In the village of Borghetto di Valeggio sul Mincio, near Verona in northern Italy, the Corte Regia Relais and Spa overlooks the River Mincio, with views across to the Scaliger Castle and the Visconteo Bridge and a short journey to Lake Garda.
In 2020 the hotel underwent a renovation of historical barns. As part of the project a fire detection and life safety system was installed throughout the hotel’s luxury rooms and spa. The installer, Cressoni Impianti Tecnolgici, chose Hochiki Italia as product manufacturer.
The biggest challenge was the fact that the hotel was a listed historical building. The original stone walls date from the 800s and the ceilings with wooden beams had to be kept. This made wiring quite complex, hence the need for a wireless solution. To keep with the aesthetics of the building and to minimise changes to the buildings the Hochiki Italia team worked with the installer and the architect to satisfy the client’s request to be sympathetic and respect the historical building.
Installed were Hochiki’s ESP range and Ekho wireless systems. Products from the ESP range included multi-heat sensors, intelligent photoelectric smoke sensors with short circuit isolators and chamber technology. This allowed for sensor threshold levels to be increased, thereby improving the signal to noise ratio which reduced the susceptibility to false alarms.
The Ekho hybrid system uses the latest MESH net technology to provide a minimum of disturbance to the surroundings – particularly important in keeping to the aesthetics of the spa where installation of fire cabling would have been difficult, expensive or even prohibited in some parts. The wireless solution installed could be expanded around the entire site and worked particularly well with the original solid walls of the building.
Ezio Danese, Project manager at Hochiki Italia, said: “The project had to comply with both architectural and standards requirements. The standards state that inside each room, in addition to a smoke detector, an alarm must be installed with a sound level of 75dB (A) in addition to an optical system capable of reaching even hearing-impaired people. For this reason, the EKWL8-OV detectors were chosen as they are equipped with an EN54-23 certified VAD and an EN54-3 certified voice sounder. The translators, connected to Hochiki’s ESP loop, were installed in the false ceilings in the corridors; their considerable range (1,200m in free area) made it possible to reach all the different wireless devices installed in the rooms. The Ekho system proved to be a perfect solution for the Corte Regia Relais and Spa project.”
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