Hooking up to building fire alarm?

[lemontree]

Hey, I just had an interesting experience in my college graduate student residence. It is an 18-story building with fire alarms in the hallways. There are smoke detectors in the apartments, and I have a couple of those strobe-light smoke detectors which are only as good as long as I can see them (not in bright sunlight when I am still sleeping).

Anyway, back to the story. There was a fire tonight and the building was evacuated. Guess who was left behind? Me and another deaf student. Yeah, I know our neighbours could have helped, but the ones next door to me weren't home. I don't know about the other deaf student's neighbour situation.

The firefighters got us out because they went around to all the doors to make sure people were not still inside. I was pissed off at the residence managers. The residence advisors should be making sure us deaf people are safely out. It is on our residence contracts if we have a disability so the residence managers know there are people in wheelchairs, blind, or deaf, to help get out in case of emergencies.

The idiotic residence advisors sure heard quite a bit from me and the other deaf student tonight and I don't think they will make the same mistake next time (ugh, who wants a next time, but with drunk students fooling around with deep fryers and candles, ya never know!).

The fire alarm in the hallway was ringing, but it was not loud enough to signal either my or the other deaf student's Watchmans that we have hooked up to our phones and doorbells. So how can I and the other deaf student hook up with something to connect to the fire alarms in the building so when they go off either a shake-alert in the bed or a light flashes in our apartment to let us know the fire alarm outside is ringing?

Mind you, we're in Canada so we do not have the ADA here. Things like this aren't done unless action is required which I and the other student are going to require the residence fix things up for both us and future deaf students.

So, what do you all that live in apartments and college residences do about those building fire alarms and how are you alerted when they are ringing?

 

[vwbug19]

your fire code law may not allow you to tamper with fire alarms by modifying or hooking up other device to it i dont recoment it but i recomend alertmaster alarm clock with sound alert feature with bed shaker i uses them ,again harriscommuniction website has it

 

[purplecatty]

Audio detecting alerter. Usually Baby Cry turned down to low sensitivity cuz microphone are sensitive to fire alarm high pitch buzz while baby's voice are low or meduim sound.

Some device have microphone hookup to where you have microphone with long cable. Wire it from hallway door top jamb and tape or staple around inside door jamb and rig it to device jack. You can try find deafie who are expert in Electronics and modify device for ya. I DID modified Sonic Alert baby cry mic by remove its mic then add long wire then solder to mic base and other end of wire soldered to mic. It works nicely. Be sure mic polarity are in correct position in order to get it working. I used that to put mic near my baby's crib cuz my son cry softly and SA babycry isn't picking up even with maximum sensitivity. It works when rigged close to crib. Be sure not to rig mic where baby can grab and put it in mouth. Cuz mic does carry live AC current. So be extra careful. I only use it for few months till she cried loud enuf to set it off. I swapped to 2nd SA baby cry without extension mic wire.


So that's my suggestion

so be careful and it's ur risk tho.
Catty

 

[GraysonPeddie]

Soldering may not be that easy, especially for those who are visually impaired.