The Pullman Sharjah Hotel and Residential Unit, pictured, is a 43-storey twin tower block with about 1,500 occupants in the United Arab Emirates. It has a five-star hotel in one tower and residential apartment block in the other, and a communal basement connecting the two. The installation firm Dafoos Fire Protection turned to Hochiki Middle East for life safety products.
Dafoos specified Hochiki’s L@titude system – as a control and indication system that combines hardware and software – and FIREscape emergency lighting. L@titude has been installed by Dafoos across the numerous floors of the hotel and residential units.
The L@titude control panel has been designed to maximise usability and ease of operation for end users, so facilities management and maintenance teams can locate safety breaches in real-time from any location. To allow information to be displayed about each detection device within the hotel and apartment blocks, the product also uses a colour touchscreen display.
The modular nature of the system allows all field wiring to be connected to a passive mother board, enabling addition, re-configuration or replacement of electronic hardware without the need to disconnect older wiring. This, in turn, allowed for an installation with minimal disruption, the firms add.
The L@titude panel is available in EN or UL system configurations, ideal it’s claimed for a region that regularly specifies projects involved in both types of system approvals. For this project, an EN (European) system was specified, with L@titude being complaint with European safety standards, including EN54-2, EN54-4 and EN54-13, while supporting up to 5,000 cause and effect entries. The platform has a 10,000-capacity event log and can run up to 144 zone indicators.
Subin Suhas, Territory Sales Manager at Hochiki Middle East, said: “This project was quite challenging due to the infrastructure and the number of devices that would be needed throughout the buildings. As we were working within a hotel as well, the client wanted to ensure the products used were of a high quality and known for fewer false alarms, so we knew L@titude was the perfect solution. The fact we could offer a combination of fire alarms and emergency devices under the same umbrella was also an added advantage, with FIREscape ensuring an added layer of safety for occupiers.”
FIREscape emergency lighting is based around an addressable control panel with a battery back-up. The product features self-contained LED luminaries and exit signage connected via screened, extra-low voltage cabling. FIREscape is also fully self-monitored and self-testing with a central point of control.
Dafoos Fire Protection installed seven L@titude panels, each of which had eight circuit loops, and around 3,500 fire alarm devices throughout the towers. Eight emergency lighting panels and 1,200 devices were installed. Hochiki engineers visited the site on multiple occasions to provide extended help in design and commissioning, and to offer support with inspections from the emirate’s civil defence.
Visit: www.hochikieurope.com.
