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News Release from: Severnside Safety Supplies | Subject: RadioLINK alarms
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 17 December 2004
Severnside Housing trials RadioLINK
alarms
Severnside Housing in Shrewsbury has been conducting trials on new Ei RadioLink wireless interconnect mains powered smoke alarms from Aico.
Severnside has been a regular user of Ei smoke alarms since the transfer of housing stock to the association from Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council in 2001 As part of the Promise Document to tenants, Severnside agreed to install quality mains-powered smoke alarms into all 5,500 properties
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 18 Nov 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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"I'd worked with Aico before and was familiar with Ei smoke alarms," says Terry Gray, Contracts Manager of Severnside, recalling the decision to specify Ei150 Series alarms.
"They had a good name, and you didn't get a lot of faults with their products.
Any problems that we have had were dealt with in an efficient manner.
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Also, being the market-leader in the supply of mains operated smoke detectors didn't hurt matters either." Severnside drew up a five year plan to install Ei smoke alarms in its properties, starting with the Ei150 Series and then switching to the Ei160 Series as it became available to take advantage of the 10 year plus Lithium cell back-up.
As Severnside is local to Aico's head office in Oswestry, the housing association has enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the distributor over the years and so was a natural choice to be asked to trial Ei's new RadioLink wireless mains powered alarms when they were introduced in 2004.
RadioLink eliminates the need for hard-wired interconnection.
Each alarm base contains a transceiver and, when one alarm senses smoke, it sends out a radio signal to trigger every other alarm coded onto the system.
"We installed Ei's new RadioLink alarms into six of our properties, in order to comply with BS 5839 Part 6," says Terry Gray.
"There were a mixture of houses and bungalows.
In the houses, we had one alarm positioned upstairs and one downstairs.
In the bungalows, we installed a single RadioLink alarm with a sounder extension in the master bedroom.
We also tested the remote test and hush facility in the bungalows." The installations were carried out by Octopus Electrical, who handle Severnside's rewiring contract, and Andy Walers Electrical Contractor, who won the contract for dedicated smoke alarm installations.
Aico personnel were on-site to cover the installation.
"Installing RadioLink wasn't complicated," comments Terry.
"It's basically just like installing regular mains-powered smoke alarms, but without the hardwired interconnection work.
Coding the house system so that all of the alarms are linked together was probably the most complex task." Severnside has been testing the RadioLink system for four months now and is presently considering specifying it for future installations.
"I haven't done the costings yet but there could be labour savings to be gained," says Terry.
"It's difficult to fully assess the reliability of the technology after only four months but we have to date experienced no problems at all.
"I think RadioLink is the way forward for companies like us, looking to install mains powered smoke alarm detection into a large number of retrofit properties.".
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