As Harefield Place is a residential building, it was vital to the property developer that they installed a reliable fire detection system to protect against the risk of fire. As NSI Gold Accredited and BAFE approved fire alarm installers, Octagon were tasked with designing and installing a system that would protect the residents of the apartments should a fire occur. Based on the Fire Strategy for the building we installed an addressable fire alarm system encompassing the two buildings. These use sophisticated programming that allow us to assign a specific ‘address’ to each device on the system, meaning the source of the alarm can be traced much faster and with greater accuracy. Time is of the essence when dealing with fire detection systems.

The flats comprised of an existing listed building and a separate brand-new building with a total of 25 apartments across the two. The fire alarm comprised of two addressable panels programmed to work both independently and in conjunction with each other.

Our design utilised sophisticated programming to enable the system to integrate with multiple third-party ancillary pieces of equipment and systems such as a smoke aspirating system, automatic opening vents (AOV’s), air circulation and extraction systems, electronically operated fire doors, two lifts and a sprinkler system.

The system was installed, programmed and commissioned by performing comprehensive testing to determine not only that the systems were functioning properly but also that the programming matched the complex requirements laid out in the fire strategy. All possible scenarios were tested for the correct action in the event of a fire, depending upon the location of the activation.

Each of the 25 apartments also had its own individual fire alarm system designed to differing categories according to the specific risks for each apartment as set out in the fire strategy report.