150m below the ground, carved into the Winsford rock, is an innovative document archive owned by DeepStore, one of the UK’s fastest growing offsite archive facilities.

DeepStore uses the worked out sections of the mine for long term and ‘active’ storage, for which they provide a 24-hour retrieval and delivery service across the UK.

Selecting the right smoke detection solution was a priority and DeepStore chose VESDA not only for its early warning capabilities but also as the installation was very flexible with simple sampling pipes suspended from stainless steel catenary/ wire below the rough ceiling of the caverns.

Steve Holmes, Managing Director at DeepStore comments, ”Our customers expect the best possible protection of their documents, and that is exactly what we provide.  For this reason it is of course tremendously important to detect any smoke at the earliest time in order to prevent damage.  Additionally, VESDA affords us the extra time needed to investigate alarms prior to activating the extinguishing systems, which otherwise would be a costly affair.”  Helge Rognstad, European marketing manager at Vision Fire & Security comments, ”Owing to the unique nature of this storage facility, the VESDA smoke detection system is ideal because the sampling pipes can easily be installed where the smoke is most likely to go.  Using VESDA detectors also means that it is easy for fire engineers to maintain the system at ground-level.”