Alarm Logic

Not the sort of thing I keep in my pocket.

But I'm thinking your first step is to create three legs for the major areas, and then expand it

Ladder logic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your operation manual should give instructions....what type of controller?

Do your own homework.

Give samle logic samples indeed, my son could do that at 12 years old!

36/3= 12 inputs per area, 12 inputs per circuit, make all 12 I contacts parallel then coupled with acknowledge and reset switches and relay for output to be connected at central annunciator/alarm(this to minimize wiring making all the 36 inputs parallel).

or you can have 12 I parallel to a relay that alarms the main annunciator/alarm system if you dont want a localized per area alarm system.

study ladder diagram, it will make the job even easier.

Read through a few pages of these links, you can probably find some hints there

Alarm circuitry

Alarm images

Like below switch sw1...sw36 parallel with relay R contact, A stands for alarm, ACK stands for a simple switch DPST

note switches sw1~sw36 should be push button type of switches, not toggle.

also, missing R relay NO contact in series with ACK(NC) and A.

use this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnaugh_map