EN54 is the latest piece of legislation to come out of Brussels governing life safety systems. Chris Fitzsimmons caught up with Helen Goddard, Principal of audio consultant firm AMS Acoustics to talk about the implications of the new standard.
What is EN54 and what are the relevant parts to systems integrators?EN54 is a European norm for fire detection and fire alarm systems, and the relevant parts to the voice alarm and audio industry are part 16, which is concerned with voice alarm control and indicating equipment (VACIE), and part 24, which refers to loudspeakers.
When does it come into force?EN54 was endorsed in September 2008, and all conflicting standards will be withdrawn by the latest March 2011. It comes into force simultaneously across the EU. At the moment it’s concurrent with existing national and European standards.
What are the differences between EN54 and the existing standards?In general, the coherence between the new standards and the existing standards is pretty good. The primary, most obvious difference is that EN54 as a product testing standard brings in a whole raft of environmental tests that we never had to do previously on any of this equipment.
Along with that testing comes weeks of laboratory time, where the equipment needs to withstand various vibration, drop tests and temperature change tests. Its functionality has to be checked at the end of each of those tests to make sure that it can still operate.
In addition, in order to get a certificate against a relevant part for a component, it must have passed all the relevant tests. For example, the required IP-rating of a loudspeaker is a given in the standard as 21c for indoors and 33c for outdoors. And where a manufacturer may have a certificate for an IP rating of 54 for example, you can’t commute that IP rating across the certificate because it’s a different test. You have to go back and get it checked again to the 21c or 33c standard.
The other situation to watch is if the certificate to a certain standard has been issued by a test house, which is not approved for EN54 then the test will need re-doing at a qualified house.
What does all this mean to the systems integrator?The first thing is that prices will probably have to rise. To give you an example, the minimum that it’s going to cost to put a loudspeaker through a test is going to be between 10 and 20 thousand pounds. When your unit price is between £20 and £30 that’s a significant outlay and the manufacturers will have to pass that on. Also the standard requires annual testing of VACIE. Although that’s just a sample test the manufacturer will have to supply one complete system for testing each year. The wording of the standard says “with all options that are claimed.” This means if you have bells and whistles, all your bells and whistles need testing too. There’s also guidance on what the bells and whistles will have to do as well.
I think therefore that not only will the cost go up, but the standard will have a negative impact in terms of stopping development.
So you believe that this will discourage the development of such additional features?Absolutely. For example, where you have a project that demands an engineering solution, previously a consultant like myself would talk to a manufacturer and come up with a way around it and have a special bespoke solution made. We won’t be able to do that any more because it won’t be certified. It will make specials, even in loudspeakers, totally cost preclusive.
The real downside for a designer and an integrator is that we’re going to see the palette of equipment available very reduced. It will mean that because voice alarm is an afterthought in most budgets anyway, it’s going to have to be a very bog standard solution – there won’t be any room for flair or solving engineering problems.
Does the standard talk about system monitoring?Yes it does. The standard talks about the requirement for monitoring all aspects of the system, including software. It also talks about how faults should be reported and what should happen in terms of visual indications and colour requirements for those, and specifies requirements for audible fault indications. In that respect it’s well harmonised with existing standards, it just goes a bit further.
What are the upsides from your point of view?Well I think to an integrator or designer, if a system has gone through and received its certification there’ll be confidence given that it is compliant to voice alarm standards, because it is such a rigorous set of testing.
Also there is factory product control required and annual factory maintenance. There’s a supply chain management aspect to it.
Interestingly, one thing I couldn’t find in part 16 is any reference to fault logging or event logging and I’m not sure why. One thing we do like to be able to do on voice alarm systems is to go and look at logs if a system is continually flagging up problems. It helps with diagnostics, and is very helpful to integrators and maintainers. For that I think we’ll have to refer back to the existing standards because it’s in there.
Are there any things in particular that SIs need to be aware of now as a result of the new standard when specifying systems or purchasing equipment?This is not a self-certifying standard – it has to be done by an independent third party, who are endorsed by the relevant national standards body. If an integrator is presented with a statement or certificate then they have to do their due diligence on it, and make sure that it is a valid certificate.
I think another pitfall might be that because a voice alarm system, attaches to a fire system and has loudspeakers on the other end of it, every step of the way has to be 54 compliant. So for example, if you are adding a new voice alarm system to an existing fire alarm system then the fire alarm system would need to be EN54 compliant too for the VA system to qualify. The requirements apply to newly installed systems or modifications to existing ones.
An omission appears to be that there is no reference to control of external systems. It’s common for a VA system to exercise some kind of muting over a background music system, but there is no obvious reference to the need for EN54 compliance by whatever agent is producing that muting effect, such as DSP processors.
What we can say is that over all the amount of detail they have gone into is astonishing, but there are a couple of things that have got lost in the process. I’m sure they’ll be picked up in the next pass.