Basic Fire Alarm design notes
Basic Fire Alarm design notes:
First understand that code can get complicated although many building fire alarm designs are simple and it depends on the occupancy, size of the building and some other factors.
VOICE systems have different requirement.
Systems with Horn Strobes are set up differently.
You can have an elevator recall system tied to a panel that may not be considered fire alarm and it should be labeled elevator recall only.
You sometimes can have FLOW TAMPER systems that are very basic just to monitor the fire sprinkler system and those would not be considered a full fire alarm system.
If you have a stairwell pressurization system in it needs to be tied to the fire alarm system.
If you have VESDA air aspiration system that needs to be monitored by the fire alarm system.
If you have a special fan control system/ Smoke Control to move air throughout the building this can also be tied to the fire alarm system and in large buildings it needs to be done properly. JCI Johnson Controls has the expertise to do these type of large projects the right way. Code requirements often change and so having an Engineer that does not keep up on these code changes make it more difficult to bid these projects out if they are not designed to current code requirements.
Many of these notes can change depending on your occupancy and requirements.
A. Any building that has a fire sprinkler system should be tied to a fire alarm panel to have the basic items such as monitoring the flow, tampers, backflows, PIV which are Post Indicator Valves (These are those metal posts outside of a building and you can clearly see the word OPEN on it if the valve is open and these should be monitored by the system. The panel needs to be monitored by a UL listed Central Station normally through a cellular communicator, sometimes with 2 phone lines or the Internet. On this system you should also have a smoke detector at the FACP panel that is Fire Alarm Control Panel and at least one PULL station and normally you would have one horn strobe outside the RISESR room where the fire sprinkler riser is and often one horn strobe inside. Often the AHJ Fire Marshal will require additional notification.
Notification appliances such as strobes, speakers, speaker strobes and horn strobes have different spacing requirements depending on the spacing and ceiling height and sound requirements of the room or area so the design needs to be done with cd ratings which is the strobe brightness and with the sound db ratings or settings which is how loud it is and on speakers we set the wattage properly and design the system for intelligibility so you can understand the voice instructions. If the spacing is not done properly this can cause an issue with the system not being designed to code and possibly failing the final test and don’t get the least expensive design because it can cost you more later on.
When you have an Elevator in your building normally you will have a smoke detector outside the elevator on each lobby, detection in the elevator control room, relays to control elevator recall for primary, secondary, fire hat and sometimes shunt trip when the elevator is over 50 feet. When this is the case often you will have a smoke and a heat at the top of the shaft depending on if the shaft is sprinkled or not and often they will include shunt trip on elevators even under 50 feet even though code does not require it. Each building is a a bit different depending on if the elevator controls are in the elevator itself in the shaft on a floor just outside the shaft or in an elevator control room.
Most buildings will require strobes in the restrooms and sometimes horn strobes or speaker strobes inside the restroom depending on the size of those areas, speaker strobes if it is voice system or horn strobes if it is not in conference rooms and large meeting rooms and speaker strobes or horn strobes in egress pathways such as halls and common work areas. Most of the time you don’t need them in each office although if it is a medical environment exam rooms will need notification and depending on how they are set up the requirements will change a bit so having a NICET III certified tech design these is prudent. You also can have a PE Fire Engineer design your fire alarm systems as well. You also need notification 15 feet from the end of each hallway, a smoke detector at the Fire Alarm Control panel and at any power supply as well. Many items are cut and dried and expected on each project and others are not.
With Fire Sprinkler systems often the PE Engineer will only put in a note with one monitor module for the FLOW and one for the Tamper, most projects require at least 5 monitor modules, one for FLOW, 2 Tampers and 2 backflows. Often pressure switches need to be monitored or JPCP and FPCP which are Jocky Pump Control Panel and Fire Pump Control panel and these can require additional monitor modules but they do not put it on the drawings so many times these items have to be handled as change orders making the project more expensive as the job goes on.
Often a PE Electrical Engineer will design projects for bidding purposes and they will include notes such as The Fire Alarm Contractor needs to provide a fire alarm system that will meet code even if additional devices are required that are not shown on the drawings. This makes it difficult to bid these projects when the drawings do not show items that are required by code so most cities have plans go through a third party review to determine if the system is designed to code requirements. When a fire alarm company like Johnson Controls Fire Protection with NICET III or IV designers designs a project it is rare that the fire marshal comes back with changes, however when we bid PLAN and SPECIFICATIONS often it is not designed to code.
Just yesterday 4/24/2025 I bid out a project where the PE Electrical Engineer put horn strobes inside offices and stairwells that do not require notification according to current code yet they left notification out of areas that do require it so if we add things to the bid drawings when others bid to the plans we do not win those jobs because we are not competitive yet we try to submit RFI Request for information documents asking these questions to clarify before the bid goes out so all bidders can see the questions and answers.
Call Larry Love at Johnson Controls Fire Projection for more information about having us design your fire alarm system. Larry.Love@jci.com 801 898 6003
Matt Bingham is also another estimator at Johnson Controls Fire Protection and you can call Matt for new construction, upgrades to existing Simplex Systems and Larry and Matt work together.
Matthew.Bingham@jci.com 801 419 1379
You can have an Electrical Engineer design your system and put it out to bid and have a third party review done before the bidding process to make sure the bid documents get put together properly.
Contact Shandie Gorney Shandie.a.gorney@jci.com 801 214 5668 for service, test and inspection for fire alarm and for fire sprinkler systems and for fire extinguishers. Shandie can also set you up with monitoring.
Get all your systems installed by Johnson Controls and all your monitoring, testing and inspections done by one company.
Contact Jackson Jones Jackson.Jones@jci.com is his email and 801 403 3461 is his cell phone.
Jackson can help you with any existing Simplex systems that need service calls. He can bid out not to exceed services calls or do it on time and material.
If you have Jackson bid a service call out most of the time it will be less expensive than if you call service direct and have them send someone out to you. It all depends on what type of issues you are having.
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