Hush button a big hit in student hall of residence

21 July 2009

C-Tecs' hush button fire alarm solution is making a real impact with more and more multiple occupation houses benefiting from reduced false alarms and improved fire protection. Boatman Court, student accomodation block in Lancashire is just one of them.

FALSE alarms are notoriously high in student halls of residence. Yet in the 9 months since Boatman Court opened, not one false alarm has been reported, nor has the Fire Brigade ever been called out to the building, which houses over 70 students. According to Graeme Sharples, the owner-manager of the plush new five- storey block of student flats, the absence of false alarms can be attributed solely to the presence of C-TECs' Hush Buttons, which are installed in each of the buildings' 17 apartments.

Graeme said; “The Hush Buttons allow students to silence any false alarms they’ve caused themselves, for example by burning the toast. To any Building Manager, the advantages of this are obvious especially in a place housing young people. I don’t get called out in the middle of the night to deal with the Fire Brigade, check the building, reset the panel and all the other headaches typically associated with false alarms.”

One of C-TEC’s XFP addressable fire panels is installed in the buildings' reception area which is connected via its two addressable loops to a vast array of Apollo XP95 addressable detectors and sounders and, crucially, 17 of C-TEC’s Hush Buttons (one per apartment).

Hush Buttons provide students with a means of silencing false alarms themselves thereby preventing the full-scale evacuation of other residents in the building. Not only does this prevent the unnecessary calling of the Fire Brigade, it means the safety of the building and its residents is never compromised.

An additional feature of the system is that the Hush Buttons can temporarily isolate the local zone if, for example, building or maintenance work is taking place - another common cause of false alarms. Pressing the Hush Button when it is in its normal state will cause a hushed period of 15 minutes to begin,” says Nigel. “During this period, power is cut to the local zone so no alarm signals can be detected except those from manual call points. After 15 minutes, or when the Hush Button is pressed again, the system returns to its normal state.

As well as reducing false alarms, the system is geared towards providing a rapid response to genuine fire alarm conditions. If, at any time the control panel enters a genuine fire condition, it overrides any hushed state at a Hush Button and turns on all its local sounders. Likewise, if an apartments' manual call point is operated, it instantly turns on all of the areas' local sounders and reports the condition to the landlords' panel.

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Hush button a big hit in student hall of residence

21 July 2009

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