In relatively stable , well managed environments , a rate of one false alarm per 100 detectors should be achievable . |
interrogate problems , without ever having to leave the building .’
This innovative remote overview of systems resulted in a 75 per cent reduction in diagnostic time and considerable savings in service and maintenance costs .
This revolutionary approach to remote interrogation of systems becomes all the more critical at a time when there are changes afoot to devolve new powers to local government . Government is moving towards a position where Fire and Rescue authorities could be handed the power to demand cash for attending false fire alarms .
We ’ ve already seen the Fire and Rescue Service announce that fire crews may no longer respond to certain calls originating from automatic fire alarms in shops , offices or factories , following statistics that revealed 97 per cent of all responses to automatic fire alarms proved to be false alarms .
Risks of cost cutting
Social commentators are highlighting fears that one of the consequences of the current challenging economic climate could be severe cost cutting that reduces focus on management of life safety risks . This is not the time for companies to neglect fire risks , because a fire will at best be disruptive and could at worst lead to death , injury and even closure .
So all the more reason to recognise the revolutionary new trends emerging in intelligent building control , which can significantly reduce service call out costs by allowing you to first investigate ‘ trouble reports ’ through remote interrogation of BMS systems , a diagnostics overview that lets you identify non-urgent issues , often resolvable with a more convenient scheduled service visit at a later time .
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Unlocking the potential to minimise false alarms
For panel installers in this new digital age , the special combination of monitoring data and remote control capability is creating new opportunities for time saving interrogation of systems , especially for service and maintenance functions .
And the benefits can be rapidly seen when this potential is unlocked . Because , although networked devices are developed to monitor and report comprehensively on their own condition and environment , it ’ s very often the fact that only one per cent of data captured is analysed beyond a device ’ s primary function .
Make no mistake , smart interactions with an Internet enabled installation that permits the clarity of touch screen entry from any location , to pinpoint the precise status of all connected system devices , can allow you the real time overview so needful for remote troubleshooting to locate up-to-thesecond faults and malfunctions .
This holds true more than ever in the Fire and Security sector , especially in the current urgent calls to reduce the unacceptable level of false fire alarms .
Latest annual statistics record that in Great Britain more than 600,000 call out incidents were attended by fire and rescue services ( FRS ), with nearly 50 per cent of fire call outs due to false fire alarms . The cost of this wasted time for both business and the FRS is estimated to be well in excess of £ 1bn per year .
And a piece of news that should be of special concern to contractors is the fact that false fire alarms from automatic fire detection ( AFD ) systems due to poor maintenance are on the increase . Which raises the thorny question : What is an acceptable rate of false alarms ?
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New smart fire detection panels to reduce risk
Fortunately , the integration of AFD systems has advanced by a quantum leap in the last decade . And far sighted manufacturers are constantly working on more stable , more reliable fire detectors to ensure the fastest possible detection of an incident while striving to rule out unwanted false alarms .
At the same time fire panel manufacturers work to monitor and report on these new detection devices and include increasingly sophisticated software to further ensure false alarms are kept to a minimum and also to make sure operators of the system are alerted via a wide choice of smart media as soon as there is a fire or an event that could affect its performance .
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40 | July 2017 |