Since 2004 TL Fire has held the maintenance contract for a variety of Government Buildings in Whitehall. From 2010 TL Fire still maintain these buildings as a sub-contractor to Engie. These Buildings have started to move away from closed protocol fire detection and alarm systems.
During summer 2012 TL Fire in association with CRL Services designed and proposde an alternative to the ageing closed protocol systems installed in three of their sites. The Brief required TL Fire to maintain communications with the main buildings closed protocol AFDS, voice alarm and fire suppression systems. A second requirement was that the existing system must stay operational at all times until completion. Once the time came to switch over the two systems TL Fire had a short window of opportunity to effect the change over to the new system. An addition complication was that each area is classified as a confined space and subject to temperatures exceeding 50 degrees.
With TL Fire links with Kentec Electronics we designed a system for this site using a Kentec Syncro Fire alarm panel, using Apollo protocol.
Each system installed included a Kentec Syncro control panel, Kentec Syncro view repeater panel, Apollo XP95 optical smoke detectors, sounder beacon bases, manual call points, input/output units and FP200 fire resistant cable in containment.
The complete systems were installed to BS5839-1:2013 requirements using confined space certified TL Fire engineers. The cabling was installed by our sister company Equilux Electrical. Each system was tested and went through a soak test prior to switch over. A network was also set up to provide communication between each of the systems. This then provided a fire and fault signal to the main fire alarm. The system sustainability has been improved by reducing the maintenance costs, which allows for easier replacement of faulty parts and making the system expansion a more straight forward exercise.
TL Fire also maintains a variety of AFDS, and smoke ventilation systems across the Whitehall sites.