A primary school in Stoke-on-Trent has upgraded its fire detection system without replacing its existing cabling, after its electrical contractor chose a zone converter over three more disruptive alternatives. North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school, had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system. Following a site survey, specialist electrical company W R Fire & Security identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional system by converting it to an addressable one using FastConvert, the conventional-to-addressable zone converter made by C-TEC.
Three alternatives assessed
Before opting for the converter, the contractor weighed three upgrade routes. A new conventional panel would have allowed the zones to be separated out and additional zones created, but it would have required extra cabling and would still have left the school with a conventional system able to report only zonal fire and fault information. A full re-cable of the system was ruled out on budget grounds: it would have added an estimated £10,000 in materials and additional labour, along with far greater disruption and a longer installation timescale. The third option, converting the remaining six zones into loops, 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.
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 extra cost, labour or disruption.
What was installed
By using 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 able to accommodate C-TEC's award-winning CAST-PRO combined fire detection and alarm devices, which the manufacturer describes as false-alarm resistant. To achieve this, two radials were combined into a single loop, with a dedicated two-loop panel installed for FastConvert.
The 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. Set against a full rewire, which he said would have added around £10,000 to the job, or converting the remaining zones into loops at an extra £3,000 to £4,000 plus a week's additional labour for two engineers, he called the converter the clear winner. It massively reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, he said, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley also welcomed the new CAST-PRO devices, which he rated as far superior to other manufacturers' products because the sounder/VADs and multi-sensors are built into the heads, so separate sounder bases are not needed.