E7 Building Partnerships
The Client
Kylna Court is the largest affordable housing and commercial development undertaken by Dacorum Borough Council. Situated in the Maylands area of Hemel Hempstead, this is a brand-new complex comprising of three conjoined blocks of 4, 5 and 6 storey buildings. Within it, there are 79 one- and two-bedroom apartments, with communal roof gardens. On the ground floor, there is a managed business suite, providing offices and shared meeting rooms for start-up businesses. (Drone video during construction)
The construction contract was awarded to Jarvis with their M&E division, E7 Building Services. Silver Group have a strong, long standing relationship with Jarvis and E7BS having already completed many other projects with them.
The Challenge
Due to the different uses, and main access points of the ground floor, compared to the upper residential floors, it was necessary to have two separate fire alarm systems but the two still need to be linked. In addition, the residential fire detection system had to be linked to the buildings sprinkler system that had already been installed by the contractor. The detectors and fire alarm panel had to also be correctly linked to the smoke ventilation system.
The Silver Group Solution
With such a vast project to work on, and the set of buildings still being in the middle of their construction, Silver Group split the installation into separate phases. The first phase was during the early stages of construction and included installing all the necessary wiring for fire alarms and vent systems. After this, all the devices were installed, along with the galvanised metal roof mounted vents. Then finally at the latter stages, full commissioning, testing and certification.
The ground floor L2 fire protection system comprised of 21x smoke detectors and 3x heat detectors including sounder bases, as well as 8 x manual call points and of course the addressable fire alarm panel and interface units.
Across the upper residential floors, the L5 fire alarm system comprised of 44x smoke detectors, 2x heat detectors, 40x interface units (including those to the sprinkler system) and a 40 zone alarm panel.
The smoke ventilation system comprised of 12x window actuators, 6x smoke shaft door actuators, 13x controllers, 1x Modular Smoke Control System, 38x Photo-electric detectors, and 5x smoke ventilators (roof mounted) and 25x Manual call points.
During the commissioning, a custom cause and effect programme was written for the multi-level system with integration to the sprinkler system.
Silver Group’s extensive knowledge and experience with smoke ventilation systems, along with other fire protection systems meant they were the ideal contractors. In fact, Silver Group are one of the few UK companies that are fully accredited to work directly on integrated fire alarm and smoke vent systems, and the only company to hold the leading accreditations in Fire, Smoke Ventilation and are members of The Smoke Control Association.
ACCREDITATIONS
