North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, has upgraded its life safety systems by converting existing conventional detection wiring to an addressable loop with C-TEC's FastConvert zone converter, avoiding the cost and disruption of a full replacement or re-cable.
The school had initially considered replacing its fire system outright. Following a site survey, specialist electrical contractor W R Fire & Security identified the potential to enhance the existing conventional installation instead, converting it to addressable operation using FastConvert.
FastConvert is C-TEC's conventional-to-addressable zone converter. Reusing the legacy system's wiring allowed the school's conventional installation to be upgraded into an open-protocol CAST addressable system, the company states.
Three other routes assessed
Before opting for the converter, the project team weighed three alternative upgrade options:
- A new conventional panel. This would have allowed zones to be separated out and additional zones created, but required extra cabling and would have left the school with a conventional system able to report only zonal fire and fault information.
- A full re-cable. Ruled out on budget grounds, as it would have added an estimated £10,000 in materials and additional labour, along with far greater disruption and a longer installation timescale.
- Converting the remaining six zones into loops. This 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–£4,000.
FastConvert was the only option that avoided all three drawbacks at once, according to the company: 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.
How the conversion was carried out
Two radials were combined into a single loop, with a dedicated two-loop panel installed for FastConvert. The resulting CAST system is described as supporting lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and as able to accommodate the CAST-PRO combined fire detection and alarm devices that C-TEC describes as award-winning and false-alarm resistant.
Contractor's assessment
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the company had been impressed by FastConvert and regarded it as extremely innovative in what it can do. Set 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 labour for two engineers, the converter was the clear winner, he said: it cut installation time, site disruption and labour costs, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project.
Riley added that the contractor rates the new CAST-PRO devices highly, describing them as superior to other manufacturers' units because the sounder/VADs and multi-sensors are built into the heads, so separate sounder bases are not required.