Installer Editor Joe Dart interviews FireAngel CEO Nick Rutter about the challenges of the Building Safety Act, supporting the installer community, and driving innovation to improve resident safety.
Q: Can you give a brief overview of FireAngel as a business?
A: FireAngel is a Midlands based business, proudly founded in 1998 by myself and a peer from university. We launched our first smoke alarm into the retail market in 2001 after identifying unmet needs for resident safety and realising that the fire safety sector would benefit from the innovation of alarm technology. This focus on innovation has always driven us to produce safety systems that solve real-world challenges for resident safety.
Fast forward 25 years and FireAngel has become a market leader in the UK retail and online space and continues to build on its strong presence across social housing, utilities and Fire & Rescue Services.
We were acquired two years ago by Siterwell Group, the largest smoke alarm manufacturer in the world, based in China. So, all of a sudden, we’ve combined the heritage of the FireAngel brand, our market expertise and engineering innovation with Siterwell’s global scale and manufacturing capability, which creates a very strong proposition for the future.
Q: How does FireAngel work with installers?
A: As part of the launch of our new trade-focused product portfolio, we’ve invested heavily in the team, employing national managers and regional account managers who have strong relationships with electrical wholesalers such as CEF, Edmundson Electrical, and YESSS Electrical. We’ve also hired regional spec managers dedicated to supporting projects from end-to-end to ensure compliance and appropriate product choice.
Aligning with Siterwell’s customer-first ethos, FireAngel is always asking itself: “Can we say this is really customer first?”. And this is why we’ve simplified end-to-end compliance support, to provide installers with the assurance that they can stay competent throughout the installation process.
Part of this support is FireAngel’s free, fully insured BAFE DS301 third-party certified design service that is fully compliant with BS 5839-6. A contractor submits details of the development or portfolio and the level of protection required and our design service produces an alarm system design, detailing the correct products, suitable for the type of building. We are leading with compliance to safeguard homeowners and residents while protecting housing developers, electrical installers and other industry stakeholders from the risk of non-compliance in home safety solutions.
In all our mains powered product boxes, compliance labels to meet the requirements of BS 5839-6 are included which displays all of the information that the installer needs to meet compliance and clear sign posting information for residents. These compliance labels ensure all parties involved completely implement and meet all requirements of BS 5839-6.
We also support electrical contractors with ‘Wired for Compliance’ CPD-accredited training, purpose-built for the domestic installation environment. By registering, you can stay ahead of regulatory evolution, meet the highest standards of competence and accountability, and position yourself as a trusted, compliant and future-ready installer.
We’re reinforcing the foundations for support as we prepare for the launch of a comprehensive portfolio of products that builds upon our existing presence in the BS 5839-6 market and offers a complete ecosystem of sensor devices, accessories and connectivity.
Q: What impact is the Building Safety Act having on installers?
A: Putting yourselves in the position of, say, a housing association with a range of buildings over 18 metres tall, the regulatory landscape has become significantly more complex. You’ve got the Building Safety Act, you’ve got Awaab’s Law and further looming environmental requirements.
Installers are trying to operate in a complex legislative environment, which must be daunting at times and difficult to operationalise. This brings us back to our proposition to make compliance seamless and frictionless. FireAngel aims to be the manufacturer of choice, who contractors can go to, be reassured, and think “Brilliant, we’ve got compliance buttoned up and boxed off.”
Thinking ahead, IoT-enabled devices can provide valuable insights into environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, broadening oversight of total resident safety for housing landlords. All of a sudden, you’re extending that connected proposition to encompass a range of legislation and standards, so we’re putting installers in a position to make compliance more straightforward.
Q: How do you see the industry changing in the next five years?
A: What I love about IoT is it’s never finished. Connected technology is poised to fundamentally change how we approach resident safety. An example is our Predict system which looks at the behaviour of the alarms within a property and pinpoints elevated risk factors. What does that mean? Predict identifies frequent nuisance alarms, unwanted alarms or repeated silencing patterns which could signal underlying issues in a property.
A lot of common risk factors are present in housing association portfolios and Predict offers a stratification of risk. So, you can see which residences are high risk and which ones are not high risk based on insights from alarm data.
Landlords can then trigger an intervention for high-risk properties through Fire & Rescue services, who can educate the resident and implement safety solutions. The system then remaps that stratification of risk by updating risk profiles in real-time. And, the Fire & Rescue services can see where their interventions have been successful and where they need to try different solutions.
Connected technology is helping us identify the unmet needs for resident safety and the pain points for customers. Through the use of IoT, we’re uncovering challenges that were previously invisible, and we’re wrapping the solutions into the next generation of devices. So, I think what we’ll see in the next five years is insight and innovation accelerating to make resident safety more proactive and effective than ever.
Q: What can you tell us about your plans for this year’s InstallerSHOW?
We are excited to be hosting a panel discussion at this year’s InstallerSHOW on the InstallerELECTRIC stage. I will be moderating a discussion with Kate Guy, FireAngel’s Business Unit Director, Will Lloyd, Head of Technical at Fire Industry Association and David Slater, Technical Design at Nomico about compliance following the Building Safety Act and the changes it has brought. I am looking forward to a really interesting and educational session.
We’re also exhibiting at the show again this year. Attendees will get to see a sneak peek of our new product range but I can’t say much more as to not ruin the surprise.
Contributors
Joe Dart (author)
As an Editor working across Installer, Joe utilises over a decade's worth of journalistic experience to deliver informative content for the trades.
