Our Client’s Requirement

De Aston School is a mixed secondary school with academy status in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England, with a sixth form and boarding house. It has grown over the years, with fire alarms being added as and when required resulting in a number of different systems across site with differing levels of cover. The systems were linked together, but personnel did not have full addressability across the site for any panel position. This meant that in the event of a test or activation the building manager would have to go to more than one panel location to silence and reset. In addition not all areas were adequately covered and as such did not meet current British Standard guidelines.

The senior management team realised that they needed to install an up to date system across the entire campus. They had the budget for it and time was of the essence.

The Main Issue

Whilst the budget was available, there was limited time to get a new system installed. The site required three control panels, 450 sensors and 22 electrical supplies to support the radio network communicators. This could take anything from 6 weeks to install (for a normal wire-free system) or up to 12 weeks for a hard-wired fire alarm.

The school needed this installing within the October half term holiday, so we had 9 days (including the weekends) in which to complete the entire installation.

Our Solution

We are not a company to shy away from a challenge!

The most recent system installed was a wireless EMS Firecell system and was one that site were happy with. Given the time scales, this was chosen as the system that should be rolled out across the whole site. Our relationship with the manufacturer is such that we were able to work closely with them in order to meet the tight timescales. We had only 4 days from receipt of order to engineer the project and submit our order, including all text scheduling to EMS. They then turned the kit around for us pre-programmed within 5 days.

Our engineers were on site each day from the first Saturday until our final commissioning day, some days working 12 hours where required, and completed the install and commissioning within the timescale allocated. We were lucky to have the support of the site manager also on site which meant any issues that came up could be quickly resolved.

In Our Clients Words

“Having this equipment installed has given us a cohesive system across the whole site for the first time in over 30 years. We are able to control from each panel location providing real benefits and traceability in the event of a fire. We only had a very short timescale from planning to delivery and were fearful of missing the opportunity but that fear was soon put to rest when S S Systems came on board with their determination and professional approach in delivering this project. All departments pulled together and we were pleased that the project was delivered on time and on budget. Having already had some experience of the EMS Firecell system in one area of site we are now pleased to have it rolled out through the whole school with minimal disruption.”