Inside our fire & security upgrade for Cardiff Market

A working market cannot pause for an upgrade. Stalls open early, customers move through the building all day, and any closure to access affects traders directly. Our fire and security installation engineers worked exclusively at night, planning each shift around the rhythm of the market and securing work areas before each session began.

Working through the small hours in central Cardiff brings its own considerations, and our engineers worked carefully around the realities of the city after dark. By the time traders arrived each morning, work areas were clear and the market opened as normal.

The original fire detection system used standard beam detectors, but sections of the market roof are open to the elements. Pigeons and other birds regularly broke the beams, sending the system into fault and generating nuisance alarms that eroded confidence in the system.

We replaced the beams with OSID detection, a smarter form of beam technology that analyses the air far more effectively than conventional units. Birds, dust and movement no longer trigger faults, but genuine smoke is reliably detected. The result is a system the building's managers can trust to respond when it matters.

Manual call points across the market were replaced with weatherproof versions suited to the damp, variable conditions inside the hall. The fire alarm control panel and smoke detectors were brought up to current standards as part of the same programme.

For the intruder system, the council opted for a full Grade 3 installation, the highest grade available, with Grade 3 monitoring to match. Achieving that grade is not just about the devices on the wall. Every cable below three metres or in an accessible location must be properly contained, and full containment was installed throughout the building to meet that standard.

Routing containment through a market built from dozens of individual stalls is rarely straightforward. Cable paths had to be planned carefully, working around stall structures, listed fabric and existing services. The system meets the grade not only on paper but in every detail of its installation.

Detection itself is layered. Motion sensors, dual-tech sensors, shock sensors and door contacts work together to cover every realistic point of entry, including elevated and less obvious access points.

Since completion, Cardiff Central Market has operated with a fire and security system fit for the building's status and its role in the city. False alarms from birds and environmental factors have been eliminated, the intruder system has performed reliably, and the building's managers have a system they can rely on across 2.5 million visits a year.

The upgrade was completed without a single day of lost trading. A building over a century old, brought up to current standards without closing its doors.

Tremorfa continue to maintain the fire and security systems at Cardiff Central Market under an ongoing service agreement.