W R Fire & Security has used C-TEC’s FastConvert to upgrade the fire-safety system at North Road Academy, an Islamic primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, without replacing the school’s existing conventional wiring. The school had initially considered a complete replacement of its fire system, but a site survey led the specialist electrical company to propose converting the legacy system to an addressable one instead.
Options considered
Before selecting FastConvert, the project team weighed three alternatives.
- A new conventional panel would have allowed zones to be separated and additional zones created, but it required extra cabling and would still have provided only zonal fire and fault information.
- A full re-cable was ruled out by budget. It was estimated to add about £10,000 in materials and additional labour, along with greater disruption and a longer installation timescale.
- Converting the remaining six zones into loops would have added around a week for two engineers, plus extra cabling, materials and disruption, at an estimated additional cost of £3,000–£4,000.
Reusing existing wiring
According to the project account, FastConvert was the only option that avoided all three drawbacks at once: it reused the existing wiring, delivered a genuine loop-based addressable system rather than a conventional one, and avoided the extra cost, labour and disruption associated with the other routes.
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 described as capable of lockdown alert functionality and internet connectivity, and able to accommodate C-TEC’s CAST-PRO combined fire detection and alarm devices, described as false-alarm resistant. Two radials were combined into a single loop, with a dedicated two-loop panel installed for FastConvert.
Installer assessment
Wayne Riley, managing director of W R Fire & Security, said the company was very impressed with FastConvert and considered it extremely innovative in terms of what it can do. He said that, compared with a full rewire that would have added around £10,000, 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.
Riley said the chosen approach reduced installation time, site disruption and labour costs, and saved approximately £3,500 on the project. He also said the new CAST-PRO devices were superior to other manufacturers’ products because the sounder/VADs and multi-sensors are built into the heads, so separate sounder bases are not required.