Apollo Alarmsense Ideal for HMO's?

HMO's or Houses of Multiple Occupancy have been widely acknowledged as a specific type of building which has required particular attention when it comes to designing and specifying a fire alarm system.  There are several factors which need to be considered in designing and specifying a suitable fire system.  HMO buildings tend to be relatively simple buildings to navigate and exit.  For example they may consist of a main central staircase, alternative emergency exit and a handful of landing areas.  Fire systems to protect these types of buildings don't need to be particularly sophisticated, but they do however need to be fit for purpose.  False alarm management in HMO's also needs to be considered when designing and specifying a suitable system.  False alarms in HMO's are most commonly caused by tenant activities.  Examples of these activities are:-

  • Burnt toast or cooking fumes
  • Steam from bathrooms or kitchens
  • Aerosols, from hairspray or cleaning products for example
  • Candles
  • Tobacco smoke
  • Build-up of dust

Failure to take these factors into consideration could lead to an unacceptable rate of false alarms within the property which could have a series of consequences.  The consequences could be inappropriate call out of emergency services which may lead to fines, inconvenience to the inhabitants of the property and in extreme cases could lead to the occupants of the building ignoring a genuine alarm which could possibly have fatal consequences.

Is the Answer Apollo Alarmsense?

The Apollo Alarmsense product allows conventional / non-addressable type fire systems to be installed using detectors, sounder, beacons and call points all on the same zone circuit.  The Apollo Alarmsense system is known as a 'two-wire' fire system.  The Apollo Alarmsense system has been designed by Apollo to meet the detection and alarm criteria demanded by HMO's.

Apollo Alarmsense

The Apollo Alarmsense range of equipment includes a wide variety of products which can be used to create a wide variety of bespoke fire alarm system designs.  The Apollo Alarmsense range features both rate of rise and fixed temperature heat detectors, optical and integrated smoke detectors, call points, sounder bases, sounder beacon bases and relays.  This Alarmsense range of devices coupled with the benefits of the system being able to accomodate sounders and detectors on the same circuit means that an extremely cost effective system can be installed in a relatively quick installation time.

All of the detectors in the Apollo Alarmsense range have been designed to be false alarm resistant to many common causes of false alarms.  These include insects, high humidity and water ingress.  The Apollo Alarmsense sounder base and sounder beacon bases also have another feature which is extremely useful.  This is that they can be adjusted for priority and non priority signalling.  The use of this feature allows detectors positioned within individual flats or dwellings to be set to non-priority and detectors positioned in communal areas to be set as a priority signal.  The advantage of this feature means that when an activation is made within an individual dwelling or room, only the signalling devices within the individual dwelling with initially activate.  If it is a false alarm, the occupants have a time period of 2 minutes to deal with the cause of the false alarm and therefore silence the sounders.  If the cause of the alarm is cleared from the detector within this two minute period, the system will reset back to normal state.  If the detector remains in a fire state for the full two minute period the system will then raise a full evacuation on all signalling devices throughout the building.

For More Information On These Products Please Click The Following Link:-  Apollo Alarmsense