13 Sep New residential tower emergency communication system designed
In the past decade fires in tower blocks have made international headlines from the Abbco Tower in Sharjah and The Torch in Dubai going up in flames through to the devastating Grenfell Tower fire in London, England which resulted in people losing their lives.
What has become clear from these tragedies is that a stronger method of informing residents in tower blocks about such situation is critical to preserving life.
Baldwin Boxall has now developed a solution, designed to ensure that safety announcements can be broadcast to single floors, multiple floors or the entire building in the event of an emergency situation. The solution has already been installed as a secondary measure to one building’s existing fire detection and traditional sounders, after consultation with fire chiefs, councils and landlords.
The residential tower emergency communication solution is an enhanced PA system, with loudspeakers that are vandal resistant. To further reduce any chance of system damage, the end-of-line monitoring ability is achieved by specially fitting monitoring PCBs within the loudspeaker units. Even should the system incur damage or experience a line fault, it will continue to keep functioning to keep residents safe.
In fact, much attention has been given to ensuring that regardless of the situation, the system can continue to function. At regular intervals a monitoring ‘pulse’ is deployed to ensure its integrity.
The system uses a network of Eclipse4 units and surface-mounted touchscreen microphone. The fully-integrated voice evacuation system takes up minimal floor space, and can be installed as a stand-alone unit or as a networked system with multiple units.