North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, has upgraded its fire detection system without replacing the existing cabling, using C-TEC's FastConvert conventional-to-addressable zone converter on a project carried out by electrical specialist W R Fire & Security.
The school had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system. Following a site survey, the contractor instead identified scope to enhance the existing conventional installation by converting it to an addressable system using FastConvert, an approach the announcement says saved thousands of pounds on the project.
Three upgrade routes examined
According to the account, three alternatives were assessed before FastConvert was selected:
- A new conventional panel, which would have allowed the zones to be separated and additional zones created, but would have required extra cabling and still left the school with a conventional system able to report only zonal fire and fault information.
- A full re-cable of the system, ruled out on budget grounds; it was estimated to add roughly £10,000 in materials and additional labour, along with greater disruption and a longer installation period.
- Converting the remaining six zones into loops, which would have added around a week for two engineers plus extra cabling, materials and disruption, at an estimated additional 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 loop-based addressable system rather than a conventional one, and does so without the added cost, labour or disruption, the announcement states.
How the conversion was carried out
By employing the old system's wiring, the converter upgraded the school's legacy conventional installation into an open-protocol CAST addressable system. The resulting system 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 company describes as award-winning and resistant to false alarms. To achieve this, two radials were combined into a single loop, with a dedicated two-loop panel installed for FastConvert.
Installer's assessment
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the company was very impressed with FastConvert and described it as extremely innovative in what it can do. Comparing it with a full rewire, which he said would have added around £10,000 to the job, or with converting the remaining zones into loops, estimated at an extra £3,000 to £4,000 plus a week's additional labour for two engineers, he called FastConvert the clear winner. He said it substantially reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley also said the company liked the new CAST-PRO devices and considered them superior to other manufacturers' products, because the sounder/VADs and multi-sensors are built into the heads, removing the need for separate sounder bases.