In this exciting podcast Hochiki’s Tony Obadipe, Kevin Dodge from FAFS Fire & Security and MDM’s Group Editorial Adviser Duncan J. White discuss the issues surrounding waking watch and look at how new technology in fire detection can be used to provide a cost-effective alternative to the waking watch.
Waking Watches were introduced by the National Fire Chiefs Council as a temporary measure to keep residents who lived in buildings with dangerous cladding, safe. A Waking Watch scheme involves trained fire wardens being present on site 24/7 to monitor the building’s interior and exterior, raise an alarm in the event of a fire and assist in the safe evacuation of residents during any incident. But five years after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, hundreds of buildings across the UK still have 24-hour safety patrols in place, costing building owners tens of thousands of pounds every month. In most instances, these costs are being passed on to the leaseholders.
Updated guidance from the Council published in 2021 advised that building owners should install fire-alarm systems as quickly as possible to reduce or remove the need for the 24-hour warden patrols. In this podcast we discuss why technology is far more reliable than people, and the benefits of switching to a system which uses wireless devices.
