This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of Security Business magazine. When sharing, don’t forget to mention Security Business magazine on LinkedIn and @SecBusinessMag on Twitter.
Editor’s Note: Fire Alarm 411 is a new regular column in Security Business dedicated to fire alarm contracting, code compliance and emerging fire & life safety technologies.
When I transitioned into an office after many years of being a tech in the field, I was quickly given a job to estimate. It was a six-story building downtown that was being converted from an office space into a condominium complex. Eager to deliver a great solution for the customer and to show my boss how much I knew, I immediately visited the jobsite and prepared a preliminary design.
What I didn’t realize at the time is that I had no idea how to figure out which devices should be installed in a building or where they should be installed. I had only ever worked in the field, and the only codes I knew were NFPA 72, the National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code and NFPA 70, the National Electrical Code. The problem was, those codes say nothing about the kind of devices one should install for a six-story condo or where those devices should be installed. Trust me, I looked.
My only thought was to reflect on the buildings I had worked in and the fire alarm systems on which I had worked. In my past experience, what had I seen in other buildings? I put together a list:
- Smoke detectors at the top of stairwells and in all the corridors
- Smoke detectors in bedrooms and common areas of living units
- Full voice evacuation with speakers everywhere
- Strobes nearly everywhere (maybe not the pantry)
- Sprinkler monitoring
- Pull stations at every exit
- Firefighter telephones at stairwells and in the elevator
- Elevator recall
- Duct detectors for every unit
There was probably more stuff I don’t remember, but I was able to put together my estimate by assembling this hodgepodge of every system I had ever seen from a wide array of building occupancy types and from fire alarm systems that probably spanned four decades or more.
I was proud of that estimate. Although I had never designed a system before, I felt it was thorough. It had everything the customer needed to make sure the buildings were safe and compliant. I knew that jobs often take longer than anticipated, so I added in a buffer for extra labor. I even added in budget for risk in case I had missed something.
Imagine my confusion and surprise when the general contractor responded that my bid was about 20 times higher than the next highest bid. How could that be? There’s no way that everyone else had firefighter telephones, full voice evac and all the smoke detectors that I had included.
It turns out that was true. They didn’t. It turns out to also be true that the other guys submitted bids for systems that fully complied with code. My design far exceeded code requirements. But I didn’t know that yet. To make matters worse – and unbeknownst to me – we had been trying to win business from this contractor for years. This was the first time they had agreed to accept a bid from us, and unfortunately, it was the last one for a very long time.
Finding the Right Codes
That first experience bidding a job was a jolt for me. It felt like there was some kind of hidden code for what should be installed in a building. Frustrated that my years as a technician hadn’t given me the skills to design code-compliant fire alarm systems, I started asking questions and reading everything I could find on the subject. It turns out that what I was missing wasn’t hidden, but it was a code (or several). It just wasn’t the codes with which I was familiar.
Over the next several months, I started learning about building codes like the International Fire Code and NFPA 101: Life Safety Code. The rules for fire alarm systems gradually became less of a mystery. Continuing my studies, I learned that not every city uses the same code. Different cities may adopt different codes, different editions of a code or even create their own custom versions of an otherwise standard code.
Reflecting back on that first estimate, my mistakes are obvious now. That condo wasn’t considered a high rise, so by code, speakers for voice evacuation and strobes were not required – nor were firefighter telephones, and the air handler units were too small to need duct detectors. The list goes on.
My old boss and I are lucky that we didn’t win that job. Although my price was ridiculously high, we couldn’t have installed everything I proposed for the price I gave. I didn’t budget for engineering or project management. I neglected the cost of electrical work like conduit and 110 VAC circuits for power supplies. I had no idea what overhead and burden were. If we had won that job, I would surely have found myself demoted back to the field within weeks.
The details always vary, but that experience is not unique. If you’ve never had anyone explain the numerous kinds of rules in the fire alarm industry and how they apply, you’ll likely make many of the same mistakes I made. Maybe you already have.
A few years after submitting that crazy bid, I was fortunate to get another shot with that GC. They had become increasingly frustrated with their usual fire alarm contractors and were down to just one firm. By then, I had learned how to accurately estimate and design systems. My teams were competent and hard-working, and they were developing a reputation for delivering quality work.
We won that next bid, and within a few months of our first job with that GC, we became their primary fire alarm contractor. To this day, I still wonder if they ever remembered I was the same guy who had given them that insane quote.
Building a Foundation of Knowledge
Over the years, I have built a framework that helps explain the various rules that apply to the fire alarm industry, and it starts with six key categories of fire alarm rules and regulations. In my next Fire Alarm 411 column, I will begin to explain those six categories and how you can know which ones apply. At the end of the series, you will have a good understanding of where to look for fire alarm requirements.
With a career spanning nearly every role in the life safety industry and a NICET Level IV certification, Ben Adams is a sought-after author and speaker. In 2021, he launched FireAlarm.Training (https://FireAlarm.Training) to accelerate training for companies, shrinking time-to-value for new techs from months to just days. Part of this column was taken from the course Intro to Fire Alarm, which can be found at https://firealarm.training.
