PSI June2017

APPLICATION
Fire system boosts protection of Liverpool
University student accomodation
Eaton has delivered a fire alarm system to protect students at a
university accommodation development in Liverpool. The company
supported EFT Systems in providing equipment for Ablett House,
named after the late Liverpool and Everton footballer Gary Ablett.
Completed in a year, the bespoke 12-storey, 396-bed building
has been designed to provide students in Liverpool with a relaxing
environment in which to live, study and unwind. The
accommodation offers students a choice of three to seven-bed
apartments.
Mindful of the disruption and cost implications that arise from
frequent false alarms in student accommodation, The Student
Housing Company specified a bespoke fire alarm solution with a
range of cause-and-effect programming to ensure fast and accurate
detection of a suspected fire.
“Students often fall foul of the fire alarm system due to creating
nuisance or unwanted alarms. It is a challenging environment for
fire systems but the Eaton system has performed flawlessly,” said
Alasdair Croft, EFT System’s Project Manager.
“What was unique about Ablett House was that it presented a
very complicated cause and effect scenario. We had confidence in
the product and received on-site training from Eaton to help us with
the programming.”
In order to meet the project’s detection and alarm requirements,
EFT installed four of Eaton’s CF3000 addressable control panels
throughout the student accommodation.
Mike Slater, sales account manager at Eaton said: “The
installation needed to be completed fairly quickly so we provided
design, programming and system support to assist delivery within
the tight timescale.”
Unlike conventional
panels, addressable control
panels can pinpoint the
particular detection device
that has been activated,
thereby speeding up the
process of determining the
source of the outbreak. This is
viewed as being particularly
important in a challenging
environment such as student
accommodation, where false
alarms are common.
To help minimise additional
cost implications for the
owner or manager of a
building, the CF3000 panels
use soft addressing to
decrease installation time and
reduce the potential for error
associated with manual
addressing.
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