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Welcoming with open
doors at missionaries
of charity
The Edinburgh Missionaries of Charity convent is
a five-storey building in a picturesque Georgian
crescent. Five days a week the sisters and their
volunteers provide meals to the homeless.
“ Between 50 and 65 homeless people are fed at each meal,
fire alarm system serving the whole building. Andy placed his
demo Transmitter on top of fire alarm panel which is on the
ground floor. We walked around all 18 doors that needed Dorgard
Pro and the transmitter linked to all of them, whether they
were in the basement, on the ground floor or the first floor. I was
very impressed.”
with around 10 others serving and clearing away. The dining
room is located in the basement, with access doors from “I had looked at a hardwired magnet system but the cost
the corridor and to the commercial kitchen and store room. was phenomenal. As well as buying the magnets themselves,
there’s the expense and disruption of raggling cables into
With so many people in the basement at mealtimes, it’s a very
the walls and then all the decorating costs on top of that.”
busy area. To avoid the room feeling hot and stuffy and to
keep foot traffic flowing, the doors were held open on hooks.
“Dorgard Pro was far and away the best option. I was
new to the product but I easily installed it myself — it’s
When the local fire inspector visited the premises he advised that
not rocket science! It really is a very good system.”
the hooks on fire doors were not compliant with fire regulations
and needed to be removed. A solution was needed to hold “As it’s such an old building, some of the floors were a little
the fire doors open legally and safely, as keeping them closed uneven. We just installed a floor plate in these cases, and
all the time was not practical in such a bustling environment. the Dorgard Pro units worked perfectly.”
Colin Beer, owner of CJ Solutions was asked to find the “Another plus with Dorgard Pro is that it is directly connected
answer. He spoke to Fireco, who sent an engineer to do a to the fire alarm panel and radio-activated. It only releases the
survey of the Missionaries of Charity building. doors in the event of a fire alarm. Other systems I’ve seen react
to loud noises and close the doors when you don’t want them to
Colin said: “I looked at a number of different options with which wouldn’t be suitable in the noisy environment of the
Andy, the Fireco engineer. For what was needed in the dining room.”
building, we decided that Dorgard Pro would work best.”
Dorgard Pro holds fire doors open, releasing them to close when Colin said: “Everything is working fine. We’ve tested them by
the fire alarm sounds. It features a separate Transmitter that is setting off the fire alarm and Dorgard Pro released the doors
directly wired into the fire alarm panel. automatically. The sisters are happy because the fire officer
is happy, so they can tick another task off the list! Dorgard
Colin said: “The Missionaries of Charity building has a hard-wired
Visit www.fireco.uk
Pro does what it says on the tin. It’s very good.”
LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | JAN/FEB 2019
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