Fire alarms - why high-pitched noise?

Factual Questions
21

My schools, at least the newer ones, also had the high-pitched ones. Once you got out and away from the building, they sounded like some sort of Biblical plague of locusts. Now, the argument that they should be unpleasant only applies if a person is so stupid that they want to stay in a burning building. Besides that, there are downsides.

What if a person is stuck? (The policy for handicapped people on the 2nd floor was for them to wait in a designated room.) Do you want them to be unable to hear someone or be heard on a telephone? And, aren’t there liabilities for damaging people’s hearing? I would go straight out and my ears would ring if I didn’t cover them. What if I fell down the stairs because I had my fingers in my ears? It seemed really strange to me that they would have something so loud and painful as a matter of policy.

22

They are if you want to keep costs low. The current models are designed to be cheap and efficient.

23

The NFPA recommends a smoke detector on every level of a dwelling, as well as one inside each sleeping room. Note that a simple statement such as the one above cannot possibly take into account the multitude of variables in dwelling construction, such as high ceilings, beam interruptions of the ceiling plane, and others. Contact your local Fire Department for further information.