The fire alarm bell to my house is going off...

The outside bell in a house sounds off when water flows to put out a fire.

Hi Douglas,

The fire alarm bell to my house is going off... How long does it take for the water pressure to build back up to stop the alarm? I had to disconnect the bell.

Thank you, K D

The main purpose of that bell is to sound the alarm if there's a fire and the sprinkler system is dousing it with water. A secondary purpose is to sound the alarm if water is pouring out of the sprinkler system and causing damage. You want it to work in either case, just to reduce damage.

Right now, something's wrong. Maybe the water is turned off to the house's sprinkler system so if there's a fire, the sprinkler system can't help control the fire. Maybe something's wrong so the fire alarm bell is just sounding off when it shouldn't.

I think you're going to have to bite-the-bullet and call a fire sprinkler company (not a lawn sprinkler company). They can help you (1) find out what happened and (2) fix or reset the system.

Douglas Krantz

Based on his electronics training, and his understanding of Life Safety, Douglas Krantz has compiled his knowledge of Conventional Fire Alarm Systems into the book Make It Work - Conventional Fire Alarms. The book covers the basics of the Conventional Fire Alarm System, and shows how Life Safety and internal supervision affects the fire alarm system.