Aico Ltd - Aico wireless smoke alarm interconnection provides innovative solution in Glasgow residential property

Aico's RadioLINK wireless interconnect mains powered smoke alarm technology proved to be the ideal solution when a large residential property in Glasgow needed to have its fire detection coverage significantly increased.
The property in question was a four storey Victorian building. The architect on the project had originally specified a fire detection system using conventional Ei160 mains powered smoke and heat alarms from Aico. The system was configured so that there was a heat alarm in the kitchen and mains powered optical alarms on each landing of the four storey dwelling. The system was then duly installed by AFS Property Services of Glasgow.
Fraser Sergeant, Managing Director of AFS, recalls: "The system as instructed to us worked fine - but when Glasgow's Building Control inspected the property, they concluded that the system gave insufficient coverage for both the style and layout of the building. Some rooms boasted ceilings 15 feet high, for example, and Building Control's solution was to insist on a smoke alarm in every room. Furthermore, all alarms had to be interconnected into a single system."
This presented a very real problem. The property had already been extensively refurbished, with rooms decorated and painted and luxury hardwood floors laid down in virtually every room. Installing all the extra alarms would have not presented a problem, but connecting them with hard wired interconnection would have caused untold damage to the new luxury décor, with floors being torn up, huge amounts of trunking installed everywhere and so forth.
Luckily, Mr Sergeant had recently read about a solution while visiting his local electrical wholesalers, Rexel Senate of Glasgow. "I was in the wholesalers when I came across a leaflet about Aico's new wireless mains powered RF interconnect system called RadioLINK," he recalls. "I realised that might prove to be a way of building this large new smoke alarm system without having to destroy the décor."
AFS set about installing the Aico RadioLINK wireless interconnect system using Ei160 series alarms with 10 year plus Lithium cell back-up technology. Twelve new wireless alarms were added to bedrooms and living areas. "We were even able to make use of the existing seven alarm system we'd originally installed," reports Mr Sergeant. "We just simply swapped their bases from conventional hard-wired interconnect unit to RF wireless bases. We then coded all the alarms - new and old - into one cohesive overall system."
The whole job, comprising installing twelve new alarms, converting eight existing alarms and coding them into a single wireless system took AFS just three hours.
Building Control were invited to re-inspect the new Aico RadioLINK system, had a floor-by-floor demonstration and duly passed the system as meeting their standards.
"Aico's RadioLINK system solved our problem and satisfied the inspectors, who are very rigorous and demanding in Glasgow these days,' says Mr Sergeant. "What's more, the whole exercise of installing a wireless system cost our clients around £1100. If we'd had to hardwire the whole thing - which we would have had to have done without RadioLINK - the bill to our client would have been closer to £20,000 given the amount of renovation work required. The system has since been in situ
with no problems reported and we would certainly use Aico RadioLINK in future where the application called for it."

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