The historic home of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, in the heart of the City of London, is now protected by cutting edge wireless fire devices from Hyfire.
Built in 1888, originally as the home of the Royal College of Physicians, the Cutlers’ Hall features a famed terracotta frieze on the front façade, and contains many treasures belonging to the Company, which ranks 18th in the order of precedence of London livery companies. When the building’s antiquated fire systems required replacement, given the fragile nature of the interior fabric, a wireless solution was the obvious choice.
“Installs in historic buildings are always a challenge, although I’m pleased to say that wireless technology has made them a lot less complex in recent years,” said Rory Foster of Blake Contractors, the Hyfire Authorised Partner charged with carrying out the project. “Instead of having to carefully plan cable runs and working with multiple trades on ‘making good’, we can now focus on providing a system that meets all key requirements, without excessive costs or compromise.
“With so many high value furnishings and a building construction that even the bravest fire installer wouldn’t want to start drilling through, our specially trained designer and commissioning engineer worked with Hyfire to specify and install the 150-device system in a very swift two weeks from start to finish.”
Hyfire offers the widest range of commercial standard wireless fire devices on the market, ranging from optical, multi-criteria and heat detectors to EN54-23 Approved VAD’s, all fully certified to EN54. All products offer the highest performance and quality in the industry, and are also fully compliant with BS5839 Part 1. Fire panels are wired via a loop to translators, from which wireless devices can be used on their own to build fully wireless systems of virtually any size, or mixed with Hyfire wired products to provide seamless hybrid solutions, offering total flexibility to specifiers and installers.
Ollie Murray, Head of Sales – UK at Hyfire, commented: “Even by Hyfire standards, this was a challenging installation, but the beauty of wireless fire devices is that they can be installed in minutes with minimal impact on the fabric of the building, and our latest Taurus range offers quality and performance to equal any wired alternatives on the market.
“One quirk of this installation was the requirement for voice sounders in the public areas, in place of the Audible Alarm. For this, we worked with the Blake Contractors team to link the Hyfire wireless devices into Vimpex Firecryer Plus voice sounders, providing an incredible wireless voice sounder that has integrated into the Hyfire Taurus system perfectly, with all the usual benefits of wireless.”
Developed in Trieste, Italy, the global centre for wireless fire design, Taurus features Pathfinder Technology, which allows the devices to communicate over 1km, point to point in open air, and further where expansion hops are used. Antenna technology has been optimised to allow communication across different frequencies and environments, which means that Taurus can do the job with less equipment and less batteries, thus saving on costs.
A spokesperson for the Worshipful Company of Cutlers said: “Our first priority was obviously to achieve the required protection with minimal impact on our beloved building, so the option of a wireless system offered clear benefits. We went with the recommendation of Hyfire devices linked to an Advanced panel, the installation was carried out with minimal impact on the building, and I’m happy to report the system is incredibly responsive and reliable.”
Hyfire was launched in 2007, bringing to market some of the first commercial wireless detection and alarm devices fully certified to EN54. Since then, the Hyfire brand has become synonymous with quality, reliability and innovation in the commercial fire sector. Hyfire devices come with a five-year warranty, backed up by a dedicated partner programme to ensure the best survey, installation, commissioning, after sales service and exceptional technical support.