I am doing an office building remodel (about 30% of the building gutted out) for a very well off client, although from the looks of the electrical work they keep the money for themselves.
Picture one shows a typical ceiling of one of six electric rooms, that red fire alarm cable is a mix of initiating, notification and door holder circuits.
Picture two shows the 2" fire alarm riser as it enters the first floor electric room from the slab and enters a 12" x 12" J-Box, once I opened this J-Box I found that the 1 1/4" riser is stuffed with 480/277 and 208/120 circuits.
Picture three shows a close up of this well packed box about 60 - 14 AWG fire alarm conductors along with a number of line voltage conductors.
Pictures four and five show the panel you can see the 2" riser coming in the bottom and the number of cans added on the sides for elevator recall, door lock release, RTU shut down, and off site security monitoring relays.
I am supposed to connect more to this mess for the areas under renovation, the panel has two signal circuits one has shown trouble for as long as anyone on site remembers.
Not shown is a booster panel added in another remodel that is also in trouble but the trouble contacts are not wired to the main panel so that does not show up until you look for it.
Every box I have looked at has no cover sometimes no wire nuts just the solids twisted together, at least 3 ground faults so far.
The only up side is we are pricing a total replacement fire alarm system.
I have some work ahead of me.
Bob
(iwire)