Restaurants are businesses that prepare and serve food and drinks, typically for the general public or patrons of a hotel. Restaurants can vary from being award-winning Michelin star or fine dining establishments to fast food or casual dining chains.
Restaurants are open to the public. Therefore, they have a duty to keep visitors safe at all times and are legally required to a have a suitable fire detection solution in place.
Most restaurants have a variety of different areas such as kitchens, dining rooms, restrooms, storerooms and back office areas. Each area may require a different type of fire detection solution to ensure optimum and safe performance.
What are the Challenges?
Disruption of Aesthetics and Business Operation
In many situations, dining areas in restaurants are attractive, well-decorated areas that create the perfect ambience to represent the fine cuisine that they serve. This means that any repairs, upgrades or maintenance carried out on fire detection devices in these areas can disrupt the aesthetics of the room and put the area out of operation, sometimes for a long time.
Rearranging
The layout of dining areas can also be subject to frequent change, whether to make way for a new promotion or for regular refurbishment. This means that fire alarm cabling may need to be replaced or rerouted to ensure maximum efficiency.
Extensions
It is common for restaurants to extend their premises to allow them to cater for more guests. Building extensions all require fire detection. Therefore, existing fire alarms must also be extended to incorporate the new areas. If lengthy cable runs are needed, this can cause disruption to all aspects of the business.
What is the Solution?
The solution is to avoid time-consuming, costly and disruptive cable runs altogether. By using a hybrid fire detection solution, such as Wi-Fyre, wireless fire detection devices can work alongside hardwired fire detection technology to create a truly cost-effective and flexible solution.
When used to form part of a new system, Wi-Fyre devices can be used where cable runs are disruptive or impractical and hardwired devices can be used in areas such as kitchens and offices where aesthetics are less important.
Alternatively, Wi-Fyre can be used to upgrade, extend or replace parts of an existing hardwired detection system with little damage to the property or interruption to the business’ operation. Wi-Fyre’s wireless fire alarm devices can easily be relocated should the layout of the building change (subject to a wireless survey). Wi-Fyre has six modes of operation to ensure compatibility with a wide range of systems:
- Conventional
- Addressable (Collective)
- ProFyre 2-Wire Addressable
- ProFyre Addressable
- Standalone
- Reflective
How Wi-Fyre Works
Wireless field devices such as sounders, manual call points, detectors and I/O modules connect to the fire alarm control panel via a Wi-Fyre Transponder. Each transponder is installed into the fire alarm wiring via a compatible interface module and can communicate with up to thirty mixed field devices.
A wireless survey must be conducted using the Wi-Fyre survey head to ensure the signal between the device and transponder is strong enough for the system to work effectively.
For more information about Wi-Fyre, please feel free to give us a call on +44 (0)1329 835024 or email [email protected] where we would be happy to answer any questions.
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