Students attending Scotland's international university,
Heriot-Watt, are being protected by a new fire system based on
Apollo Discovery intelligent fire detection technology. The
university, which designed the new fire system in-house, specified
Apollo's proven Discovery multisensor to eliminate nuisance alarms
being caused by steam in bathing and cooking areas.
Heriot Watt is often referred to as Scotland's international
university because it boasts four student campuses: three in
Scotland - Edinburgh, the Scottish Borders and Orkney - and a
campus in Dubai. The new Apollo fire detection system protects
students living at the Scottish Borders campus in Galashiels, which
is situated 38 miles south of Edinburgh. It was supplied,
installed, commissioned and maintained by Safe Services.
The Scottish Borders Campus is home to the School of Textiles
and Design and also runs a number of courses from the School of
Management and Languages. Two separate accommodation blocks on the
campus, both of which comprised three storeys and one of which was
self-catering, required a fire system upgrade. The previous system
was 15 years old and no longer fitted the fire detection
requirements of the university. The two buildings house around 200
students and more than ten staff in total.
Phasing the works
The old fire system was addressable with conventional heads and
there was a lack of tolerance, causing false alarms, which needed
to be addressed. The fact that it was a closed protocol system was
also a major factor for the upgrade, as Graeme Millar, Senior Fire
Engineer at Safe Services, explains.
"As there was a closed protocol system in place before, the main
difficulty with upgrading the system in the two accommodation
blocks was phasing out the old system and bringing in the new one
without losing coverage. Everything had to be rewired as nothing on
the old system could be used.
"The work was carried out during normal working hours with
students in residence. We had to give each individual block a
week's notice before we were due to be in that area so they could
be up and changed by 8.30 am for when we started."
The existing system had to be kept up and running until the very
last day. A block at a time was wired then fully commissioned,
followed by the decommissioning of the old system in that
block.
An interface was also created between the new and old panels to
ensure that no coverage was lost. The final changeover was
completed in a day and a new connection to the alarm receiving
centre was created to replace the existing dial up digital
communicator. No areas of the Halls had to be taken out of use
during the works.
False alarm reduction
Heriot-Watt specified a new fire system to L2 standards based on
Apollo Discovery technology using analogue addressable panels.
Graeme Millar says: "Apollo devices were already being used in
another building on the campus, and the designers of the system at
the university trusted Apollo technology to such an extent that
they wanted to base the new system upon it too."
The most likely sources of nuisance alarms in the accommodation
blocks are the shower rooms, where steam could give a false
reading, and kitchen areas where transient levels of smoke or steam
from cooking are a common occurrence. In addition, each of the
bedrooms is equipped with its own sink so there is a potential
source of steam-related incidents in those as well.
Apollo's Discovery range of high-specification, intelligent fire
detectors is an ideal choice for this type of application, as it
has been developed for installations where adaptability to changing
conditions and protection against unwanted alarms are of paramount
importance. For example, all detectors in the Discovery range are
equipped with inbuilt drift compensation sensitivity, a
non-volatile memory and fail-safe operation. However, it is the
inclusion of a multisensor in the range that really gives
Discovery-based fire systems their flexibility.
Multisensor detectors incorporate two or more sensors of
different types and process the signals to produce one output on
which the decision fire/no fire' is based. Apollo's Discovery
multisensor is equipped with an optical smoke sensor and a heat
sensor and offers five operating modes that are selected by the
system designer or commissioning engineer via the control
panel.
It can be selected to operate as a smoke detector only, a heat
detector only, or as one of three combinations of both. If an "in
combination" selection is made, the signals from each sensor are
considered in relation to each other. The Discovery multisensor is
certified to EN54 standard in every one of its five operating modes
and its reliability in the field in reducing nuisance alarm
incidents has been proven over several years.
Future proofed
The new fire detection systems at Heriot Watt's Scottish Borders
campus incorporate over 550 Discovery devices in all, of which
approximately 400 are multisensors.
The fire protection in the self-catering accommodation block is
configured around a two-loop system, while the system in the
accommodation-only block is designed around an eight-loop control
panel. Both fire detection systems incorporate interfaces to page
staff to alert them in the event of an alarm sounding and the
evacuation procedure is on-out, all-out.
Graeme Millar concludes: "We completed work on the campus in May
2007 and the Discovery technology has certainly improved things for
the students and the staff.
"Going forward, as the fire system is now based on Apollo's open
protocol, rather than being a closed system, it can easily be
upgraded or added to in future with minimal disruption."