The interiors of large church buildings such as Norwich Cathedral, with their beautiful and intricate architecture, create acoustically demanding environments for voice evacuation systems. Itโs vitally important that clear and unambiguous messages are broadcast to staff and public in the event of a fire or incident.
When their existing PA/VA system proved to be inadequate in this demanding environment, the cathedral turned to Vimpexโs Fire-Cryer Voice Sounders as a replacement.
โThe specification for the new system called for three independent members of the Cathedralโs staff to approve the sound quality and sign-off the project,โ said Paul Field, Project Engineer with BBC Fire Protection, the installers of the upgraded voice evacuation product. โThey found that the Fire-Cryers gave good intelligibility throughout the building โ quite an achievement considering relatively few sounders were used to cover the interior of this grand cathedral.โ
The Maxi Fire-Cryer is an industrial sounder delivering an output of 116dBA and designed for open spaces, warehouses and harsh industrial environments. Six Maxi Fire-Cryers were installed in the Triforium above the Nave and in the North and South Transcepts, with six standard Fire-Cryers® in various offices, the shop and a storage area.
Though the Fire-Cryer is capable of broadcasting seven messages, the cathedral used a single simple message; โIn the interest of safety please evacuate the building immediatelyโ, to ensure an orderly evacuation and to eliminate confusion. The Fire-Cryer is installed in ecclesiastical buildings including St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square.
The Fire-Cryer range of voice sounders has five models. Each unit can be programmed with up to seven messages from a library of thousands, many of which are multi-lingual, ensuring that any site requirement can be fulfilled. The units require no special wiring and can be retrofitted. They can be fully synchronised and have a low current consumption allowing simple replacement of existing sounders and bells, the makers add.
Note about the firm
Vimpex Ltd, creators of the FIRE-CRYER Voice Enhanced Sounder are specialist distributors of alarm and ancillary products for the fire and security industry. Details of the Fire-Cryer range can be downloaded from the Vimpex website (www.vimpex.co.uk) where visitors can also access sample messages and a range of video clips covering the history and application of voice sounders.
