North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, has upgraded its fire detection and alarm system by converting the existing conventional wiring into an addressable loop instead of replacing the installation, using C-TEC's FastConvert zone converter. The work was carried out by electrical specialist W R Fire & Security.
The school had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system. A site survey by W R Fire & Security instead identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional system, converting it to addressable operation with FastConvert.
Three alternatives weighed
Before settling on FastConvert, the project team assessed three upgrade routes:
- A new conventional panel, which would have allowed the zones to be separated and additional zones created, but required extra cabling and would still have left the school with a conventional system limited to reporting zonal fire and fault information.
- 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.
- 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 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, which the company describes as making it the obvious choice for the school.
What was installed
Using the legacy system's wiring, FastConvert upgraded the school's conventional installation into an open-protocol CAST addressable system. According to C-TEC, the resulting system is capable of lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and can accommodate the company's 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 assessment
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the company was very impressed with FastConvert and considers it extremely innovative in terms of what it can do. Measured against a full re-wire, which he said would have added around £10,000 to the job, or converting the remaining zones into loops, which would have cost an extra £3,000 to £4,000 and a week's extra labour for two engineers, he described FastConvert as the clear winner. It massively reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, he said, and saved the contractor approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley added that the company also rates the new CAST-PRO devices highly, considering 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.