The Challenge

With a football club undergoing any form of refurbishment, time scale and disruption to supporters, players, corporate and hospitality events, and employees are huge factors to consider before any work to the life safety systems takes place. The life safety specialist undertaking a potential contract must ensure that the works can be completed with minimal disruption on time and within budget with little to no disruption to everyday activities and outline how such a substantial task would be undertaken.

The Solution

Tender Stage & Design Development – Before initiating any work, a complete site survey was conducted by Protec to evaluate the size and needs of the project. This involved the installation and design engineers walking the site to determine the best way to carry out the work with minimal disruption while also bringing the site up to current BS 5839 Part 1 requirements. The site survey allowed the creation of new fire alarm designs and a plan for the proposed works, which was then presented as part of the tender package to the client.

Principal Contractor –The client directly employed Protec as the principal contractor to carry out the major works of the fire alarm system. It was done to ensure the project could be completed efficiently within the allotted timescale while also taking care of all the site infrastructure requirements (normally provided by M&E contractors on traditional projects). As the principal contractor, we provided our own storage, site cabins, welfare facilities and specialist waste skips ready for the works to go ahead.

Fire alarm – Upon conducting the initial site survey of the football club, it became apparent that the existing system would require an upgrade. Therefore, replacing the system with a new Protec 6500 fire detection system was the solution.
As the stadium was in operation, the fire alarm system installation was conducted in a way that minimised disruption to the everyday activities on site. The 6500 fire detection system was installed in phases, with a new system being installed alongside the old one, and once the new system was complete, the old system was decommissioned. In accordance with our ISO 14001 regulations, all the redundant cables and devices and disposed of appropriately.

The new fire alarm system consists of a series of 6500 Fire alarm panels strategically placed around the stadium and connected via a secure network. The field devices installed are from our 6000PLUS sensor range. Furthermore, the existing VEPA system was already utilised for the building’s evacuation. It was integrated into the new fire alarm system to initiate a widespread evacuation during a fire.

The Aftercare

As a part of the project, the client has signed a fully comprehensive service agreement with Protec to ensure that the systems are correctly maintained and operational for years to come. The Protec 6500 system installed offers an open protocol capability. An open protocol fire alarm system ensures a client can instruct a facilities management or fire and security company outside of Protec to undertake work on the system once the Protec service and maintenance agreement expires if they desire.