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Manufactured to the highest international standards, ESP systems are chosen to realise fire safety across a range of installations including travel hubs, manufacturing plants, hazardous areas, offshore energy production sites and buildings in the healthcare, education, retail and entertainment arenas.

Titanic Distillers is one of Hochiki’s customers who’ve recently installed the ESP range at its production site. Gavin Nesbitt, technical sales manager at Atlas World, commented “The distillery sits within a listed building, sees a huge number of tourists visiting each year and, of course, is using highly flammable compounds such as ethanol as part of the traditional manufacturing process. We needed fire safety devices that would be up to the task and Hochiki’s ESP range was the obvious choice.”

Nesbitt continued: “Using a modular design, it was incredibly easy to fit the products. Plus, as the ESP range is so vast, we were able to pick and mix depending on the varying requirements of the project.”

It’s this modularity that allows for a more flexible and value for money approach when fitting the range to any environment, which in turn makes the ESP range so popular with customers.

Quartet of models

The main sensor range offers four models: optical smoke detection, heat detection, multi-criteria detection (smoke and heat) and multi-criteria with carbon monoxide detection, which can detect sudden rises in – or long-term exposure to – the latter.

In practice, the sensitivity setting across the board can be adjusted to suit the environment, giving the end user huge flexibility within their buildings. Subtle case markings identify the model used. Importantly, all models are supplied in a choice of colours to help with the aesthetics of any given project.

The main range uses one electronics-free mounting base, making ordering, stockholding and installation simple and efficient. The sensors can be electronically addressed in quick time using a hand-held programmer via Hochiki Europe’s ultra-reliable ESP protocol, subsequently negating the need to mechanically address systems on site.

The ESP open protocol is supported by all leading fire panel manufacturers. This allows complete flexibility for the installer when it comes to panel choice. Additional features include extended addressing, sub-addressing, adjustable sensor sensitivity and drift compensation.

Sensor range extended

The sensor range has been extended into other disciplines such as the rail environment and also those environments requiring Safety Integrity Level 2 (SIL2) protection by the attainment of specialist third party approvals. The range also includes an IP65 weatherproof back box, which is perfect for adapting to harsh environments such as those to be found in the marine sector.

This extensive range of addressable alarm devices includes beacons, wall sounders, base sounders, combination sounders/beacons and a sub-range of EN 54-23 approved visual alarm devices). Sounders are all loop-powered and equipped with 51 EN 54-approved tones. They offer a wide range of sound levels and light outputs (in the case of sounder/beacons, for any application).

As standard, the Hochiki ESP range is fully approved to EN 54 and compliant with world-recognised standards such as those offered by the Loss Prevention Certification Board and VdS. The range is made using premium quality materials for high-level performance, exceptional reliability and sophisticated false alarm reduction features.

Site protection

After finishing a recent installation project at Pastificio Rana (a global food production facility in Italy) while working alongside the installation company CUBI Impianti Tecnologici, Ezio Danese (project manager at Hochiki Italia) explained how ESP heat sensors and aspirating devices have actively helped to protect the site.

“In the corridors of the cold rooms,” noted Danese, “an environment with a lot of humidity and steam, Hochiki’s weatherproof ACB-EW detector was fitted. Incorporating a variable fixed temperature heat element and a ‘rate of rise’ heat element, both of which are controlled from the control panel, this device is perfect for these cold storage environments where the risk of fire is higher when compared to other environments.”

Danese concluded: “Aspirating systems were fitted to protect the factory’s cold room cavities. This was due to the difficulty of accessing this area for installation and maintenance purposes.”

*Further detail concentrated on Hochiki’s ESP range of devices is available online at www.hochikieurope.com/esp-intelligent