Plan ahead

When you have a commercial project there are several things you should plan ahead for when it comes to security, fire alarm, access control and cameras.

1. Get the bids from your security company well ahead of time so permits can be pulled, in order to get a fire alarm permit submittals and plans need to be submitted to the fire marshal and often a 3rd party plan review is needed and just this process can take 4-6 weeks so if you need the project installed by a certain date plan well ahead.

2. Coordinate with the electrical and general contractors and the low voltage contractor so the EC will provide the correct power for the alarm panels and locations.

3. Many times security tends to be an after thought so you end up not doing things you should have done because you cannot get wire to those areas after the other trades are done.

4. Talk to your security contractor about issues such as having the access control system release the door locks upon activation of the fire alarm. The fire alarm contractor will need to provide the output to the access panel in order to accomplish this.

5. Plan on 2 analog phone lines for your fire alarm panel not VOIP or digital lines. This can be expensive such as $50 per line expensive per month so talk to your fire alarm company about other options such as AES radio or having a high supervision cellular communicator installed which will cost less in the long run than paying for analog phone lines.

6. If you are the owner meet with the security contractor to go over your needs and wants because the equipment that got specified for the job may not fit your situational needs so sit down and go over what you want to accomplish.

7. If you are the contractor don’t assume it will all work out because the job was bid as per specifications and plans. Often the specifications and plans do not have everything that should be in a job. When you meet with the security contractor ask them what else they feel should be part of the project and after they bring up items you can arrange a meeting with the owners etc…

8. Call Larry Love 801 898 6003 Larry.Love@JCI.com

Larry can come out to your job site and go over all of the different systems with you to make sure it will come together. Planning ahead will help this process be smooth. If you have not planned ahead and you need things done right away, call and we will do our best to help you.

JCI has over 100+ years in business

Larry has over 20 years in the business and he stays current with the new technology and training.