Leading life safety manufacturer, Hochiki Europe, has unveiled the latest in its series of expert roundtable discussions, with a session exploring the benefits and challenges that arise when using multi-sensor detectors. The roundtable was held digitally and is now freely available to watch online.

The panel, made up of an installer, engineer and other life safety experts, was completed by Will Lloyd from the Fire Industry Association (FIA). The discussion covered the most pressing issues regarding multi-sensors, including discrepancies with product certification, best practice for testing and maintenance, and current barriers to correct usage and installation. Highlights from the roundtable are available on YouTube, providing some key takeaways for installers, engineers, end users, or anyone interested in the latest life safety trends.

The experts on the roundtable comprised:

Paul Adams, Marketing Manager, Hochiki Europe, (Chair)

Terry Hailes, Managing Director, Cornerstone Fire

Paul Gatens, Technical Sales and Support Specialist, Detectortesters

Will Lloyd, Technical Manager, Fire Industry Association

Martin Green, Regional Sales Manager, Hochiki Europe

Neil Eves, Systems Manager, Hochiki Europe

Some key points from the event included discussions around the importance of false alarm reduction. A key benefit of investing in multi-sensor devices is their ability to reduce such issues and studies have proven that advanced multi-sensors can outperform more basic models in this area. Neil Eves, Systems Manager at Hochiki Europe said: “For facilities managers, investing in intelligent multi-sensor devices provides the long-term benefit of reducing false alarm events and operational costs, which cost the tax payer around £1 billion per year.

“However, ensuring absolute reliability and a completely failproof device is even more critical as there are many elements at play which can result in false alarms. Hochiki Europe’s ACD-EN offers total piece of mind thanks to its highly sophisticated algorithm which continually monitors readings from the environment from the moment of installation.”

The panel also discussed issues around certification of multi-sensor products and the growing requirement for devices to incorporate CO detection into their programming to better calculate the presence of a real fire.

Neil continued: “Hochiki’s ACD-EN devices monitor for levels of CO that are emitted during the early stages of a fire – even before visible smoke and heat are produced, helping reduce false alarms, while providing an early indicator of an emergency situation. Plus, the Reduced False Alarm function (+RFA) means the sensor automatically adjusts the sensitivity of the sensing element over time and continually learns from its environment to further prohibit activation during a non-event. This means the sensor will always be as sensitive as it needs to be, and was an important point of discussion during the roundtable.”

Hochiki Europe’s thought-provoking series of high-level expert conversations aims to support industry peers and promote the highest standards within the fire safety sector, with free-to-view educational resources.  The next roundtable is being released in May 2021, and will focus on life safety in care home environments.

Full details on Hochiki’s multi-sensor product can be found here and you can watch the full roundtable using the links below.

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE00J3w9gSYpAccXtxkjVA1ehSw_q4Z39

Part 1: https://youtu.be/nQYS7Z83Ge0

Part 2: https://youtu.be/Uf7qIi1lh4I

Part 3: https://youtu.be/yvW8k9InkkM

Part 4: https://youtu.be/DQTcJejczSQ