The Edge is a brand-new student accommodation building situated in the heart of Belfast. Comprising of 307 rooms, the luxurious building offers exceptional value, commuter links and on-site amenities.

Owned by Prestige Student Living, The Edge is less than five minutes from Ulster University with Queens University Belfast less than half an hour away by public transport.

Consisting of a range of studio and standard rooms, the new-build was opened in September 2024 ahead of the new academic year. In this Case Study we will look at the fire safety issue faced by ROK Property and Bridges Fund Management, and how the innovative Kitchen Stove Guard from Firechief® Global was identified as the ideal solution.

What was the need?

Ahead of its opening in September 2024, the owners of The Edge were looking to futureproof the building by ensuring that it met all of the very latest fire and building safety standards. It would have been very easy to have conformed to the standards at the time of design, but it was more important to provide and safe building that did not need renovation in a matter of years.

This meant there was a need for devices and designs that met the requirements of standards such as BS 9991:2024 and EN:50615. The problem that was encountered was that the open-plan nature of the designs meant that cooking appliances were situated close to escape routes.

What was the solution?

BS 9991:2024 notes that any cooking apparatus should be located not less than 1.8 m from an escape route, which is itself 0.9 m wide. Stove Guards conforming to EN:50615 Cat B are used as a part of a fire-engineered design to mitigate the risk of ignition and relax these distance requirements.

In the case of this project, the introduction of the Firechief® Kitchen Stove Guard in all 307 rooms was complemented by a suppression system which enabled the distances to be relaxed slightly, meaning that the issue encountered by the open-plan layout was resolved and an exceptional, innovative fire safety solution was identified.

Given that around half of all accidental domestic fires, including those in student accommodation, originate in the kitchen, it was important for the building owners to identify a reliable solution for kitchen and cooker safety. They found just that in the Firechief® Kitchen Stove Guard which alerts the user of pre-fire conditions and automatically switches off the electricity supply to the cooker.

Designed to work with all electric hobs, the Firechief Kitchen Stove Guard identifies when the temperature of cooking is too high and immediately turns off the source of ignition to prevent a kitchen fire before it starts. The intelligent heat sensor tracks the rate of increasing temperature and, when it identifies a developing fire hazard it alerts the user to the risk. If no action is taken, it will then cut the power to the hob, reducing the fire risk and creating a safer environment for everyone in the building.

The Firechief Kitchen Stove Guard is even able to identify when the hob has been left on accidentally, such as when pans have been removed from the cooker, food is served, and the user has forgotten to switch it off.

The benefits for residents at The Edge and the building owners

Installation of the Firechief Kitchen Stove Guard in each of the 307 rooms at The Edge brings numerous benefits to residents and building management alike, including:

• Quick, easy installation undertaken by contractors already on-site
• Continuous protection for complete peace of mind.
• The device monitors and even adapts to the occupier's cooking style
• No monthly testing is required (as with smoke alarms, for example)
• Sympathetic to the décor of the building, the Kitchen Stove Guard is small and stylish enough to go relatively unnoticed
• The intelligent fire safety solution costs half the price of a fire suppression system
• Fulfils the requirement of the EN:50615 standard
• No annual maintenance is required and comes with a two-year warranty

Additional information

• Client: ROK Property and Bridges Fund Management
• Architect: RMI Architects
• Contractor: Turkington Construction
• Fire Engineer: Joule Group
• M&E Engineer: Clancy Consulting
• M&E Contractor: Michael Nugent Ltd

To read more about the Kitchen Stove Guard or any of our innovative fire safety products, visit the Firechief® website where you can also read more of our Case Studies.