Fire Safety Fortress

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A new fire detection system at Durham University means students can sleep more safely in their beds and there are fewer nuisance alarms.

Founded in 1837, university college – or ‘Castle’ as it is affectionately known – is the oldest college of Durham University and is located inside a Norman fortress. It has an academic community of around 600 undergraduates and 50 postgraduates, along with additional members of the university’s staff.

Durham Castle is the hub of University College. It is part of the Durham world heritage site and a Grade 1 listed building.

The university already had a Gent Fire detection system installed but, as a result of a shortfall discovered during a risk assessment that was carried out on the castle’s facilities, modifications were needed. At the same time, it needed to upgrade its facilities in order to help meet new Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) requirements, and also to minimise the false alarms that seemed to be ever-present when accommodating a student population.

Implementing the new system has brought the accommodation in line with current hotel standards. This not only improves safety for the students, but also allows the university to use its facilities more widely when the students are not in residence.

In the loop

The new system installed uses a Vigilon 4 loop fire panel with 190 S-Quad sensors, 90 of which have integrated sounders for the sleeping accommodation. There are also 45 callpoints; 89 stand alone sounders; four sets of beam detectors in the Norman Gallery, chapel and senior common room; and two sets of flame detectors in the kitchens.

Each student bedroom has en-suite bathroom facilities, so there was a need to use detection technology that is capable of distinguishing between steam, aerosols, heat and smoke to minimise false alarms. An important feature of S-Quad is its ability to reduce false alarms by using its dual angle optical forward and backward scatter technology – allowing it to accurately distinguish between smoke and steam – together with its additional heat sensing elements. CO detection is also available if needed.

All of the bedrooms are non-smoking areas. Inevitably, this means there can be a tendency for some enterprising students to attempt to disable a detector by removing the detector head. However, as the sensors are connected back through the loop to the alarm panel situated in the porter’s lodge, which is manned 24 hours a day, any such action can be quickly discovered and its precise location identified. In addition, if the head is shorted out – another commonly noted tactic – the panel can again detect this and identify the culprit.

DDA provision

Being a Grade 1 listed building, alterations to the fabric of the building are heavily constrained. An added advantage of installing S-Quad sensors in every room is that they provide an integrated sounder and strobe – without any need for extra wiring or equipment. This came about as a direct result of the system integrator, Swift Fire & Security, advising the university on satisfying requirements of the DDA, and demonstrating that S-Quad provided an instant and simple solution.

Previously, special pagers or vibrating pillows were used to provide alarms for the disabled, and were generally only fitted in a limited number of the rooms. This extra equipment needed its own plug-in interfaces, for both communication with the fire panel and also for its own power source. By using S-Quad, all rooms are automatically rendered suitable, so the university can now easily let out its upgraded student accommodation during vacations.

“Typically at the beginning of term, students are thoroughly briefed on fire safety issues relating to their new living accommodation but despite this, false alarms in the autumn term are usually higher than the norm,” explains Ray Wilson, electrical engineer for Durham University. “However, since our new Vigilon system was commissioned in October 2005, we have been delighted to find that, for the first term of its use, false alarms have been found to be significantly down when compared to the same period last year.”

Commenting on the protection of the sleeping accommodation, Tom Leightley from Swift Fire and Security said:

“S-Quad sensors from Gent provided us with an effective solution for the upgrade of the existing fire system protecting the students, as it provides all the necessary extra technology and features in one, single head unit. It therefore minimised the need for extra wiring runs, an important consideration when working within the constraints imposed by listed building consent regulations.”