Jobs created as waking watch solution prepares for busy 2021

With attention on the plight of those trapped in high-risk buildings under controversial waking watch patrols growing by the day, intelliclad, an offshoot of the Metalline brand, is pushing its Fire Protection Association tested intelligent sensor system as a product that can help ease building safety issues and significantly lower interim costs for building owners and residents.

Intelliclad sensors are integrated into the combustible external façade of high-risk buildings, to detect early symptoms of a fire, saving residents thousands of pounds a month in waking watch bills until a permanent solution is found.

A number of national newspapers have started campaigns to raise awareness of the Cladding Crisis, which  at least 1.5 million people find themselves currently in, while the Government has recently announced the £30 million ‘Waking Watch Relief Fund’ to help building owners install alarm systems that would negate, or reduce, the need for human-watchers.

As interest around intelliclad starts to grow, the company is looking to take on surveyors and estimators, as well as pre-installation operations staff and post-installation support staff.

Darron Brough, intelliclad managing director, said: “We are ready to help and we believe that we can make a huge difference to those currently suffering as a result of living in a high-risk building.

“Not only is the current waking watch system cost substantial, we have seen numerous high profile cases of staff not doing their jobs correctly, meaning it is also unreliable and therefore highly unsafe.

“By combining our decades of experience in the façade industry with leading technology, we are able to offer a faster and more reliable response to a fire at a fraction of what is currently being paid.

“We are looking for around eight skilled staff to join us initially, but would like to speak to all who are interested in joining us as we are confident that we will grow to meet demand throughout the year.

“These are crucial positions to fill as we look to grow and we will be looking for further specialists in areas such as abseiling when it comes to installing our sensors to high risk buildings.”

Darron and business partner Mohammed Zulfiquar launched intelliclad in late 2020 after three years and around £500,000 investment.

Testing carried out on a specially constructed 10m wide and 9m high cladding rig at the Fire Service College’s national headquarters , showed intelliclad sensors were activated six minutes and 33 seconds prior to cladding being breached by fire on test 1 and 9 minutes, 47 seconds prior on test 2.

Using intelliclad’s smart system, this would have alerted all residents in a building of the fire via sounders and a smartphone app before the fire had a chance to take hold, as well as activating the building’s main fire alarm system which can be set up to notify the fire brigade.