Residential
THE CHALLENGE
Fairview Court, Pontypool
Fairview Court is a 1960’s twelve storey tower block and Pentan Partnership’s first project for Cwmbran based Bron Afon Community Housing. The principle objective of the project was to completely refurbish to modern-day thermal standards with eco-friendly enhancements and an upgrade to the fire protection measures. The block is one of the first high rise projects to benefit from the Welsh Assembly’s decision to install fire sprinklers in refurbished residential buildings.
THE SOLUTION
It was decided that at each floor level, the main pipe feed would be split into two – one to serve the flats and the other to serve the common areas. Lowered suspended ceilings were provided to conceal services such as the fire sprinkler pipework. Careful planning of pipe routes within the flats was a key consideration and pipework in each apartment was mounted tightly along the hallway and kitchen walls. This was painted to blend with the surrounding decor. Vipond have extensive experience of working in many building types and providing solutions that are appealing to customers.
THE CHALLENGE
Abbotsford House, Galashiels
Abbotsford House is a historic country house, formerly the residence of Sir Walter Scott who developed this magnificent property having originally purchased it as a farmhouse. The decor is both extravagant and exudes opulence. The complex fabric of the building and its historical importance provided a challenging backdrop to design and install an effective fire safety system.
THE SOLUTION
Due to the delicate nature of transcripts and finishes in the Scott Rooms, comprehensive discussions were held with Historic Scotland to ensure that the nature of the fire protection provided would be effective, and importantly, in keeping with the nature of the house. In these rooms, low pressure water mist was proposed enable a firefighting capability from a significantly reduced quantity of water. The potential damage to precious artefacts would be minimised as a direct result of this fire strategy. In all other areas within the building, a residential sprinkler system was installed in accordance with BS 9251:2005 using concealed heads.
THE CHALLENGE
South Glasgow University Hospital, Glasgow
The new South Glasgow University Hospital opened in May 2015. The 14 floor multiplex has over 1100 adult beds and in excess of 250 beds in the children’s hospital plus state-of-the-art Critical Care, Theatre and Diagnostic Services, 29 theatres and a dedicated helicopter landing pad. Both the Adult and the Children’s hospital each have a computer room. Failure of the equipment in the rooms following a fire could be catastrophic thus they required a comprehensive and sensitive detection and suppression system.
THE SOLUTION
With outline system features established, the decision to use a gas suppression system was finalised. Cost savings in consequential losses made by using clean agent systems would be substantial. The decision now fell to a choice between a halocarbon system such as FM-200® or an Inert gas system. Halocarbon systems are stored as liquids but discharge from the nozzles as a vapour in the same way as Inert gases but the halocarbon systems offer more compact storage for the cylinders and consequently have a smaller storage footprint thus FM-200® was the customer’s system of choice.
THE CHALLENGE
Scottish Gas Training Academy, Hamilton
Scottish Gas operates a Training Academy at Hamilton which trains all their engineers. Due to the nature of the practical training there was a high incidence of false alarms with the fire detection system. During training demonstrations the system would be activated causing inconvenient interruptions to the days training, not to mention the unnecessary calling out of the fire and rescue service. There was clearly a need to reduce unwanted alarms.
THE SOLUTION
Vipond quickly established that the existing fire detection & alarm system was unable to differentiate between boiler fumes and actual smoke during training demonstrations. As a distributor for fire detection & alarm equipment manufacturer Notifier, Vipond proposed that this high end equipment would provide the key to the problem. The Notifier Smart4 intelligent Multi-Criteria Detector combines four separate sensing elements to act as a single unit. It combines CO sensing to monitor carbon dioxide from smouldering fires, infra-red sensing for measuring ambient light levels and flames, optical smoke detection and heat detection. The installation resolved the false alarm issues at the Training Academy and paved the way for uninterrupted training.