In the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, the 60,000m2 Markovo Tepe Mall has taken more than eight years to complete. Such shopping centres drew high volumes of people; not all are familiar with the layout of entrances and exits or public spaces. This presents building owners and facilities managers with challenges in terms of life safety.
To ensure the well-being of staff and shoppers alike, the mall required an addressable life safety system that would allow duty holders to locate and draw attention to emergency incidents as quickly as possible. An increased number of detectors were also needed across the eight-storey site to ensure any potential risks could be effectively monitored.
The security system specifier, Sectron Ltd, chose to install Hochiki Europe products, having worked with the life safety product manufacturer for some years. Installed were products from Hochiki Europe’s ESP range of intelligent devices, which use the Enhanced Systems Protocol (ESP). The ESP product range offers compliance to globally recognised safety standards, the makers say, while the open protocol gives installers the flexibility to incorporate devices from multiple manufacturers.
Optical smoke and thermal detectors, beam detectors and sounders compatible with ESP were fitted. Combined strobe and sounder beacons were also added to make sure building users are notified to any safety issues within the complex. The common areas of the Markove Tepe Mall and most of the stores have been fitted with Hochiki Europe products. In total, more than 1,300 detectors were installed at the shopping mall.
Vladimir Vasilev, project manager for First Facility Bulgaria EOOD said: “Ensuring high standards of safety for shoppers and staff is of paramount importance. To achieve this, we needed a dependable and flexible fire detection system that would identify hazards at the earliest opportunity. By using Hochiki Europe’s intelligent and addressable products, we can immediately identify any threats and notify building users.”
Georgi Kolev, product manager for fire protection and suppression systems at Sectron Ltd added: “We’ve been using Hochiki Europe’s systems for more than 20 years. Not only are the company’s solutions highly reliable, they also offer superior networking capability. Because of this, we were able to easily network these products with the Kentec control panels used on this project.”
And Petia Simeonova, Hochiki Europe’s Central/Eastern European sales manager said: “Hochiki Europe has a wide range of addressable products and systems designed specifically to suit complex shopping environments like the Markovo Tepe Mall. Our ESP range offers unparalleled reliability for users in terms of performance and durability. We’re happy to have played a role in protecting this new venue for the local community in Plovdiv.”
Visit: www.hochikieurope.com.
