W R Fire & Security has upgraded the fire detection system at North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, by converting the existing conventional installation to an addressable system with C-TEC's FastConvert zone converter rather than replacing it.
The school had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system. Following a site survey, the specialist electrical contractor identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional system by converting it to addressable operation instead.
Three alternative routes assessed
Before opting for FastConvert, the contractor considered three other upgrade options.
- A new conventional panel. This would have allowed the zones to be separated and additional zones created, but it required extra cabling and would have left the school with a conventional system able to report only zonal fire and fault information.
- A full re-cable. Ruled out on budget grounds: 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. Estimated to add £3,000–£4,000 and around a week of work for two engineers, plus additional cabling, materials and disruption.
According to C-TEC, FastConvert was 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 additional cost, labour or disruption.
Two radials combined into one loop
By using the old system's wiring, the converter turned the school's legacy conventional system into an open-protocol CAST addressable system. C-TEC states that the result is capable of lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and can accommodate its CAST-PRO combined fire detection and alarm devices, which the company 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 assessment
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the converter was extremely innovative in terms of what it can do. Measured against a full re-wire that would have added around £10,000 to the job, or converting the remaining zones into loops at an extra £3,000–£4,000 plus a week's additional labour for two engineers, he said FastConvert was the clear winner. He added that it greatly reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley also said the contractor rated the CAST-PRO devices highly, describing them as superior to other manufacturers' products because the sounders, visual alarm devices and multi-sensors are built into the detector heads, so separate sounder bases are not required.