Out With the Old
Cincinnati public school system overhauls entire district
- By Jeff Hendrickson
- Dec 04, 2007
In Cincinnati, when you say “school’s out,”
it has a whole different meaning. That’s
because all 65 schools in the Cincinnati
Public School District—encompassing
preschool through grade 12—are part of a massive,
$1 billion facilities master plan that will
completely change the face of the city’s educational
infrastructure. The plan, initiated in 2002,
calls for many of the buildings to be extensively
renovated—all the way down to the plumbing
and electrical work—along with a number of
new schools that will be constructed from the
ground up. Similar efforts are being enacted in
all of Ohio’s 613 school districts.
When this ambitious undertaking is finished,
51 of the schools in the Cincinnati public school
system will either be heavily refurbished or
newly constructed. The new schools will provide
safe and secure physical facilities for the
more than 32,000 students who make up the
system. The old schools, indeed, are out; the
new schools are most certainly in.
A Smooth Start
A critical aspect of this effort is the installation
of new, state-of-the-art fire protection systems.
“Because the state of Ohio was going to cofund
this project, we had to be sure that we
secured bids from at least three different fire
system manufacturers,” said Michael Burson,
facilities director for the Cincinnati Public
School District. “We assumed that our previous
manufacturer would get at least some of the
business, but we were determined to carefully
review competitive systems based on a number
of criteria, including performance, ease of use
and maintenance, and price.”
As the school venture gained momentum,
Burson and Bill Moerhing, his assistant, along
with Jeff Hetzer, an electrician who is responsible
for maintenance and operation of the various
systems, selected five manufacturers that would
be listed in the specifications for each job, which
was either a single school or a group of schools.
The Bidding Wars
The project was going relatively smoothly until
two years ago, when it was announced that five
additional schools would be constructed. A subsequent
request for bids was sent out for the
procurement and installation of the schools’
fire-protection systems. Eric Ruffin, a co-owner
of Abel Building Systems, a local provider of
security and fire safety solutions, decided to
participate in the bidding process.
Ruffin was no stranger to the project. His
company holds the maintenance and monitoring
contract for the existing fire equipment in all of
Cincinnati’s public schools, a number that currently
stands at 65.
Ruffin had recently been introduced to Silent
Knight, part of the Honeywell Life Safety group
and a provider of compatible fire alarm solutions
for small and mid-size institutions, as well as
commercial sites. He had installed some of Silent Knight’s peripheral devices, such as
power boosters, but had never worked
with the main panels—the heart of all
Silent Knight systems.
“Our company has worked with a variety
of fire protection equipment over the
seven years we’ve been in business,” said
Ruffin, who performs the system installation
functions for Abel Building Systems,
along with customer training. “But we
really didn’t have a system of our own
that we could provide to the Cincinnati
schools. We looked at a number of different
products but ultimately chose Silent
Knight for several reasons.
“To begin with, it is a high-quality
product, no question. It also is user
friendly and simpler to install than many
other systems. But more importantly,
Silent Knight systems are non-proprietary,
meaning that they can be serviced
by virtually any company. We didn’t want
the client to feel like they were being held
hostage, to have to stick with us because
we’re the only company that carries that
proprietary software. We know we’ll provide
a superior level of service for this
project, but if for some reason the client
wanted to make a change, they would
have no trouble doing it. I feel like that’s
just a smart way to do business.”
Ruffin also discovered that the systems
were effective options for use in
larger buildings and high-rises, not just
smaller facilities. In addition, the ability
to integrate audio into the system was a
major plus.
Armed with information about this
new-found offering, Ruffin approached
the architects and engineers responsible
for developing the specifications for the
five soon-to-be-built schools. He demonstrated
the features and application benefits,
conducting engineering visits, training
them on the product and even providing
a cost analysis to highlight the system’s
value.
In the end, the Silent Knight system
was accepted as one of the systems that
would be considered, not only for the
five-school enterprise, but for future projects,
as well. The system’s impressive
credentials and the fact that the system
had the lowest lifecycle cost swung the
decision in Abel’s favor. Plus, with
Burson’s and Hetzer’s familiarity with
Ruffin’s previous work within the school
system, the company was awarded the
work for the five schools, which incorporated
not only the installation of all fire
protection equipment but the wiring and
electrical work to boot.
A History of Dependability
The first of the schools to be tackled was
the Frederick Douglass school, which was
ready for students in 2007; all five are
scheduled to be completed by the end of
the year. The system that Abel installed in
Douglass uses Silent Knight’s Farenhyt
IFP-1000 panel with a 5495 addressable
power supply as its centerpiece. The
Farenhyt IFP-1000 is an intelligent analog/
addressable fire alarm control panel
that is ideal for mid- to large-sized jobs
such as schools and universities and
offers more than 1,000 addressable
points. It features one built-in signaling
line circuit (SLC) that supports the addition
of up to seven 5815XL SLCs. The
panel’s analog addressable technology
enhances reliability, pinpoints problem
areas and reduces false alarms. Plus, it
supports up to 792 System Sensor IDP
detectors and 792 IDP modules, or 1016
Hochiki devices.
Complementing the IFP-1000 panel
are dual-action pull stations, addressable
smoke detectors, heat detectors, subdetectors
with remote test stations and
numerous horn strobes. Sprinkler systems
will be featured in all of the new
schools, eliminating the need for area
detection. This is the same configuration
that will be installed in the four other
schools during the construction process.
Ruffin made certain that the installation
complied with all city and state codes, as
well as NFPA 72, the national code that
covers the application, installation, location,
performance, inspection, testing and
maintenance of fire alarm systems and
related apparatus.
Ruffin’s confidence in the performance
of the school’s Farenhyt systems is
based, in part, on the performance of
Farenhyt systems already in place.
“Before we began Douglass school,
we had already placed a number of
Farenhyt systems all around town, probably
about 20 or 30 of them,” he said.
“I wanted to make sure that the systems
would function exactly as I expected.
From what I’ve seen in these early
projects, I have no reason to think
they won’t.”
The fact that the Silent Knight product
was chosen for these new schools does
not surprise Ruffin, given the school system’s
focus on quality, along with its
refusal to cut corners.
“We’ve provided a ton of technical
support to the Cincinnati schools, and
during that time, we’ve seen them add a
number of enhancements like pull station
covers, wire guards over the horn strobes,
things like that,” he said. “They are
always looking for ways to improve the
quality and safety of their fire protection
systems. For them, it’s about doing things
all the way or not at all.”
Planning for the Future
The school district will continue to put
out competitive bids for each job, per the
state’s requirements.
“We have every system manufacturer
under the sun asking us to include them in
our specs,” Burson said. “This is happening
at a time when we’re starting to
design the last 22 schools in this project.
The list of companies that are vying for an
opportunity to be involved is, frankly,
pretty daunting.”
Still, Ruffin remains optimistic
that the systems he provided will
figure prominently into the school system’s
plans.
“I do frequent ‘lunch and learn’ sessions
with architects and engineers, during
which I showcase these products,” he
said. “They are blown away with the
capabilities. The more people that see
these systems, the more people are going
to want them.”
School may be out in Cincinnati, but
the new and improved schools, not to
mention the already installed systems, are
unquestionably in.