A new 8-zone Fike TwinFlex Pro2 fire alarm panel was installed at a Nottingham City Centre HMO, with four zones in use.
A quick summary of this project
We installed a new fire alarm control panel at a house in multiple occupation (HMO) in Nottingham City Centre.
The panel is a Fike TwinFlex Pro2 with eight zones. Four of those zones are in use for the building, which leaves four spare zones for future changes to the property.
What the customer's situation was before we got involved
An HMO is home to several separate households under one roof, often with shared kitchens, hallways and stairways. A fire alarm system matters more in this kind of building, because the occupants need early warning of a fire wherever it starts.
The property needed a fire alarm control panel installed to run the building’s fire alarm system. It had to suit the layout of the building now, with enough capacity to handle future changes without replacing the panel.
The work carried out on this job
We installed a Fike TwinFlex Pro2 fire alarm control panel at the HMO in Nottingham City Centre.
The control panel is the heart of a fire alarm system. It monitors the detection devices around the building, raises the alarm when a fire is detected and shows where in the building the activation came from. The panel display and indicators also show the system’s status.
The TwinFlex Pro2 is part of Fike’s TwinFlex range, a two-wire system where detectors and sounders can share the same pair of cables. That keeps the wiring simpler than on a traditional conventional system.
The panel we fitted has eight zones. A zone is a defined area of the building, so when a device activates, the panel shows which part of the property the alarm came from. That helps occupants and the fire service respond quickly. On this property, four zones are in use to cover the building.
The other four zones are spare. If the property is extended, reconfigured or needs extra coverage in future, more zones can be brought into use on the same panel without replacing it.
The HMO now has a Fike TwinFlex Pro2 fire alarm panel serving four zones, with built-in room to grow.
More photos from this job
Common questions about this project
In an HMO, several households share one building, often with shared escape routes such as hallways and stairs. A fire alarm system gives everyone early warning of a fire, wherever it starts. The type of system a property needs depends on its size, layout and risk, so landlords should check their fire risk assessment and the local council’s HMO requirements.
A zone is a defined area of a building connected to the fire alarm panel. When a detector or call point in that area activates, the panel shows which zone the alarm came from. That helps people find the source quickly. On this Nottingham HMO, four of the panel’s eight zones are in use, and four are spare.
Fitting a panel with more zones than the building needs today leaves room to grow. If the property is extended, rooms are changed or more coverage is needed later, the spare zones can be brought into use on the same panel. That can avoid the cost and disruption of replacing the panel later.
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