Case Study: Fire Safety Consultants, Inc. achieves earliest fire detection and lower total cost of ownership with Xtralis VESDA air-sampling smoke detectors

Fire Safety Consultants, Inc. - Customer Case Study

A 300,000-square-foot document-storage warehouse in Elgin, Illinois — subdivided into three 100,000-square-foot chambers and managed with input from Fire Safety Consultants, Inc. — needed reliable early fire detection for high-value government records while avoiding costly water damage from false sprinkler activations. High ceilings, air-handling units and underfloor voids created smoke-stratification and coverage challenges that would have required hundreds of conventional spot detectors.

The facility was equipped with VESDA VLS air-sampling smoke detectors integrated with a pre-action sprinkler system — 64 VESDA units per chamber on eight sampling lines tied to a Proactiv panel — offering adjustable sensitivity, flexible pipe routing and targeted monitoring near HVAC and voids. The solution provided earliest-warning detection, reduced the number of detectors and total cost of ownership, lowered false alarms and sprinkler activations, and simplified maintenance through panel alerts for filter replacement.

Fire Safety Consultants, Inc.

Keith Frangiamore

Certifi ed Fire Protection Specialist Vice President of Operations