Bristol and South-West based electrical contractor Hector Tanner and Company has recently completed work on two high rise blocks on behalf of Bristol City Council, fitting RadioLINK wireless interconnect mains powered smoke alarms from Aico.

"We had been contracted by Bristol City Council to do the complete rewiring of two high rise blocks," says Director Andrew Tanner. "Francombe House and Waring House both date from the 1960s and still had their original wiring. As part of the contract, we were also asked to install mains powered smoke alarms in all the properties - but the construction and layout of the building presented immediate difficulties."

Most of the flats in the blocks were on two levels, and this would mean extensive trunking if the smoke alarms were to be interconnected. While most of the new electrical cabling could be laid utilising the original conduits, none existed for the smoke alarm wiring - and the concrete construction of the blocks effectively ruled out recessed wiring.

"At a meeting between ourselves, Council Surveyor Keith Buck and the Tenants' Association, it was pointed out that a lot of the residents might object to all the trunking conventional hard-wired smoke alarms would require," says Mr Tanner. "However, I had heard about Aico's RadioLINK system which connects alarms by radio signals rather than by wiring and this seemed a good solution - especially as we already use Aico mains-powered alarms on all our work for
Bristol City Council."

However, as with all new technology, the Council were initially wary of trusting to radio interconnection. Hector Tanner and Co then installed a test system into one of the two storey flats to demonstrate RadioLINK's effectiveness. Following the trial, the Council gave the contractors permission to install RadioLINK into the rest of the properties.

"We had never fitted RadioLINK before," Mr Tanner explains, "but found it fairly straightforward. The only measure we found we need to take was to 'house code' each system in a flat individually, rather than doing two or more properties at the same time. This prevented any cross-contamination between nearby alarms during the coding process."

Alarms utilising RadioLINK wireless interconnection technology were installed in each two storey property - one alarm in each of the hallways.

Work on both high rise blocks is now complete and the RadioLINK systems are reported to be working well.

Email: Julie@publicityoverload.co.uk