Paston College in the Norfolk town of North Walsham is a co-ed sixth form college. Norwich Education Services recommended a new fire system, to meet BS5839 Part 1 2017 for an L2 (life protection) category.
The install required networking across buildings; and the Nelson Museum (the victor of Trafalgar was an old boy). The campus is split by a main road. A local installer, TP Fire & Security fitted addressable fire detection and alarms. Kevin Harris from Norwich-based TP described it as ‘an incredibly complex project’, working with modern and historic buildings. “We chose Hochiki because it afforded us the flexibility with the systems and devices that were needed, with a project such as this. Despite the innovation that goes into the Hochiki products, they are possibly the simplest on the market when it comes to installation. This simplicity allowed us to implement a phased approach which enabled us to keep the existing conventional two-wire systems running whilst the new Hochiki addressable system was installed. This meant the college remained safe and operational all the while.”
The College wanted to keep to budgets, especially when it came to the operational costs for the system. As hundreds of pupils and staff attend weekdays, any life safety system had to be reliable and minimise false alarms.
Lionel Levinson, Estates and Facilities Surveyor, said: “As a result of City College Norwich’s merger with Paston college 2017/2018 the fire detection and life safety system needed to be updated, and we knew it would be a complex task given the fact that the Paston campus is split down the middle by a main road. Not only that, given our historical building status this project needed to be handled carefully and the products chosen needed to be the best on the market. Working with TP Fire was easy and efficient, and we were confident in the products from Hochiki that they recommended.”
