A Vertical Approach

Jun 1, 2007 12:00 PM

Staybridge Suites is an all-suite hotel brand serving extended-stay guests looking for a residential-style hotel for business, relocation or leisure. Currently boasting 10,655 rooms in 94 hotels, Staybridge plans to continue growing: 11,226 new rooms are in the pipeline in the Americas, and another 230 rooms are planned for Europe, Middle East and Africa. The company expects to reach its 100^th hotel opening faster than any other brand in the upscale extended-stay market.

Staybridge Suites is one of the well-known hotel brands owned by UK-based InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms.

A recent success story is the Staybridge Suites-Cleveland East. Located 20 minutes from downtown Cleveland, this three-floor facility offers 123 suites with a mix of single- and double-bedded rooms. It faced a challenge related to fire protection.

“The majority of fire protection systems are installed horizontally within a building's structure,” explains Dan Klag, owner and president of Cleveland-based Life Safety Systems, whose company helped design the Staybridge system along with engineering firm Thorson Baker. “Due to the nature of the hotel's construction — the way the pre-cast concrete was poured, among other factors — we were unable to use horizontal conduits. So we designed and specified a fire alarm system somewhat out of the ordinary; instead of horizontal type rungs of cabling, we used vertical risers. These served as the backbone of the system's piping.”

“Ultimately, this minimized labor and material costs and helped Staybridge realize significant cost savings,” Klag says.

The fire protection system needed to be flexible enough to accommodate such directional idiosyncrasies, so Klag specified a system from Silent Knight, part of the Honeywell Life Safety group.

At the heart of the system is the Farenhyt IFP-1000 Analog/Addressable Fire Alarm Control Panel (FACP). With more than 1,000 addressable points, the IFP-1000 is suited to mid- to large-sized jobs such as schools and universities, hospitals and hotels. The basic IFP-1000 system has one signaling line circuit (SLC) that supports expansion of up to seven more SLC's. The FACP also has a built-in, dual-line digital fire communicator and supports a variety of devices, including remote annunciators, serial/parallel printer interface (for printing system reports) and System Sensor Intelligent Device Protocol (IDP) or Hochiki devices.

Powering the system are eight RPS-1000 Intelligent Power Modules. The RPS-1000 adds 5.0 amps of power, supports its own backup battery and monitors the AC power. The Flexput circuits can be programmed as notification appliance circuits, continuous, resettable or door holder power; or as conventional initiation circuits for 2 or 4-wire smoke detectors and contact devices (i.e. pull stations). Some of the RPS-1000 devices house SLC cards, depending on where they are positioned in the vertical riser structure.

Now that the installation is complete, Klag says that the system's performance has pleased everyone.

“The local [Mayfield Heights] fire marshal has been especially happy with the system's functionality,” he says. “Most importantly, hotel management is satisfied.”

However, Staybridge representatives have requested changes to the system, necessitated by Staybridge's stringent fire safety standards.

“At the time the system was being installed, Ohio code did not require smoke detection capabilities in the corridors of buildings equipped with sprinklers,” Klag says.

“But it was required by Staybridge in its standards manual. After negotiating with Staybridge, the owners decided to install it. Ultimately, they weren't concerned with minimal code compliance; they wanted a level of protection that met their own needs.”

The owner's satisfaction with the system has led to further work for Life Safety Systems — specifically, central station monitoring, inspection maintenance and service issues, as well as performing the hotel's annual inspection under Ohio code.

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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