Old Fire Alarm

[OdieTurbo]

Okay folks, here's my first post (Hello BTW).

I'm looking into buying an old house (circa 1913). One thing I've noticed is an old fire alarm system throughout the house. It has what look like automotive style fuses on the ceiling in each room. It has a small box with 2 round fuses in it on each floor. In the basement it is tied into several electric feeds seperate from the breaker panel and it is tied into its own phone lines.

Anyone heard of something like this?

[HayZee518]

the automotive fuses probably mean a dc circuit as that was common in those days (edison power was dc) the unscrew fuses was for the knob n tube wiring. westinghouse later improved on Edison's design and produced alternating current.

[OdieTurbo]

Okay, I did a second walkthrough of the house.

I'll attach a pic, but it is blurry, it's from my cell phone.

Looks like it is a Lord-Taber Automatic Fire Detection System Model 705. The items that looked like glass automotive fuses are actually some sort of fire/heat detector. It looks like a coiled wire inside a slotted metal tube on a ceramic/bakelite base. The system has several fuseboxes throughout the house, each small box has 2 fuses. The system is powered down, I don't know if it works.