At EFire, we work with a great number of clients throughout the UK, ensuring their premises is safe and secure 24 hours a day. Our aim is to give you complete peace of mind that you are protected at all times.
Project Overview:
Details: Installation of replacement fire alarm system
Panel type: Advanced Electronics MxPro4
Device type: Hochiki ESP
Number of Panels: 14 (plus 7 full control repeater panels)
Device quantity: 400
Network: Advanced fault-tolerant
Project length: Phase 1, 6 weeks
Work status: Phase 1 complete, Phase 2 complete
Project Summary:
The site is a medium secure hospital covering 7 buildings which is further split into individual wings, apartments and office spaces. The buildings and the fire system range in their ages and installation methods.
The existing fire system installed was a Protec 4200 system supporting the Nittan ST-AS protocol.
Issues:
The existing system was over 20 years old, and only half the site was networked. As the system was “Closed Protocol” any fault requiring software investigation via a laptop, owing to microprocessor faults required the manufacturer's own engineers to attend, which was costly and their attendance was becoming frequent, causing a lack of confidence in this vital life safety system.
Project:
EFire were requested to design install and commission a new “Open Protocol “fire system that, was networked throughout the whole site, it had to would be robust, fault-tolerant and future-proof.
Our solution was to install an Advanced Electronics MxPro 4 network with the Hochiki ESP protocol. These systems are one of the most reliable open protocol systems on the market, parts are readily available from numerous wholesalers and specialist Fire/Security distributors.
Challenges:
The safety of the staff and clientele was paramount with this project. We had to ensure the existing system was fully operational while we installed the new system throughout the fully operational site. Owing to the nature of the building no surface cabling /containment could be installed throughout the site. This took a great deal of planning and organisation with the on-site maintenance team to ensure the works were completed in a safe and timely manner. There were challenges, however, through honest and regular communication at all levels throughout the project, these were reduced and overcome on proactive basis.
Completion:
Phase 1 installation was completed, commissioned and handed over in Feb 2020. Once the lockdown was lifted, we completed the programming in phase 2.
