scale fire alarm system is synchronization, especially when retrofitting existing systems.
Portland Public School District needed a fire alarm system that would grow with them while maintaining notification synchronization throughout the expanding network.
Another issue facing the school district was fire system management. Managing every fire alarm system within such an expansive school district is a giant task. To ensure the safety of students and faculty, Portland Public School District needed to be able to conveniently manage every building within the district from one central location.
PSN-1000 Power Expander with Quadrasync technology
Up to 31 PSN-1000, ’s can be connected to the P-Link circuit totaling 310 additional amps of synchronized power
To provide optimal scalability for future buildings, Portland Public School District used Potter’s PSN-1000 Power Expander. Up to 31 PSN-1000, ’s can be connected to the P-Link circuit totaling 310 additional amps of synchronized power.
With patented Quadrasync technology available in all Potter addressable systems, Portland Public School District has leeway when retrofitting strobes, as up to four different brands of strobes can be easily synchronized across all buildings on the same system. While some other manufacturers can synchronize strobes, they must go to great lengths to do so.
Due to Potter’s Quadrasync technology, the PSN-1000 did away with cumbersome sync modules and extra wiring to accomplish system-wide synchronization.
Better synchronization
Stacy Milnes, Assistant Foreman for Portland Public Schools said, “With the Potter fire alarm installations we can take advantage of P-Link communications between PSN-1000E expansion panels, so we get better (more) system information and notification sync across the entire system.”
Potter’s PSN-1000 Power Expander provides Portland Public School District the ability to continue to incorporate all present and future buildings into their fire alarm system without having to replace a single strobe.
Facility Management Tool software
FMT is available with all Potter Fire Panels that provide the ability to retrieve system status and view alerts remotely
With such a wide array of buildings, using Potter’s Facility Management Tool (FMT) software to aggregate data from all of the Potter Fire Panels to one central location was imperative. The FMT is software available with all Potter Fire Panels that provide the ability to retrieve system status and view alerts remotely.
Because Potter’s FMT is IP-based, it’s effective in ensuring that all buildings within the large school district are being properly managed. Each building’s fire alarm system is overseen by Portland Public School District’s main office. Every trouble condition, alert, and notification will be dealt with immediately by Milnes and his staff.
“Because I can view the system annunciator just like I am standing in front of the panel itself, it has helped me tremendously with my end users that don’t understand ‘fire speak’. Many trouble calls are simply handled over the phone.” Due to Potter’s innovative solutions, Portland Public School District can be sure they are keeping every student and faculty member safe at all times, both in the present and as they look ahead towards future expansion.
