North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, has upgraded its fire detection and alarm system by converting existing conventional wiring into an addressable loop with C-TEC's FastConvert zone converter, instead of replacing the system outright. The work was carried out by specialist electrical contractor W R Fire & Security and delivered an estimated saving of around £3,500 on the project.
The school had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system. Following a site survey, however, W R Fire & Security identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional system by converting it to an addressable system using FastConvert.
Three alternatives weighed
Before settling on FastConvert, three upgrade routes were assessed. The first was 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.
The second was a full re-cable, ruled out on budget grounds: it would have added an estimated £10,000 in materials and additional labour, along with greater disruption and a longer installation timescale.
The third was to convert 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–£4,000.
FastConvert was the only option that avoided all three drawbacks at once, reusing the existing wiring while delivering a genuine loop-based addressable system rather than a conventional one, without the extra cost, labour or disruption.
How the upgrade was built
By using the old system's wiring, FastConvert upgraded the school's legacy conventional system into an open-protocol CAST addressable system. The manufacturer says the resulting system is capable of lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and can accommodate its CAST-PRO false-alarm-resistant combined fire detection and alarm devices. To achieve this, 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 contractor was impressed with FastConvert's capabilities. He said that against a full re-wire, which would have added around £10,000 to the job, or converting the remaining zones into loops, which would have cost an extra £3,000–£4,000 plus a week's extra labour for two engineers, FastConvert was the clear winner. He added that it massively reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley also said the contractor rated the new CAST-PRO devices highly, describing them as superior to other manufacturers' products because the sounder/VADs and multi-sensors are built into the heads, so separate sounder bases are not needed.