A new purpose built university research facility required a flexible approach to the installation of a fire alarm system to accommodate the ever-changing environment.

Problems

• Research projects, and their associated staff, can often change and with very little notice.
• Each new research project could involve a change to the laboratory, teaching and office layouts.
• All internal changes to facilities and fire detection devices had to be achieved quickly and cost effectively so to minimise disruption to the facility and the teaching timetable.

Solution

The consultants working on this new build project had used EMS radio systems before and were aware of the advantages such an approach could bring to this particular problem.

A hard-wired system would be fine for the initial installation, but would be inflexible and costly to move devices when internal layouts change in the future. Also adding new smoke detectors, sounders and callpoints would be difficult and costly.

An EMS 5000 FirePoint radio analogue addressable fire alarm system was installed. Even at the initial installation phase last minute changes were required, but again these could be easily and cost effectively accommodated because of the wireless nature of the installation and the elimination of first fixing.

The system comprised of five networked controller panels and over 500 devices including smoke sensors, voice sounders, sounders, callpoints, input/ouput units and computer graphics software for central monitoring and control.

The system concept was very successful and provided the university with the flexibility they required. The university property estates department were so impressed with the system that they subsequently installed an even bigger radio fire alarm system, with over 650 devices, in another campus building replacing an existing hard-wired system.

Related Case Studies

There are no other similar case studies