Fire detection & alarm

Conventional fire alarm systems

Zone-based panels for smaller buildings — detectors, call points, sounders and repeaters wired zone by zone, supplied, installed and commissioned.

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A red sprinkler alarm bell on a brick wall next to a sign reading "If bell rings call fire dept". — The Navigators · CC0

Scope: Survey → commissioning → AMC
Practice: IS 2189 · NBC 2016 Pt.4
Typical use: Societies, shops, small offices

What it is

The right system when the building is small enough to search

A conventional system wires its detectors in zones: the panel lights the zone, and somebody walks that zone to find the device that operated. On a small building — a housing society wing, a shop, a two-floor office, a school block — the zone is small enough that this is perfectly adequate, and the system costs materially less than an addressable one.

What decides it is the search. If a zone covers a floor plate that takes five minutes to walk, the zone is too big and the building has outgrown a conventional panel. Where a society or an owner is weighing the two, we set the zones out on the floor plans first, because seeing the zones is what makes the choice obvious.

The rest of the engineering is the same as any alarm system and gets the same treatment: correct detector type per area, call points on the escape routes, sound levels checked by measurement rather than assumed, battery standby for the required duration, and a commissioning test at every device with a signed record. Zone plates go up at the panel — a labelled zone chart is what makes a conventional system usable at two in the morning.

Equipment

What the installation is built from

Zones, the devices in them, and a labelled chart at the panel so the zone means something to whoever is reading it.

Conventional control panelTwo to sixteen zones with fault indication, sized with a spare zone for the extension somebody will want.

Optical smoke and heat detectorsPer area, on bases wired into the zone loop, with a response indicator where the head is out of sight.

Manual call pointsAt final exits and on the escape routes, on their own zone so a break-glass is never mistaken for a detector.

Sounders and sounder-beaconsSized and sited for audibility in every occupied part of the zone, including behind closed doors.

Hooters and repeater indicatorsExternal hooter where the alarm has to be heard outside, and repeaters where the panel is not staffed.

End-of-line devices and zone monitoringSo an open or shorted zone shows as a fault instead of a zone that quietly stopped working.

Battery backup and chargerStandby capacity for the required duration, on a supervised charger.

Zone chart and labellingA drawn chart at the panel. Without it, "Zone 3" is not information.

Tell us about the project

Send the drawings or the BOQ and we will price it line by line. Most enquiries start with a site visit, because the site decides the system — not the catalogue.

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