The plaza had a brand-new extension built two years ago to be able to provide a better shopping experience for the surrounding community. At the time this new part of the mall was built, it included water supplies to feed the sprinklers and hydrant/hose-reel reticulation.
However, the hydrant and hose-reel reticulation on the existing part of the mall was being fed from a town’s main.
The project underwent a tender process and Elite Fire was awarded the job to connect the existing part of the mall to the new extension and move away the town’s main as the main water supply, and instead, have the town’s main as a secondary back-up in the event the pumps are not operational.
Project | Fire Reticulation Extension |
Size | 21 821m2 |
Year of completion | 2022 |
Scope | Design, Supply and Install |
Discipline | Fire Protection |
Project Scope
- Fire hydrant & hose-reel reticulation
- New hose-reel installation



Process Outline
Unfortunately, with older malls, we find that water supplies would come from town’s main which in today’s world is insufficient to meet the minimum flow and pressure requirements for hydrants and hose-reels.
The existing mall in this particular project was being fed by the town’s main and with the new part of the mall having water supplies to feed the fire sprinklers and hydrant/hose-reel reticulation, there was an opportunity to change the water supplies in the existing part of the mall. With an existing design layout made available to us, we were able to do minor changes unforeseen onsite.
With this we were able to install piping for the hydrant and hose-reel reticulation to connect the existing mall to the new part of the mall.
There was a slight shortage of hose-reels, and 4 new additional hose-reels were installed in the existing part of the mall.
Challenges
- As the piping is installed underground, trenching of the pipes became difficult to perform at night and had to be worked on during the day. This however meant that with traffic in and around the mall during working hours, the area had to be barricaded off to complete work uninterrupted and safely from shoppers.
- With the existing mall being fed by the town’s main, we were unable to switch off the water supply during the day as the shops would be affected by our work. The only solution was to shut down the town’s main at night-time in order to work on the reticulation.