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Hochiki shines a light on luxury

Càmina Suite & Spa, a luxury hotel in the heart of Italy’s Cortina d’Ampezzo ski resort, has invested in a fire protection emergency lighting system as part of extension and restructuring works. Taking the opportunity to provide its guests with additional life safety protection, the hotel made use of solutions from Hochiki.

With bedrooms spanning across seven floors, the hotel needed a fire detection and emergency lighting system which would offer an ultra-reliable and cost-effective solution for its life safety needs throughout this large and newly extended building. Hosting up to 45 guests, it was essential that the chosen system could offer the best possible protection and way-finding for residents in the unlikely event of a life safety incident.

For Càmina Suite & Spa, a key requirement of the life safety system was reliability. Tested to a number of European certifications, including EN54, BS5266 and BS EN ISO 7010, FIREscape+ guarantees a durable, reliable and fail-proof performance to give building owners, facilities managers and inhabitants total peace of mind.

No mains required

Mirko Corsini, project manager for Hochiki Italia, said: “Combining two of our most successful programmes onto the same loop panel – FIREscape and the ESP fire detection system – we were able to ensure that emergency lighting is operational in the event of the fire, without the need for mains supply. This means that guests can find the safest exit route, tailored to each life safety incident, and increase their chance of survival.”

This dynamic way-finding solution includes the option of dual-function exit signs that under normal circumstances perform as a standard emergency lighting system, displaying the internationally recognised exit symbols. However, in the event of a fire, the system will automatically determine and change the state of the signs based on the location of the fire. If a fire is blocking an exit path, a red cross will display in place of the traditional symbols.

False alarm management and reduction is also an important factor when assessing reliability; the integration of Hochiki Europe’s Enhanced Systems Protocol (ESP) technology offers a number of benefits in this regard. Every 24 hours, the system checks for changes to the environment and recalibrates the sensors accordingly. In addition, each sensor can be individually adjusted to match the expected risk of its environment, while alarm verification technology uses time delay algorithms to eliminate unwanted alarms.

A long-term investment

Another vital consideration for Càmina Suite & Spa was reduced energy consumption; which FIREscape+ could offer in a number of ways.

FIREscape+ units only require 40 V to each unit and run on low-voltage cabling, unlike traditional emergency lighting systems that require 230 V. The low-voltage cabling lowers the overall energy consumption of the system, reducing the CO₂ emissions for a greener solution and also negates the need for a qualified electrician to carry out the installation. FIREscape+ is also an intelligent system as each component is individually addressed and fully monitored by the system control panel. Notified of the issue via the keypads, facilities managers can then quickly rectify any problems to maintain a high level of life safety.

For the end user, FIREscape+ offers many financial benefits by helping reduce operational and maintenance costs but also long-term ownership expenditures.

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