155 Tooley Street – Motorised Smoke and Fire Damper (MSFD) Installation

At 155 Tooley Street, an eight-storey commercial office in London Bridge, Alpha Controls was responsible for the building's motorised smoke and fire damper (MSFD) system — a critical life-safety package controlling smoke and fire spread through the risers and floor distribution. Alpha Controls managed the MSFD scope from start to finish, taking full ownership of containment, fire-rated cabling, damper terminations, panel installation, and commissioning support.

Working across all levels from lower ground to Level 4 and the basement plant areas, Alpha Controls coordinated closely with the mechanical contractor and other trades on site, and provided additional support to the mechanical contractor on their Building Management System installation to keep the wider programme on track.

A core part of the package was establishing dedicated, fire-integrity containment for the life-safety cabling. Alpha Controls installed new secondary containment throughout the building:

• Riser Containment: New cable tray, trunking and unistrut bracketry installed within the risers to carry MSFD power and network cabling vertically through the structure
• Basement Distribution: Containment routed from all primary CMS in the basement, including tray and conduit feeding the plant room, to support the onward distribution of fire-rated cabling
• Segregation: Life-safety cabling kept on its own dedicated containment and clearly separated from other services to protect circuit integrity

All MSFD power and signal cabling was installed in FP200 fire-rated cable, selected for its fire-resistant performance on life-safety circuits:

• 24V Power: FP200 runs delivering 24V power to every motorised smoke and fire damper across the building
• Network Cabling: A fire-rated network chain linking the dampers floor-by-floor and back to the control panels
• Red Connection Boxes: A dedicated red MSFD connection box installed at each damper, with cabling terminated to the damper PCB
• Routing Back to Panels: All circuits dressed and routed through the new containment back to the three MSFD panels in the basement plant room

Alpha Controls installed three MSFD control panels within the basement plant room, mounted together on unistrut alongside the building's existing BMS panel so that header trunking could span the full panel line-up. Siting all three panels together gave a single, accessible control point for the building's motorised smoke and fire dampers, simplifying both commissioning and long-term maintenance.

Alpha Controls also supported the network commissioning of the damper system, assisting the commissioning engineer with fault-finding so the network could register and address the dampers across all floors.

In parallel with the MSFD works, Alpha Controls assisted the mechanical contractor with their BMS installation, pulling cabling and installing containment across the building. This support package included containment and cabling for:

This collaborative approach kept the life-safety and BMS packages progressing side by side and helped hold the overall site programme.

Alpha Controls project managed the MSFD installation from start to finish, holding a tight programme across the full duration of the works. The job involved ongoing design changes throughout the installation — including revised damper positions and additional dampers added late in the programme — which Alpha Controls absorbed without losing schedule.

Operative planning and shift tracking were managed using GUVNR.ai, the workforce management platform that gave Alpha Controls live visibility of who was on site, what was completed each shift, and what remained. That visibility made it possible to react quickly to design changes, scale the team up on key days, and keep the right people on site at the right time throughout.