Nobel hits all the right notes with Chetham’s School of Music

Speed of response, a great looking system that met all aesthetic requirements and the highest level of overall service were key factors in Nobel Fire Systems winning two contracts to provide kitchen fire suppression system’s for Chetham’s School of Music.
 Chetham’s is based in Manchester and located in medieval buildings dating back to 1421. The school is rightly proud of its outstanding heritage while at the same time continually looking to the future to ensure that its facilities are up to the high standards necessary for the leading music school in the world and that its students have 21st century living accommodation, including a newly refurbished catering kitchen.
 The 290 boarding and day students receive a choice of meals each day and the school also has full on-site event catering and can provide anything from refreshments and canapés through to hot & cold buffets and formal dinners.
The catering demands in the busy and energetic environment of the School’s newly refurbished kitchen clearly call for optimum fire protection and Chetham’s initially set out to find a supplier whose system would ensure the highest possible standards of protection while also providing sensible economic savings in both installation time and overall cost.  Initially the School invited three specialist fire suppression companies to make recommendations.
In addition to the obvious necessity of efficiency and lifetime costs, the School wanted a system that would meet the high end aesthetic requirements of the refurbished kitchen design and on this particular demand Nobel scored heavily over other available systems.
The majority of ‘traditional’ mechanical fire suppression systems require pipework to be very visible, compromising the design and aesthetics of the kitchen. These systems also tend to display cheap looking copper or brass plated nozzles that usually protrude through the kitchen’s canopy or vented ceiling and certainly don’t meet the aspirations of talented designers or their ambitious clients.
Not so with Nobel’s K-Series system. Integrated seamlessly into the kitchen by Nobel’s in-house team of engineers, each system is electrically controlled with no mechanical moving parts and components are manufactured in stainless steel to enhance the working life and endurance of the product. K-Series is still the only electrical system on the market and this enables it to continuously monitor itself ensuring the integrity of the system is never in doubt. The system monitoring has the added benefit of reducing servicing requirements to once a year, with the obvious associated cost savings.
The K-Series system was recommended following a comprehensive risk assessment taking into account the overall requirement of successful fire suppression in addition to the school’s interruption potential. The decision was taken to install the system during a short window of opportunity and Nobel’s engineers quickly and efficiently completed the project liaising throughout with the other on-site companies.
So pleased were Chetham’s with the work carried out in the main kitchen of the school that they placed a second order with Nobel, this time to protect facilities within the Baronial Hall, one of the best preserved fifteenth-century examples of its kind and used regularly as a concert venue by the School with formal dinners also being held there on a regular basis.
Nobel’s global reputation within the education sector continues to grow as schools, colleges and universities appreciate the aesthetic appeal, reliability and flexibility of product and people. The award winning K-Series system with its extended ductwork protection capability is the outstanding catering kitchen fire suppression system available and is a key reason why Nobel Fire Systems has become the acknowledged market leader for catering kitchens across the globe.