Fire alarm in multiple occupancy building

[lyledunn]

I have a fit out of a small 20 seater restaurant on the ground floor of a brand new 5 storey building.  The restaurant is effectively a concrete box with Concrete walls and ceiling. The restaurant exits directly to the street, there are no other openings to the rest of the building other than the penetration in to a service riser of a ventilation system which is constructed with 90 min fire resistant ducting. BC are insisting on the provision of a fire alarm with automatic detectors and a connection to the main fire alarm system. I note that 9999 requires the deployment of a system suitable for the individual occupancy and connection to the common system. 5839 permits a manual system for a restaurant. Are BC asking for more than might be regarded as minimum?

[Fishy]

If the restaurant can be considered a completely separate premises (in terms of building reg's) then in my opinion (bearing in mind I've not seen the premises), yes they are going OTT.  If we were designing that then the most we would recommend is a link between the two separate panels that sends a non-actionable alert both ways (sometimes called a 'grey link') just to warn the other premises that there's an incident.  Of course, if the upper floors are resi, then there probably won't be a system in there anyway?