Mr. Gerald R. Spencer, P.E., performed the field survey, evaluation, and design on the $1,100,000.00 Replace Existing Fire Alarm System project STL 99-0011 at the National Imagry & Mapping Agency NIMA-St. Louis Air Force Station; Buildings 36E St. Louis, MO 63118-3399; - Warren Carter 314-263-4107. Gerald Spencer, P.E., was the project manager and also the mechanical and electrical designer for the Fire Alarm Replacement system. Mr. Jim Dunaway, AIA was the designer for the Architectural building modifications. This project design is complete and project is awaiting construction funding for year 2003.  The existing Building 36 Section E fire alarm system will be replaced with new technology (flash memory - fast scan) equipment that is completely compatible with the existing Notifier 2020 series equipment at the main fire alarm panel/processor. The specifications will be a sole source specification for the acquisition of the Fire Alarm Equipment as apart of the contract requirements. Building 36 is an existing building. All of Section E is a secured area, and not open to the public without permission. Portions of the existing Building 36 contain classified data and operations that are vital to National Security and are appropriately secured at higher levels of security SCIF. The construction contractor will not generally be allowed to travel within the building for construction operations unless escorted at all times. The existing site is secure and not open to the public without permission. Portions of the existing Building 36 contain classified data and operations that are vital to National Security and are appropriately secured at higher levels of security SCIF. The construction contractor will not generally be allowed to travel within the building for construction operations unless escorted at all times.  The AE economically justified replacing the existing FACP system with the new fast scan flash memory equipment such as the Notifier ONYX type of equipment utilizing the flash memory-scan type equipment. This equipment will be specified to be 100% compatible with the older Notifier 2020 type equipment. This new equipment will comply with proposed changes to the Fire Alarm Code, and will "last longer" than the existing Notifier 2020 type equipment before becoming non-code compliant and/or not supported by the manufacturer with replacement parts. This new equipment is only slightly more expensive than the older type equipment. The AE has visited, surveyed and documented the locations of the existing Fire Alarm Equipment. The AE did not verify each and every Fire Alarm detector above the ceiling and/or below the raised floors. The AE has spot-checked the smoke detectors above the ceiling and below the raised floor locations. The detectors are located very close to the locations indicated on the original construction contract drawings.  This structure is eight levels above grade. The occupied basement is above grade and is the first level. Six occupied floors of building 36E above the basement equals seven floors. The occupied roof penthouse above the sixth floor of building 36E is also the same level as the occupied sixth floor of Building B, and this would be the eighth occupied level of Building36E. Most codes define high-rise as having an occupied floor 75' above the grade level. BOCA and all of the other various codes would measure the highest occupied floor from the lowest grade point at the building perimeter.  The new Notifier ONYX Fire alarm equipment will be able to flash scan the system every 15 seconds maximum. This will soon become a code requirement. An existing Notifier 2020 system will take minutes to scan a 4,000 addressable device system. This new system is 100% back compatible with the existing 2020 equipment. Addressable device Loop Distances are limited to 12,500 feet if wires with #12 AWG copper wire. #18 AWG wire will allow for 3,225 foot loops. If we provide one loop per floor, with three sub-loops consisting of nine sub-sub-loops we will have nine 500' loops for a total of 4,500 ft per floor. The AE and the NIMA maintenance personnel believe that the maintenance forces might benefit with each loop and sub-loop returning back to a terminal strip so that when one loose connection occurs, the entire floor would not have to shut down to find and correct the loose wire. Shutting down of the entire floor in these secure areas is very hard to do because one group of the floor occupants is always working on an urgent project that cannot be shut down. We could bypass the sub-loop that has a loose connection and partially have the floor protected/monitored. The part of the floor with the problem might be easier to schedule a shutdown than the whole floor.