While everyone knows the importance of a fire safety alarm for their home, having effective fire safety alarm systems for entire buildings seems to be something that gets continually ignored. Every building except domestic premises are subject to the Regulatory Reform Order 2005 and the ‘Responsible Person‘, whomever that is, is in charge of risk assessment. Therefore, a fire safety alarm system is not only essential for safety, it is also illegal not to have one if you own or look after a building. There are generally three different kinds of fire alarms available: Conventional, Analogue and Wireless systems.

Conventional alarm systems have a number of detectors and call points wired to the Fire Alarm Control Panel and these are separated into zones. A zone is a circuit and this would usually be wired to individual floors of the Fire Department. There are also a number of zone lamps. The purpose of the zones is to give the department a good idea where the fire has occurred. The control panel is wired to at least two sounder circuits that are designed to emit audible sounds.

Analogue detectors are sometimes known erroneously as ‘intelligent’ fire safety alarm systems. In actual fact, the majority of analogue detectors are anything but intelligent. They only give outputs signals with no actual sign that there is definitely a fire. It is then left up to the control panel to ascertain whether there is a fire, or if its just a fault. As one can imagine, such alarms would be irritating and time consuming for fire brigades in cities who have to deal with dozens or hundreds of calls a day. The truly intelligent analogue detectors however are excellent devices because their computer evaluates the environment around the alleged fire, figuring out for itself the nature of the alarm and informing the control panel of the reason for the alarm. This type of fire safety alarm is far more advanced than conventional systems.

If you don’t want one of the traditional wired fire alarm systems, then there is a wireless option available. They interconnect the sensors and devices like smoke detectors with the controllers using secure, license-free radio communications. This is a fairly simple but effective concept and is every bit as useful as its conventional fire alarm system counterpart without the hassle of cables. When a fire safety alarm system is being fitted, things like the number of zones required and the maximum amount of detectors also need to be considered.

Although a fire alarm is a fine tool for alerting you to the dangers posed by fire, they cannot protect your property when you’re not there. With a fire safety alarm system, the fire brigade will instantly be informed if a fire takes place in your home and will rush over there to save your property. They are assisted by the likes of conventional, analogue and wireless systems that give them the maximum amount of time required to successfully find and put out the fire, hopefully preventing too much damage from being done to your home.