Fire Alarm Designs
Often fire alarm designs are incomplete.
Have your plans reviewed by a NICET level 3 in fire alarm to avoid costly change orders and RFIs before you put them out to bid.
IBC and NFPA codes change all the time.
Utah R710 code does not always match National codes and out of state engineers will often leave out the WP Horn Strobe outside the riser room that Utah requires. Even some in state PE engineers will leave these out.
Engineers are now putting statements on their plans stating that the fire alarm contractor needs to provide a code compliant system that meets the requirements of the local fire marshal.
Electrical Engineers will do a basic fire alarm design for bidding purposes and the customer pays for that design and assumes it is done to code when often it is not drawn to code.
Normally plans are put out so contractors can use the plans to bid and then the General Contractor can compare the bids and pick the low bidder although now with one statement saying it must be a code compliant system the fire alarm contractor needs to redesign the system and bid with the items that were left out.
By doing this the company doing a code compliant system is not the low bidder so the low bidder tries to get change orders and it ends up being a mess.
One of our solutions to this is to bid off of plans and then give an ADD ALT 1 in order to meet code. That way the Electrical Contractors and the General Contractor can see the difference and decide which bid to use knowing ahead of time that items were left out of the main fire alarm design.
Often there is not enough coverage as far as Horn Strobes, Speaker Strobes or strobes are concerned.
Often the Fire Riser flow, tampers and backflows are left off of the drawings and those need to be included to have a code complainant system.
Often the elevator recall relay modules or CM modules are left off the drawings and those also need to be included.
If the shaft is sprinkled then a smoke at the top of the shaft is required and if the elevator goes up over 50 feet then shunt trip is required where the power is shut down and then a heat detector is required at the top of the shaft.
We can help with fire alarm designs that meet code since Johnson Controls Fire Protection employees hundreds of NICET trained techs. I personally am a NICET level 2 AET tech with over 20 years of experience and I can help with your fire alarm designs and bids.
When I do a bid review I have a team with 4 NICET level 3 techs review my work and point out any additional items that may be needed. Most Utah companies don’t have near as many NICET trained people working on the projects.
Larrylovesutah.com is my blog and my facebook is Alarmsinutah
Call Larry Love at 801 898 6003 Larry.Love@JCI.com for assistance with bids or fire alarm designs.