Building engineering
Fire alarm systems
Addressable and conventional panels, detectors, sounders and fire-rated cable.
A fire alarm system picks a fire up while it is still smoke or a rise in temperature rather than open flame. The detectors pass the signal to the control panel, the panel raises the alarm, and the people inside get the time they need to leave. The panel's job does not end at the siren: its outputs start the evacuation audio, shut down ventilation, release the magnetic door holders and monitor the state of the sprinkler system, so that from the moment of detection the whole building follows one logic. An addressable panel names the individual detector that operated; a conventional one shows only the zone that detector sits in.
A detector is chosen to suit the room, not the other way round. Steam in a kitchen or a laundry, exhaust fumes in an underground car park, dust in a warehouse or a workshop all look like fire to a smoke detector, so those spaces take a heat, combined or beam detector instead. Under a high ceiling smoke cools and thins out before it reaches a point sensor, and that is where a beam detector earns its place by crossing the space horizontally. Air movement matters too: smoke passes a detector mounted close to a supply diffuser or an extract grille without ever entering it. Ceiling structure, beams, the spacing between detectors and the direction of airflow therefore decide the detection time as much as the type of sensor does. At installation this is joined by loop calculation, standby power, fire-rated cable that keeps the circuit alive during a fire, and an address and a label on every device.
A fire alarm only works while the alarm is trusted. In a building where the sounders go off for no reason on a regular basis, nobody walks out, the person responsible turns the panel down or disables the troublesome zone, and by the time a signal turns out to be real the building has been trained out of reacting to it. Trust is built technically: a detector matched to the room, a drawing carrying the position and the address of every device, a separate test of each detector, call point and sounder before handover, and staff who know what a message on the panel means and what to do next. Keeping it there takes periodic testing, because a fire alarm is one of the rare systems in a building whose health never shows in daily use.
What it covers
- Addressable and conventional control panels
- Wireless control panels
- Smoke, heat, combined and beam detectors
- Sounders and manual call points
- Addressable modules and fire-rated cable
Where it applies
- Hotels and residential complexes
- Clinics and medical centres
- Universities, colleges and schools
- Shopping centres and retail chains
- Office buildings, server and archive rooms
- Warehouses, workshops and underground car parks
Standards and regulations
Two normative frameworks shape a fire alarm design: NFPA 72, which governs fire detection and signalling systems, and the EN 54 series, whose individual parts cover the control panel (EN 54-2), point smoke detectors (EN 54-7), heat detectors, sounders, manual call points and power supply equipment, while a separate part of the same series covers the planning, installation, commissioning and maintenance side of that system. In practice that is what decides how much area one detector covers at a given ceiling height, how the building is divided into zones, how long the system has to keep running on standby power after the mains fails, and also that a broken or short-circuited line has to appear on the panel as a fault rather than pass unnoticed. On top of those sit the Georgian technical regulation on fire safety and the certification of the system carried out on its basis.
Need a consultation?
Call or write to us. We'll establish which system your site actually needs.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a fire alarm keep going off for no reason?
The most common cause is the wrong type of detector in the wrong place: steam near a kitchen, dust in a warehouse and exhaust fumes in a car park all look like fire to a smoke detector. The second is contamination — dust and insects collecting in the detector's chamber change its sensitivity over time, so cleaning or replacing the device is often enough. The third is mechanical: a detector sitting in an air stream, or immediately next to a kitchen door or a shower, needs to be moved. When false alarms repeat at the same point, the answer is not to switch off the panel or the zone but to look at that space again: what actually goes on in that room, and which sensor suits it.
What is the difference between an addressable and a conventional fire alarm?
A conventional system divides the building into zones and shows only which zone is in alarm; an addressable one names the individual detector by number and location. On a large site or a complex floor plan that is the difference between reaching the source in seconds and walking the whole floor. An addressable panel also reports contamination and faults separately, device by device, which makes maintenance far easier. A conventional system is still a sound choice on a small site, but the decision belongs to the design stage, because changing it later means running the cabling again.
How much does a fire alarm system cost?
The number of devices sets the price, not the square metre. How many detectors, call points, sounders and modules go in follows from the building itself: ceiling height and the partition layout decide how many points cover a floor, a hotel or a clinic counts every room and every ward separately, and a warehouse with a high ceiling takes a beam detector in place of several point ones. The second factor is the panel: addressable equipment costs more per device but needs fewer lines and less cable than dividing the same building into zones conventionally. The third is how many other systems the panel has to drive: evacuation audio, ventilation, door holders, the sprinkler system — each of them means another module and another line.
Is a fire alarm system mandatory in a building?
That is settled by the function of the building, its area, its number of storeys and how many people are inside at once: the technical regulation sorts buildings into categories on exactly those grounds, and each category carries its own requirement for automatic fire detection and signalling. Public buildings — a hotel, a clinic, a teaching institution, a retail or office building — fall under those requirements. Which category a particular building belongs to, and how large a system it calls for, is established from documentation: the architectural plan, the stated use and the escape plan together give the answer. That belongs to the consultation and design stage.
Request a consultation
Fill in the form and we'll get back to you during working hours.