North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, has upgraded its fire detection and alarm system by converting the existing conventional installation to an addressable one rather than replacing it. The work used FastConvert, C-TEC's conventional-to-addressable zone converter.
The school had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system. Specialist electrical contractor W R Fire & Security carried out a site survey and identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional system by converting it with FastConvert.
Three alternatives weighed
Before settling on the converter, three other upgrade routes were assessed, according to the account:
- A new conventional panel, which would have allowed the zones to be separated out and additional zones created, but would have required extra cabling and still left the school with a conventional system limited to reporting zonal fire and fault information.
- A full re-cable of the system, which was ruled out on budget grounds because it would have added an estimated £10,000 in materials and additional labour, along with greater disruption and a longer installation timescale.
- Converting the remaining six zones into loops, which would have added around a week to the installation for two engineers, plus additional cabling, materials and disruption, at an estimated extra cost of £3,000 to £4,000.
FastConvert was presented as the only option that avoided all three drawbacks at once: it reuses the existing wiring, delivers a genuine loop-based addressable system rather than a conventional one, and does so without the added cost, labour or disruption.
Resulting system
By using the old system's wiring, the converter upgraded the legacy conventional system into an open-protocol CAST addressable system. The resulting installation is described as capable of lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and as able to accommodate C-TEC's CAST-PRO combined fire detection and alarm devices, which the manufacturer describes as false-alarm resistant and award-winning. Two radials were combined into a single loop, with a dedicated two-loop panel installed for FastConvert.
Contractor's view
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the company was very impressed with FastConvert and considered it extremely innovative in what it can do. Comparing it with a full re-wire, which he said would have added around £10,000 to the job, or converting the remaining zones into loops, which he said would have cost an extra £3,000 to £4,000 plus a week's extra labour for two engineers, he called the converter the clear winner, adding that it reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley added that the team also rated the new CAST-PRO devices highly, describing them as superior to other manufacturers' products because the sounder and VAD units and multi-sensors are built into the heads, so separate sounder bases are not required.