Earlier this week I read a very basic question on a sprinkler design forum. Some say there are no bad questions. Those hypothetical people may never have been in a Facebook Group.

The question clearly showed the lack of understanding on the part of the person asking the question.

You can imagine what happened next – the keyboard warriors went to battle. They had fun blasting the novice into the internet oblivion.
 

And this happens all the time.
 

It doesn’t have to be Facebook. It happens on Facebook for Businesses (also known as LinkedIn), email forums, Reddit, and other online technical forums.

It is also not limited to the digisphere. A bad question in a conference room or in the field gets chided at best or embarrassingly criticized at worst.
 

Did we all not start somewhere with nothing?


I’m not a second generation Fire Protection Engineer, but my guess is those that are third and fourth generation practitioners don’t come out of the womb spelling escutcheon correctly.

I'm still not 100% convinced I spelled it right just now.

We all started knowing literally nothing. We each are on our own journey learning piece by piece and at different paces that never really ends. The best experts that have spent three decades in the industry are still always trying to improve.
 

Is there harm in asking a dumb question? Yes, but it’s not the embarrassment in the moment or the obvious display of misunderstanding. It’s the discouragement to ask the next question.

When Average Jim (I have to use Average Jim because Average Joe hits a little too close to home for me) actually seeks an answer to a basic question and gets lambasted – you know what he’s not going to do? He’s not going to ask the next five questions that he also needs answers on. 
 

On the very first morning of my very first internship, I asked a bad one. I was maybe 15 minutes into that first day when the site project manager asked me to make copies of a handful of documents. I asked if the staples had to come out before making copies.

Dumb question? Yeah. Do commercial copiers appreciate hard metal through their sensitive little feeder claws? No. And had I ever used a commercial copier before? No.

If I hadn’t asked, would I have been the dufus that destroyed a commercial copier 15 minutes into his first internship? Yeah brah, that would have been moi.
 

I heard so much crap about asking that question, but I was glad I did. I also never had to ask it again.

Eventually my questions got slightly more sophisticated and a little better, but I did start at nothing.

 
I’m not going to change human behavior. I can’t help people act online like they would in a face to face conversation.

What I can do is provide a better avenue for those people who don’t want to be vilified but do need answers to their question.

With nearly a couple decades of internet usage we know now that it isn’t Vegas - what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. Like forever.

It’s getting more and more difficult to ask a question that isn’t tagged to your name, your company, or your reputation. Your forum question you wrote in 2007 when you didn’t know anything on pre-action systems? Yeah it’s probably still searchable.

Goodness knows I’d rather not have my kids go post-by-post from what I put on Facebook during high school. Same would go for a client seeing questions I would have had early in my career.
 

So what can I do about it now? Create a quality avenue for the question - any question - whether it’s expert-level or at square one - and not tie a personal reputation to it.

If you haven’t checked it out, the Daily Forum is a place for a single, filtered, anonymous question each day. There are experts there from a wide variety of backgrounds and locations that have far more knowledge than I could hope to gain.

Experts from across the globe, from AHJs to Designers to Researches to Installers to Engineers. Last I checked we were approaching nearly 3,000 subscribers just to those questions.
 

If you have a "dumb" question, if you don’t want to ask your boss, if you need an outside opinion, and you don’t want your identity tied to something it? Send us your question here. Also consider bookmarking the page so you can send in that question the next time you're stumped.

The link toward the bottom of this email “Have a fire protection question?” is always there for exactly that same reason.
 
Chances are, if you have an interest or can’t find an answer, someone else is looking for it too. When you ask, we all learn. And that’s exactly what this site is all about. 


Free NFSA Virtual Conference Tomorrow
This year's National Fire Sprinkler Association Business and Leadership Conference went Virtual. The virtual seminars are this week (Thursday the 30th and Friday the 1st). Registration is live, it is FREE, and CEUs will be awarded. Check it out here.

I had the pleasure to talk about the changing digital media opportunities in fire protection with the host of the Fire Sprinkler Podcast, Chris Logan, as part of the virtual conference. I believe we'll air at 2:35 pm Eastern Time on Thursday.
​

A New, Free, Fire Protection App
I've gotten asked a good handful of times - "Will you make an app?"

While I am quintessentially a millennial who disowns being a millennial, I have thought about making an app.

The good news is, there's already one that I was able to help beta test and can now share with you. It's free and was developed by Michael Swahn and the helpful engineers over at Sebench Engineering out of Atlanta. It's now live on both Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Here's links to get it:

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sebench-engineering/id1506207375
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=al.pragmatic.sebench.android
 
The app has quick-calculations for Fire Pump Tests, Hydrant Flows, Equivalent K-Factors, Flow/K-Factor/Pressure Calculations, and Friction Loss. Download it today with the links above.

Thanks & I hope you have a safe and great rest of your week.

We love to poke fun at millennials. It’s like the holy grail of tradition.

“Kids coming out of school these days – you know? It’s ridiculous. They want twice the pay and half the work of when I came out of school. They don’t want to learn. They’re lazy. There’s not enough talent. There’s not enough interest. They don’t work hard.”  

Ever heard that before? How about this one -

“Young people think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”

Yeah – that last quote wasn’t exactly about millennials – Aristotle wrote it in the 4th Century BC. Every young generation is clearly, obviously, unexplainably worse than the one before it. Right? I mean criticizing the next generation has been going on for all human existence. I’m sure cavemen used to scorn at how the young have no eagerness to strike rocks anymore…

But Millennials.

Millennials are so… entitled.

Yikes.

Yeah – I wrote it. Entitled. The worst label of all. That E word.

So Entitled.

Millennials are so entitled that they don’t even own their own issues; those are of course caused by Boomer parenting. [see the half a million search results for “millennial poor parenting” on Google].

I mean clearly millennials are like the worst young generation we’ve ever seen? Right?
 
Back Off Another Joe/Millennial Soapbox
OK. So maybe the problem isn’t that bad. Maybe I exaggerate a little. Maybe I write too much in the third person considering my age technically qualifies me as a millennial. And yes, maybe I do also blame my parents for all my nonsensical fears (thunderstorms and sinkholes, come on Mom!).
 
I was probably accused of being entitled a couple years into my post-college career. I felt good about the work I was doing, felt like I was understanding the curve, and I am sure it was showing in my attitude. A couple big project issues plus a bad annual review and I was quickly sized back to reality.

But entitlement doesn’t go away easily.
 
It was around that time that some coworkers went to a career fair at an area state college. One of the college students (a junior) inquired about the company. He got the normal pitch on working culture, opportunity, training and the whole bit. He then asked about management positions. After laughing it off my coworker realized the student was serious. He was looking for a management position as a quasi-21-year-old with zero real world experience!

After returning to work and sharing the disbelief, it’s easy to see entitlement in others when at that same time I probably couldn’t see it in myself.

I did get over it though. It wasn’t through shame or being a “company guy” or bad annual reviews. It was by starting my own side-hustle.

Takeaways from the Art Shop
I had always enjoyed creating sketches. During college I had a few architectural studio courses where we learned architectural sketching traditions. I enjoyed drawing and took some of those lessons to open a small art shop online.
That experience brought so many positive perspectives into my life.

It started with only one sale in the first two months of opening. It was a wonderful feeling. Then one good review led to another sale in month three. In month four I had two sales. Month five I doubled again.

With each touchpoint I worked on improving the customer experience. I learned quickly to be responsive to customers. I learned how to deal with unsatisfied customers – which meant putting frustrations aside and owning-up to every misstep. I learned how taxation is theft (ok not really – but it is a major downer).

Probably one of the most important things I learned from the basic art shop is that I had to take ownership of the work result. It never mattered how hard I tried to draw. If I created something that offered no value to others, it wouldn’t sell and had no value. That’s the real-world economy.

People pay for value. How was I to bring value to a customer? How could I improve the value I offered? How could my presentation and correspondence be improved to help convey value? I thought about all of those things, constantly.
That also began slowly translating to the workplace. Just because I put in effort – if the end result was incomplete, sloppy or just wrong – then I was not producing value.

The essence of entitlement is believing that showing up is enough. It’s not. The value we provide for the world is our all-in engagement with doing great work.

Employee vs. Ownership Perspective
Starting that art side-hustle slowly and fundamentally changed my perspective about business and serving people.
As I see it – there exists an Employee and an Ownership mentality. An Employee mentality asks – “why doesn’t our company pay for X?”, “they underpay everyone here”, “they never pay for good software”, and on and on.

The Ownership perspective is looking holistically at the business. “How can we better serve our clients?” “How can we improve work culture?” “How can we improve productivity?” An Ownership mentality links personal responsibility to their work and representing a brand.

I didn’t have to have a stake in a company to begin to develop that perspective. Businesses exist to make money. If businesses didn’t make money for a long period of time, then they fold and cease to  exist. That’s reality, and that’s not a bad thing either.

But just adopting an Ownership perspective brings about a world of possibilities. Company limitations don't become obstructions - they just become a problem that needs a creative solution. 
 
That art business grew, and grew and grew. Just three years in I sold over 600 pieces in a year. Wild. Especially for an ameateur artist who's dayjob is being and engineer. That shop still exists at www.etsy.com/shop/artbyjosephdalton. There’s not much time into it anymore now that the fire protection content is top priority – but I’m so thankful I started that shop because the lessons it taught has been invaluable.

Want to change your perspective? Start that side hustle you’ve always wanted. It just might unlock a fresh way of looking at the world.

Enjoy this? Consider sharing with a friend. 

If you enjoyed this, consider sharing with a friend. Here are some similar pieces by Joe Meyer:
Does Your Job Title Matter?
Knowledge is Not Just in Education
Fahrenheit 451 & The Thirst for Knowledge
Heartache of Failure in Life Safety Design

A little over 3 years ago I started my role in leading a small fire protection group. It is a subset of up to 3 people within a multi-discipline engineering consulting firm.

The first week there I asked my boss about what my title should be.

He asked what I wanted it to be, largely indifferent to the outcome.

If it mattered to me, he said, I should think about it and choose what I feel is right.

A myriad of thoughts came to mind. A buddy of mine was just promoted to “Director of Fire Protection Services,” which I liked and sounded fancy. 

“Team Leader”? Sounded too self-appointed (and too Star-Trek-ian). 

Finding a Title
I asked my wife and it spawned a healthy discussion. 

A job title should relate to the actual work accomplished so that clients can relate. Sure, that part is easy.

Maybe a fancy job title could impact future roles. Maybe a fancy one would make mom proud.

After thinking about it for some time I kept asking - does the job title really even matter?

I came to this role from a 500+ person company with an assortment of titles and even levels within each title.

At the new small company – what did the title even matter? I’d be doing design, engineering review, business development, project management, and low-level management. The work wouldn’t change whichever title I chose.

Sorry, I Still Get Carded
It was around that time, just six years into the industry, that a recruiter approached me. It was for a Senior Fire Protection Engineer position. 

The recruiter said I paired up exactly with the role. He expressed disbelief when I wasn’t interested in the role, considering I was just an Engineer at that time. [side note: I’m somewhat convinced recruiters will say anything to set up a job interview.]

Why even have the term “Senior” in a job title if it is even possible for someone 6-years into the industry to have a crack at it? 

I am not saying I would have gotten the job – I surely would not have – but to even suggest a 29-year old could be a “Senior” Engineer completely degrades the meaning of the term Senior.

Perhaps in large organizations the job title is the measure of prestige and responsibility. Perhaps it carries more weight where there is little else to distinguish thousands of employees. 

But for the rest of the world? The small consultants & contractors? I can’t see it carrying much meaning, or at least nowhere near the importance of the role itself.

Your role in fire protection is so much bigger than your job title. 

Whether you're an intern, engineer, manager, designer, or leader of the multi-hundred-person firm - you play an important role in protecting people and structures from major loss. 

Your hands create the safety we want to see in the world. 

That is far more important than your title. 

Consider your role and your contribution to the world beyond the job title and I promise your work will be more rewarding.

So where did I end up with my new job title? 

I chose “International Director of Fire Protection and Life Safety Design & Consulting Services”.

…just kidding, I stuck with “Fire Protection Engineer”.

What About You?
Where do you stand on job titles? Am I on an island, or have you had similar thoughts yourself? 

I'm interested in your take - post your thoughts here.​

p.s. This blog covers weekly takeaways in my experience as a Fire Protection Engineer. Some are thoughts on career while others are real-world technical applications. If you’ve found this interesting, consider sending to a friend.

A few times each month I get questions about various parts of the website. This week I thought I'd introduce myself and the process around here a little more with the most commonly asked questions about the site:

Who Does the Sketches?
Originally when I started the website I did all of the illustrations posted on the blog. I started sketching during our architectural studio courses in college and even still run an online art shop selling minimalist sketches on Etsy.

Starting in late 2017, however, I realized I was able to focus more on blog content if I hired help for the illustrations, which was when I brought in an artisan Diana who is both an architect and an illustrator. She does most of the fantastic illustrations you see around the website now.

How are the Illustrations Completed?
The illustrations are simply created using a tablet and Adobe Photoshop.

The typically thick outlines with thinner interiors is fundamentally a method used in architectural renderings that is commonly taught in architecture school. The color function is typically a combination of digital brushes that offer texture to the piece, and the font used in all of these illustrations is actually a custom font I created many years ago based on my handwriting (a far more tedious and difficult process than I ever would have guessed).

How Much & When Do I Work on the Website?
A couple months ago I met a client for lunch who received a blog post via email as I was in the parking lot walking up to meet him. He laughed and asked if I pressed the send button while parking.

Fortunately, the blog content, daily questions, toolkit updates, and just about everything else on this site doesn't have to be posted live. I get up between 5 and 5:30 am every day of the week to write and develop resources until my kids wake up around 6:30. All in all it's roughly 6-8 hours a week to put together what you see here, and certainly not written and sent at 11:00am while I'm working my day job.

Why Do MeyerFire?
First, fire protection is way too important of an industry to take casually and not care about. You didn't get into this field to be a casual observer and neither did I - people in fire protection are regularly far more passionate about the trade than what you'll find in other disciplines like mechanical and electrical engineering. Not a knock on them - but us fire protection folk or a pretty tight-knit and passionate group.

I'm fortunate to have experience working for large and small companies, and I've found that overall the fire protection industry is comprised of many small outfits - contractors, engineers, designers - and one of the best ways I can bring value and positively impact the industry is by connecting smart people and good ideas. That's what this website is all about.

I once heard a presentation on more regulation and oversight will rule out bad fire protection design & installation. I don't think the problem is with regulation - I think it's with education. The more resources and helpful material we can share around the industry the better off we'll all be. As JFK said, "a rising tide raises all boats."

How Long is MeyerFire Going to Continue?
You got it, this site is going to self destruct in August.

Just kidding - I have long-term and sustainable plans to continue writing weekly while continuing PE Prep material as well as developing improvements to the Toolkit and other resources. Being that I've scratched about 5% of my list of future ideas, there's plenty of work still to be done.

Is it Profitable?
There was a local SFPE golf tournament last year where I had the privilege of golfing with a local colleague who had purchased a PE Prep Guide in the prior year and passes the PE Exam. I was excited to meet him in person and he felt the same - however he said he was disappointed that (1) I was younger than he was and (2) I didn't roll up in a Mercedes with how expensive the book was.

Despite the high cost of the PE Prep Guide, most of the profit I use to roll forward and invest into development of other tools. I still do all of the website editing, tool development, writing for the Prep Guide, and blog development, but I hire help for illustrations, industry research, software development, and marketing. For all of the time I put in "blogging" has paid about or a little less than my day job on an hourly basis, but the impact of this endeavour has been far more valuable than just the financials.

Also, despite working with contractors in a land full of Ford F-350s, I drive a Corolla.

​Who is Joe Meyer?
I used to say I'm just a guy typing away in his basement in the wee hours of the morning.

Fortunately I got a major promotion a few months ago and now type out of the first floor office. The best part of this story is that this office is also not in my parent's house. I live in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, with my beautiful wife, three kids and a dog. We have a four-year-old, two-year-old, and a four-month old - so as you can imagine our home is very lively.

I first became interested in fire protection engineering while studying architectural engineering at the University of Kansas. A guest speaker came into one of our freshman introductory courses and the industry sounded very appealing - good career prospects, expertise in a niche, and most important fighting to help save lives. I turned that piqued interest into a couple different fire protection internships and later studied under the University of Maryland's Master of Engineering in Fire Protection program.

After school I worked at a large MEP firm in Kansas City, Missouri, with a leading group of 40+ fire protection engineers and designers. I've since moved to run fire protection design for a small 35-person MEP, Structural and Fire Protection firm in St. Louis.

My experience and education to date does not make me an expert in the field. I believe there's something to learn from everyone every single day. For me, this blog and website are about two things - the first is to connect & empower people in the industry so that all of us in the industry benefit, and the second is to chart some of my own journey in trying to understand more about fire protection all the time. Thank you for supporting this effort!

Meetup at the NFPA Conference & Expo
If you're attending NFPA's Conference in San Antonio in two weeks (June 17th-19th), be sure to stop by booth 460 and say hello. Some great colleagues at Engineered Corrosion Solutions (also headquartered in St. Louis) have graciously allowed me to hang out in their booth during the Expo so that I can meet people like you.

​Let me know you'll be there by dropping a line at jdmeyer@meyerfire.com or commenting here.

Unless you're tuned in as an AHJ yourself, you've likely made a few "code calls" to a code authority and asked a litany of questions to make sure your project's design meets the local requirements.

I'm not even sure if the term "code call" is a common term, but I've heard it enough that I suspect you already know what I'm talking about regardless of where you call home.

I enjoy this process now, but I didn't always. Fresh out of school I'm pretty sure I was visibly shaking the time I first made a code call. I was sure that within seconds my cover would be blown and it would be all too obvious that I had no idea what I was talking about. Despite my awkwardness (I make a good engineer, right??) nothing went sour and since then I've slowly learned and repeated many many times.

There was even one of my favorite code calls that I made about an elementary school to coordinate local fire alarm requirements. It was only right after the call late on a Friday afternoon that I found out that the fire marshal I just spoke with was hired onto our team and was starting the following Monday. They say fire protection is a small world, right? He turned out to be one of the most knowledgeable people I know and one of my favorite people to work alongside. 

The Joys & Pains of Code Calls

Code calls also come in many different flavors.

Sometimes I'm just shocked by how friendly and helpful code authorities are. I once made a call at 15 minutes till 5pm on a Friday to a small town in Arkansas, thinking I would just leave a voicemail. After my questions, I asked if the department conducted flow tests, and while he said they did, he apologized that because of a prior commitment he couldn't do it then but would be happy to do it first thing Monday morning. I almost fell out of my chair. Very helpful and caring people in this field.

On the contrary, sometimes the hardest part about a code call is just finding the right person to speak with who is actually responsible for plan review of fire protection systems and getting a few minutes of their time. Not to pick on New York City because I love the people there and speak with a handful of you regularly, but if you're trying to get a hold of someone to verify or coordinate a few particulars of your system... well... good luck! Maybe it's because they knew I can't stand the Yankees.

I also sometimes get AHJs who simply say all they do is 'per code' and they aren't interested in talking specifics. The whole point of the call is filling in the gaps where a code or standard does not direct but rather defers decisions to the AHJ.

Want a siamese fire department connection with national thread, or a Storz-type? Either way is code compliant. As an engineer I can make either way work.

Is a wall-mounted FDC permissible, or does it need to be freestanding? Either location is compliant, but NFPA 13 says the location needs to be coordinated with the AHJ. 

The Cheatsheet

What I've gathered and refined over hundreds of code calls is my cheatsheet I currently use today. Just like the design cheatsheet, if you're using the Toolkit you can quickly highlight categories for your record keeping.

What's even better about this tool, though, is that you can quickly fill in the content (while on the call) and then right after save as a PDF and email to the AHJ themselves. Want them to have a record of the call and a quick way to verify your notes? Great! You now have a logged code call and the AHJ has an opportunity to review your notes.

The process of calling, taking notes, and composing the email used to take close to an hour total. This tool alone brings that total time to about 15-20 minutes. That's three-quarters of an hour you could save on every job you make the call! 

A Radical Big-Picture Concept

One of my longer big-picture ideas to help the industry is to beta test and, if successful, open up a larger code-call database. I envision this as a database that brings designers and code authorities together to make local requirements clear and help jurisdictions get installations that reflect their preferences and mandates.

Want to know what hydraulic safety factor is required for sprinkler systems in Springfield, Illinois? Great - a quick query in the database reveals that and a clean list of other local requirements. 

Want to know what type and location for FDC's that Tucson, Arizona requires? Great, we'd have that too.

This would clearly have a huge value for designers and engineers - but what I'm really curious about is how to incentivize code authorities to take the survey or help us populate the database. If you're an AHJ, email me (jdmeyer@meyerfire.com) or comment below about whether you'd be open to the idea of making your local requirements public in a database. 

I would have to think that AHJ input would only help local authorities get installations that match their needs - but I also know that getting action out of anyone is only possible with mutual benefit and sometimes incentives.

Just like the Design Cheatsheet posted a couple weeks ago, this form is integrated into the updated version of the MeyerFire Toolkit ready for download today. Below is a blank and filled-in template.

​If you're already a Toolkit user, you can download the code call cheatsheet today by logging in here. If you're not using the Toolkit, you might consider joining in on what's quickly becoming what some consider the best tool for fire sprinkler design under $200. See more about it here.

The Questions on My List

The current code call checklist I use today has had items added and scratched over years of finding out what's important and what questions always get the same answers. 

​That being said, there's no real one defined list that matches everyone's preferences. What questions do you ask that you feel are important to the design that's not explicit in code? Comment below.

Join the Cause

​Our line of work in helping save lives and property is extremely important, but you already know that. This site is built to help you excel in fire protection. If you're not already subscribed to these free weekly resources & articles, you can do so here for free.

I've occasionally run into predicaments on projects that put me in a tough position. 

A couple weeks ago as part of a rural project in a small town outside of Memphis I was helping coordinate a flow test between a hired sprinkler contractor and the water utility.

I had initially asked both the fire and water department if they conducted tests or had interest in witnessing, asked for sprinkler contractor recommendations, and then called the nearest sprinkler outfit I could find (which happened to be an hour and a half drive away). They agreed to run a flow test for $500. I gave parameters on which hydrants I felt we needed tested and gave the go-ahead.

Results from the test were very poor. A static of 65 psi dropped to 40 at only 580 gpm, with the extrapolated curve showing a maximum capacity of around 800 gpm at 20 psi. 

Based on the intent of the project with significant storage capacity (think ESFR), we were looking at both a pump and a tank to supplement both pressure and flow.

The hiccup came when I caught word from the water department who told the general contractor (our client) that the sprinkler company used a gauge that didn't zero out and the water department suspected was not calibrated. Based on past history the water department expected better flow in the area (at least), and were surprised that the flow had been so low.

Now to the minor dilemma - we need the test re-run (especially if there's water storage tank implications) - so does that mean having the same sprinkler contractor run the test again? The water department, after talking the situation with them, wasn't a big fan. Do I find another sprinkler contractor, and have to eat the original $500? Do I play the game that many general contractors would run, and not pay the $500?

I'm not the kind of person that generally makes a phone call without some kind of directive or question in mind, but I called the contractor and just laid out what I had heard and asked how they wanted to handle it. Fortunately, the sales manager was extremely helpful and offered to re-run the test at no additional charge (despite the one-way 1.5 hour drive to the site) with a new set of gauges.

I'll get the results this week or next, and I suspect that with even slightly better flow information there could be big impacts on the sizing of water storage.

I was on the receiving end of generosity and being well-served in this case, and I am very thankful for it.

Being in business affords us the opportunity to make many decisions and serve other people. One of my favorite aspects of running a small team is having the opportunity to serve people very well and own our mistakes. Clients don't always expect perfection, but a full-fledged genuine effort to serve in a client's best interest usually results in successful projects and happy clients.

I don't expect every flow test, every installation, or every encounter to be perfect - but having people who are willing to own a mistake and take steps to correct it are the type of people I enjoy working with.

This blog began as a way to share weekly takeaways in my role as a fire protection engineer. If you know someone who might be interested in the resources and articles, send them a link or subscribe yourself here.

I started working with fire suppression systems as a bid/spec designer who did both upfront "full-design" as well as "performance-spec" or "design/build" criteria. I'll save frustrations and pet-peeves with this approach for a later time.

While I still help architects put those packages together, several years ago I also began helping contractors with permit design, hydraulic calculations, installation detailing, and stocklisting. To say that this foray into seeing the other side of the industry is eye-opening would be an understatement. I've learned so much and perhaps only now realize how much I still have to learn.

Here's my top takeaways from pulling back the curtain and working with Oz:

1. Details Are Critical
Probably the biggest adjustment when working on installation drawings as opposed to an upfront 'full-design' is that each and every detail is critical. The goal becomes less of "is this a code-compliant, efficient design?" and rather becomes "is this a code-compliant, most efficient design?"

What happens when a pipe is fabricated to exact lengths and ends up overlapping with a steel beam by 1/2-inch? Steel beam wins. My buddy in the field now has add a spool piece or re-cut pipe.

What happens when you accidentally order unions instead of couplings? You get a phone call.

2. It's Just Theory Until Someone Has to Do It
In some ways, living on the 'engineering' side of a project and not the contracting end is dabbling in theory. Even if pipe, fittings and equipment are all shown on bid documents, there's still someone on the back-end putting together installation drawings and a contractor that's looking at it before it gets installed.

When you're the guy on the back-end, it's no longer theory. A dimension from a pipe to structure is where it's supposed to go in the field. My point is, my fantasy-world of someone else correcting my schematic layout before it gets installed is no longer there. 

​3. Preferences Vary Widely
Prefer flex drops to hard pipe? What about grooved & welded branchlines over threaded? Want Viking, Vic, Tyco, Reliable, or Globe sprinklers? What about hanger attachments? Preferences vary widely, and while all of the above are code compliant, there is a ton of variation in how different people prefer to purchase and install a system.

4. Ain't Nobody Got Time for This
Think architects have tight deadlines? When a subcontractor has a contract held out for long periods of time, only to finally be released for work and in the next breadth asked when submittals will be complete - there's a time crunch.

Not all projects designs are under tight timelines and if contracts are released in good time sometimes there's a decent amount of breathing room. But in many cases, my clients need turnarounds as soon as possible.

5. Think Differently
Once our drawings were unstrapped from the titleblock and drawing convention (scale, fonts, numbering) typically dictated by the architect - a world of possibility has opened up with flexibility on the documents.

Want to know why many shop drawings have details thrown on the same sheet as the plan? It's because the installer may only be carrying that sheet when he or she installs that area.

We made the leap a couple years ago to do 100% BIM, whether the job required it or not. In doing so, there's been many opportunities to approach how we construct our drawings differently. When everything is modeled, section cuts become very easy. Want isometrics for risers and complex areas? Done. 

Why is 1/8-inch scale so prevalent in the shop drawing world? It's about the smallest scale we can do to see everything on a sheet. Traditionally, drafting was labor intensive and each sheet represented a real cost incurred to the designer and thereby the building owner. This resulted in reducing the number of sheets whenever possible.

Now, with computer drafting and even more-so in the 3-D world of BIM, scale is almost irrelevant. I find the notion of charging clients by the sheet almost funny now. My life becomes so much easier using 1/4-inch scale - drawings are cleaner, I can show two-line pipe and fittings, annotations take far less time to clean up, and I've yet to have a complaint from an installer concerning the larger scale.

In talking to software developers at HydraTEC there's a real sense that BIM will change how we construct drawings. When there's little to zero extra effort to show sections, isometrics, or renderings, then the question becomes less about how much time it takes to show extra detail and instead what presentation offers the best explanation of what we're trying to indicate. It's a really exciting place to be when you're at that point.

6. Lack of Information & Consideration
Probably my most frustrating lesson is that with many 'design-build' jobs that don't incorporate an engineer tasked with fire protection, there is zero consideration to where fire sprinkler systems and components are going to be installed.

I've had many projects put out to bid that don't even state whether a building is going to have an NFPA 13 system, much less space allocated for the sprinkler riser on an exterior wall.

For a functional bid, there's a few important details I think would help contractors compare apples-to-apples, and that's for another time but at a minimum should include (1) applicable code, (2) coordinated service entry, (3) flow test information where calculations are needed, (4) pipe specification, and perhaps (5) hazard criteria.

7. Boy There's A Lot to Learn
Years ago I was told it takes a solid 6-8 years or so of work in this industry before you gain a foothold in understanding the breadth of the work involved. Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Best-Seller "Outliers", discusses the now famous 10,000-hour rule whereby in order to truly be an expert in a topic, one must amass 10,000 hours of quality experience in that arena.

While I hold both of those considerations to be somewhat valid, I also realize after amassing those totals that I still have so, so much to learn in this industry. Please don't think that just because I record and share my thoughts here that I'm in any way more capable or more of an expert in this space than you are or can be.

I was on a jobsite yesterday getting installer feedback on one of my latest projects. While walking the job, we discussed at least a dozen different areas that the design could be improved to benefit the installer, allow for flexibility in field adjustments, and ways to route pipe that doesn't upset the other trades. The entire discussion didn't even touch code - there were no code issues - rather it was all about improving design technique for future projects.

My joy in sharing this material as someone who is not a refined expert, a Fellow SFPE, or the committee chairman of a major standard is that I can cover the small tips and nuances that we naturally gather and learn along the way. There's so much in the day-to-day where just starting the discussion has value.

A couple years ago I led a university engineering course covering Fire Protection Engineering.

While the students consisted of both undergraduates and a couple graduate students, we had one working professional audit the course whom I had worked with on several projects. He was a respected local plan reviewer who had nearly three decades of fire service and review experience. We carpooled to campus before and after each class and had great discussions on the profession, the course, and nuances of private versus public experiences.

One week he told me that he was very surprised by the class.

​Not by the content, but that the engineering students didn’t just already know the concepts we were teaching.

It wasn’t that he thought the group wasn’t intelligent, he just always carried the premise that engineers knew all the important concepts that non-engineers don't. The realization he had after a few weeks was that each student was starting from scratch just as he had done years ago.

The concept surprised me.

While there exists a small handful of fire protection programs in the U.S., the far majority of people who work in and around the industry do not have formal degrees in fire protection. Even for those people, the most important knowledge gained is learned on the job.

The premise drives at the point that the greatest benefit to education, at least in engineering, is gathering the ability to think critically and establish a platform for lifetime learning and growth. Recent graduates, even out of the best programs, are nowhere near the same people they become 5, 10, or 15 years later.

Education isn't about the content, it's learning how to learn.

Those that don't embrace lifelong learning get passed by those who do. Degrees (and education) matter, but a degree in fire protection and/or engineering does not inherently translate to knowledge or a successful career.

Just about everything I gained during an architectural engineering undergraduate program concerning fire protection was in self-study or through internship experience.

Would an architectural engineering program have set me up for long-term success in fire protection? Absolutely; I have no doubt it would have. The many people I’ve encountered from that program (University of Kansas Alumni) or other nearby engineering programs have already proven that it doesn’t take a fire protection degree to do extremely well in this industry.

Conversely, I later studied Fire Protection through the University of Maryland a Master of Engineering graduate program. Was is all that it was cracked up to be? In my opinion: yes and more. I learned to think about fire protection as a complete entity and not just within the context of fire alarm and fire sprinklers. I developed roots in performance-based design, began to consider special challenges of nuclear power generation or marine suppression systems, and experienced a depth in content that I had not known existed.

Those two programs have impacted my life dramatically. Yet, the most important takeaway I have from each of those experiences is the ability think critically and have a fanatical willingness to continue learning.


I read recently that more content is published online in every two days than had been created in all of human history through the twentieth century. There is so much great content in fire protection that exists in printed books, in reports, in training programs, in committee discussions, or is between the ears of that colleague in the office.

Knowledge is not limited to formal education – and formal education is not a pre-requisite to be a contributing and success story in this industry.

While it might be easy for engineering graduates to say that education isn’t critical to success, I readily believe that the most important and productive learning we can gather is in non-stop reading and intentional question asking.

There is so much to learn.
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If you haven't felt that tinge of anxiousness in the air, then you probably aren't spending time near someone taking the 2017 PE Exam.

This Friday over 200 professionals throughout the world will sit for the eight-hour Fire Protection P.E. Exam. It's a recognized mark of competency and for those taking the exam, a major milestone in his or her career.

In May of this year we published the 2017 MeyerFire PE Prep Guide, which introduced over 100 new questions, additional tips and references, and major revisions to the 2016 Guide. It was nothing short of a monstrous effort to compile the new 376-page volume. In addition, in June we launched a 20-week Weekly Exam Series in an effort to provide more practice while simulating actual exam conditions. This was joined by our continued free Daily PE Problems throughout the summer.

While this year was a big step up in involvement, it also was a very positive experience. We have had probably our most involved group of test takers to date, both in the number of questions posed, comments on the daily problems, and lively discussions in the PE Prep Facebook Group. A handful of last year's examinees provided real-time feedback in the Facebook discussions and a couple helped us compile new daily problems for this year.

There have been some learning curves on my end that cropped up this summer - namely needing better editing on my part as we had (in my opinion) too many errata updates to the 376-page guide. We will be incorporating all of those updates in the 2018 Guide. Another improvement I'm wanting for 2018 is to open up my availability late in the fall (September & October) better one-on-one help. I'll be exploring ways to better share and discuss content between now and next summer in that regard.

This summer I have again been impressed by how hard and thorough so many test takers are in their preparation. We've had some of the most in-depth content discussions around prep material of any summer to date. It seems as though the more problems and content we're able to distribute, the more discussion and depth everyone is able to soak up. It's certainly a good thing from a learning perspective.

For those taking the exam this week, remember that each year there's always some subject that appears completely out of nowhere. Just remember that those are just as surprising to everyone else taking the exam, and, some of those questions may not even be scored but rather trial questions for future exams. Do your best and forget the rest.

For those not taking the exam but know someone that is, give him or her a hug. Or don't, because that creeps people out - but do encourage beforehand and help celebrate with them afterwards. It's a big effort and for many an anxious time, but can be just as rewarding as well.