An upgrade of the fire detection and alarm system at North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, has used C-TEC's FastConvert conventional-to-addressable zone converter instead of a full replacement, avoiding thousands of pounds in extra cost, according to the specialist contractor that carried out the work.
The school had initially considered replacing its fire system entirely. Following a site survey, specialist electrical company W R Fire & Security identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional system by converting it into an addressable one using FastConvert.
Before choosing FastConvert, three other upgrade routes were considered:
- A new conventional panel, which would have allowed zones to be separated and additional zones created, but would have required extra cabling and left the school with a conventional system able to report only zonal fire and fault information.
- A full re-cable of the system, ruled out on budget grounds because it would have added an estimated £10,000 in materials and 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 and materials, at an estimated extra cost of £3,000–£4,000.
FastConvert was the only option that avoided all three drawbacks at once, the company said: it reused the existing wiring, delivered a genuine loop-based addressable system rather than a conventional one, and did so without the extra cost, labour or disruption. The school therefore selected it.
By using the old system's wiring, FastConvert upgraded the school's legacy conventional system into an open-protocol CAST addressable system. The resulting system is capable of lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and can accommodate C-TEC's CAST-PRO combined fire detection and alarm devices, which the manufacturer describes as award-winning and false-alarm resistant. In this installation, two radials were combined into a single loop, with a dedicated two-loop panel installed for FastConvert.
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the company had been very impressed with FastConvert, describing it as extremely innovative in terms of what it can do. He said that, against a full re-wire that would have added around £10,000 to the job, or converting the remaining zones into loops at an extra £3,000–£4,000 plus a week's additional labour for two engineers, FastConvert was the clear winner. It greatly reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, he said, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley added that the company also rated the new CAST-PRO devices highly and felt they were far superior to those of other manufacturers, because the sounder/VADs and multi-sensors are built into the heads, so separate sounder bases are not required.