Innovative detector testing at Goldsmiths, University of London

28 Apr 2015

Goldsmiths is a world-renowned college forming part of the University of London. It traces its history back to 1891, and continues to provide excellent teaching in the fields of arts, designs, humanities and social sciences.

The University is still based on its original site in London, and has buildings dating back from its conception through to the modern day. This mix of architectures and building materials leads to challenges in the fire detection systems installed.

The Challenge:

The University's buildings contain a number of lifts to help with the movement of people and goods. Each lift shaft is protected from the risk of fire by a point smoke detector. Testing of these detectors involves risk assessments and sign-off to work, alternative access arrangements for the duration of the tests, a lift engineer to take the lift out of service, and a fire engineer to perform the actual functional smoke test.

This is time consuming and costly, and must be repeated for each lift on the site. It is however a legal requirement to test every detector at least once a year. Failure to do so can result in fines and imprisonment for those responsible for the fire system, and injury or worse to the occupants of the building in the event of a real fire.

Triple Star Fire and Security provide maintenance of the fire system, and work closely with Goldsmiths to ensure the systems will function as expected if ever required.

The Solution:

Triple Star Fire introduced an innovative approach to functional testing of smoke detectors. The Scorpion®system consists of a micro smoke generator mounted alongside the point detector in the lift shaft and connected to a control panel mounted in easy reach. Testing a detector in the lift shaft now takes a matter of minutes without any of the healthand safety issues or lift engineer costs that were required previously. The initial investment by the University is repaid in a very short time and reduces the on-going costs for the life of the detector.

Daren Pool, Managing Director at Triple Star Fire commented "We found Scorpion easy to install. It saves the client time and money, improves safety and ensures compliance with regulations."

Mr Tony Stacey (Maintenance & Engineering Manager) from Goldsmiths said "Scorpion is an investment that will shortly pay for itself while ensuring that building assets are no longer taken out of service to carry out routine maintenance".