Sirens and Energy Efficiency

[JasonC]

Even with demand charges factored in, it costs only a few cents to run a 10hp siren for 3 minutes in alert

[JasonC]

...I'm thankful that I don't depend on this dept. for fire protection.......
The thought of using a siren to notify the volunteers of a call ...I'm guessing they are also medical first responders...is rather antiquated. Even an old plectron system would be a step up. What if the volunteer lives , lets say, 3 or 4 miles away from the siren in a well insulated home....I can guarantee they are not going to hear it inside if the house is closed up....worse yet, if they do hear the siren, driving past the address of the call while in route to the station such as in a medical emergency....it has happened in the past.
Does this dept. receive any budget money from the county for operating purposes? Even if they are assessed a fee for 3 ph. , the cost would be nominal. Synther stated that it would cost aprox. $20.00 annually to operate the siren which is pretty much what I come up with also.....add another $5.00 to $7.00 annually for a 3 ph. fee, if there is one. and your still under $30.00 annually to operate the siren.
I would not believe ANYTHING that has been posted to farce book, I don't care who posted it.

Sirens work for calling firefighters. If anything, it lets you know there's a call and to go check your pager. When I was a volunteer, I didn't always have my pager on me if I was outside taking out the trash or grilling. I would hear the siren go off, stop what I was doing, walk in the house, go check the pager and hear the call being repeated, and then I'd grab my gear and head to the station. Sirens absolutely shouldn't be the only means to call firefighters nowadays, but especially with rural departments where members might not always be beside their pager 100% of the time, they are an important addition.

[SamtheSirenMan(531)]

Sirens work for calling firefighters. If anything, it lets you know there's a call and to go check your pager. When I was a volunteer, I didn't always have my pager on me if I was outside taking out the trash or grilling. I would hear the siren go off, stop what I was doing, walk in the house, go check the pager and hear the call being repeated, and then I'd grab my gear and head to the station. Sirens absolutely shouldn't be the only means to call firefighters nowadays, but especially with rural departments where members might not always be beside their pager 100% of the time, they are an important addition.

It seems like a lot a departments in Poland get the value of having a siren for the reasons you mentioned. I tried siren hunting in rural Poland, and nearly every department I found had a siren, some with two(IIRC some use a one with a certain port number for civil defense and another with a different port number for fire calls). I’ve even seen a few departments with modern electronic sirens, a few videos can be found if you search for “OSP Syrena Elektroniczna”. So it’s clear that a lot of departments(in Poland at least) still value sirens, especially the ones that spend probably thousand of dollars on new electronic ones. Whelen also has their Firehouse series, targeted specifically at fire stations, and I doubt they would continue to offer it if they weren’t getting some sales of it.

[uncommonsense]

Sirens work for calling firefighters. If anything, it lets you know there's a call and to go check your pager. When I was a volunteer, I didn't always have my pager on me if I was outside taking out the trash or grilling. I would hear the siren go off, stop what I was doing, walk in the house, go check the pager and hear the call being repeated, and then I'd grab my gear and head to the station. Sirens absolutely shouldn't be the only means to call firefighters nowadays, but especially with rural departments where members might not always be beside their pager 100% of the time, they are an important addition.

It seems like a lot a departments in Poland get the value of having a siren for the reasons you mentioned. I tried siren hunting in rural Poland, and nearly every department I found had a siren, some with two(IIRC some use a one with a certain port number for civil defense and another with a different port number for fire calls). I’ve even seen a few departments with modern electronic sirens, a few videos can be found if you search for “OSP Syrena Elektroniczna”. So it’s clear that a lot of departments(in Poland at least) still value sirens, especially the ones that spend probably thousand of dollars on new electronic ones. Whelen also has their Firehouse series, targeted specifically at fire stations, and I doubt they would continue to offer it if they weren’t getting some sales of it.

We’re veering off topic here.

[Micsky]

I think they do EMS as well, not sure exactly. I would guess they utilize pagers too but I don't see why operating a siren as another means of alerting for at max. $30 a year is unreasonable. Here's the siren I'm talking about if anyone wants to watch.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOO1FHiTdgU

[HDN]

It's hard to say what their problems with running the siren are, especially without looking at their facility or electric bills, so I'll just speculate. I know at least where I live in NY that 3-phase power isn't cheap, especially if it breaks. For example, the Caledonia FD near where I live retired their Thunderbolt 1003 and Sterling M-5 after a lightning strike trashed the 3-phase service to the FD. The FD got a repair quote from National Grid and decided it was a better use of money to replace both sirens with an electronic Whelen. I think they had state or federal funding too, which always helps with those decisions.

The siren takes about 11.5 kW to run based on the motor data in the manual. Where the FD is probably getting hit really hard is with demand and reactance charges. I imagine this being problematic if the test is an attack signal with multiple motor starts, each involving a bit of inrush current and the grid trying to compensate each time that happens. Power factor correction equipment may help with the reactance, and a soft start or VSD could help with inrush current.

Or they could get their local government reps and try to cut a deal with the electric utility on rates to run the thing. Churches do that here so they get residential rates instead of commercial rates.

Or the guy who posted on FB is like a typical news reporter and doesn't know anything about what they're talking about . I agree that something here is weird.