Protecting life,
Property and
Critical Assets

Fire Alarms and Smoke Fire Dampers

In large commercial and industrial buildings, Fire alarms play an important role to ensure the fire compartmentation is maintained in the event of fire.

In these types of buildings, airflow for heating and ventilation is essential. However, to create such airflow, will require the air traveling through fire barriers. In the event of fire, the same paths could be used to spread fire and smoke throughout the building.
The solution to provide the required airflow for heating and ventilation during the normal operation of the building, and to enforce the compartmentation in the event of fire, is to install smoke dampers within each ductwork passing through the fire barrier. The smoke dampers are connected to the fire alarm panel usually via a smoke damper panel.

Fire Systems Ltd, design, installed and commission fire smoke damper systems as shown on the video.

In this video, Fire Systems Ltd, working for NG Bailey Rail, supplied and installed two twelve way Kentec smoke damper panels connected to eighteen “Actionair” smoke fire dampers.
The dampers have micro switches fitted to the ‘open’ and ‘closed’ positions. The outputs from these switches are connected to the damper panel.

All the fire alarm and smoke damper wiring was carried out in “FP Plus,” which is a fire rated enhance cable. The cables were given further protection as they were installed within galvanized trunking and tube.

The close-up view shows the “Action Air” damper in the closed position; this is shown by the black lever in the top position. The damper opens up when a 24v DC voltage is applied. On removing this voltage either by a fire alarm activation or a power cut the damper will close within the allocated 140 second window and stop any potential smoke or fire from transferring from one fire compartment to another and limit the spread of fire.

To ensure the fire dampers are given as much time as possible to close, detectors are installed within the ceiling void and at the room ceiling level. Another important point to consider is the sealing of any holes going through the fire barriers, as holes no matter the size can allow the smoke and fire to jump between zones.

During the test as shown here, in status normal with the dampers in the open position, the LED’s within the damper panel will be green. On activation of the fire panel, simulated by our engineer activating a manual call point, the dampers have a window of 140 seconds to change from the open to the closed position. This is indicated by the LED’s changing to red. However, if any damper has not changed from the open to the closed position within the allocated time the damper panel will send a fault signal to the fire alarm panel.
These particular dampers are held open by a constant 24v dc supply coming from the fire damper control panel. If the dampers lose the 24v supply, either by the damper panel receiving a fire alarm activation from the fire alarm panel, or by a power failure, the dampers will lose its power and close. The arrangement is what we called ‘fail safe’. Once power is restored to the dampers, they will reopen.

For more information of fire smoke dampers why not contact our office on 020 8541 5646 or visit our website on www.firesystems.co.uk and complete our contact form. We also provide fire alarm servicing for all types of fire alarm equipment.

Fire Systems Ltd, is a well established fire alarm company and has carried out works for London Underground and Power Network companies.

We are currently involved in the fire alarm upgrade or complete new installations for substations throughout London and the Southeast. To be in a position to carry out such work for large corporations, the fire alarm company must have a good reputation, highly skilled work force, motivated management team, take health and safety very seriously and have a robust quality assurance structure to ensure you are able to handle the rigorous requirements imposed in working in such an environment.

As you can see from this short video clip, it is important that the fire alarm company has installation engineers who are capable of installer fire alarms to a very high standard. Installing a fire alarm in a substation is totally different from installing one in your standard commercial property. The installation in a substation is vetted, and quality checked by qualified London Underground or the Power network Fire Engineers, who carried out a rigorous inspection. The inspectors understand the quality expected and will fail any part of the installation if it is not to the required standard.

When installing fire alarms in substations or London Underground all fire alarm wiring has to be carried out using ‘Enhanced’ fire rated cables. This can be in the form of MICC or in soft skin“Enhanced” fire rated cable. The cable we use is “FP Plus” or Draka Firetuf cables. However, even though the cables are of an enhance standard, the specification also requires that the cables are mechanical protected even further with galvanized tube for any drops to a lower level such as for manual call points or sounders. Cables at high level will be clipped on a tray or depending on the specification metal tie wraps may be used.

All equipment for such projects must be on London Undergrounds approval list or approval must be sanctioned for any equipment not on the list.
On this particular project the fire alarm panel will be the Kentec Syncro and the detection protocol will be Hochiki.

Fire Systems Ltd, have been designing and installing fire alarm systems since 1992. During this time, we have worked on many London Underground and substation’s power projects. If you have any projects of this nature and require a competent fire alarm company to carry out the design, installation and commissioning, contact our office on 020 8541 5646 or visit our website on www.firesytems.co.uk and complete our contact form.

ACS Egham is in the process of building a new state of the art sporting facility.

Fire Systems Ltd, who currently carries out the fire alarm maintenance for the school, secured the order to carry out the fire alarm enabling works and installation of the new addressable fire alarm system.

Before, the new building was erected; the old sport hall had to be demolished. The old sports hall was joined to another building known as the Cedar block. One fire alarm system protected both buildings, there were no drawings identifying the fire alarm wiring, so the enabling works involved tracing and removing all the fire alarm wiring in the existing sports hall while retaining the fire alarm wiring to the other half of the building. The enabling works was successful and the old sports hall was demolished.

Fire Systems Ltd, was involved in the designing of the new system, we decided on an L1 category system due to the amount of people that may be occupying the building at any one time as this the new sporting facility has a large seating area for major sporting events.

The fire alarm system to be installed is a Morley Addressable from the ZXe range, with Apollo protocol. The reason we choose the Morley fire alarm system is the school already had an existing Morley networked fire alarm system. The school has very large grounds with numerous amount of out buildings. These buildings are protected by the Morley network and there are currently eleven addressable fire alarm panels networked and this new panel will make it number twelve. Having all twelve panels on a network allows the security to monitor all the outbuildings in the event of fire and evacuate any building remotely or automatically.
As you can see from the video this is a state of the art sporting complex. The main sports hall and the offices off of the hall are protected by Apollo smoke detectors with base beacon sounders. All exits from the hall and to the open air have an addressable manual call point.

This new facility will promote a wider recreational offer, including a dance studio, fitness suite, two FIBA basketball courts and an indoor climbing wall. This new building will also provide an opportunity to redevelop and change the use of their existing Gym into a large, flexible space for drama, dance, musical performance, assemblies, exhibitions, meetings, and Lower School activities.

During the building works the construction site had to be protected against fire, wireless fire alarm evacuation points were installed at various positions throughout the construction site. In the event of a fire incident on the site the wireless fire alarm point can be activated, evacuating the site and alerting the fire marshalls in the event of fire.

For more information contact our fire alarm company on telephone number 020 8541 5646 or visit our website on www.firesystems.co.uk and complete our contact page.