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I want to challenge you with a question. I’m going to suppose you’re a reasonably competent, experienced, practicing fire protection professional. (You’re reading this blog, after all!) Some of you are also licensed Fire Protection Engineers. If I asked you to first write a balanced combustion chemical equation for heptane (C₇H₁₆) in the presence of oxygen, and then find the Heat of Formation per molecule of heptane, could you do it with only knowing the values of Heat of Formation for water vapor, oxygen, heptane and carbon dioxide? No ChatGPT, no Google – just the answer to this? Or, are you like me, in that not only is it a stretch for me to be capable of doing this, but I have never come close to doing anything of this sort in a variety of Fire Protection Engineering roles that I’ve taken in my career? NUANCE IN THE EXAM That question – specifically – is fair game for the Fire Protection P.E. Exam. Chemical equation balancing and heat of formation are both in the Fire Protection P.E. Exam specifications, as is many other nuanced applications. Fire Protection Engineering covers a very wide breadth of content. It’s far more than sprinkler protection. One of the most misunderstood parts of being a Fire Protection Engineer is the assumption that an FPE is an expert in sprinkler systems. They could be, but they very well could not be. At most, the Fire Protection P.E. Exam is 20% sprinkler system-related. The P.E. Exam covers Special Hazards, Fire Alarm, Smoke Control, Explosion Protection, Passive Building Systems, Egress, Human Behavior, and some fundamentals on using information and data.  Historically, the Fire Protection P.E. Exam covers far more than just fire suppression. Many might argue that much of the knowledge that is tested is not regularly used in industry practice by Fire Protection Engineers. Historically, while many things are not relevant to a practicing Fire Protection Engineer, the test has been nuanced and forces the examinee to consider and be at least minimally competent in some basics of all these facets of Fire Protection Engineering. Historically, that’s been OK. Even if it’s not real world, it has served its role in trying to delineate competency for Fire Protection Engineering. But now, in 2024, we have two converging themes that are going to change the future of Fire Protection Engineering licensure. Some changes will be good, some may not. DECOUPLING THE EXPERIENCE TO SIT FOR AN EXAM Some states have “decoupled” the requirement for experience in order to sit for a P.E. Exam. Meaning that instead of waiting and gaining four years (or two years in some states, such as California), some states will allow an engineering graduate to take the exam at any time, but not earn the license until they’ve later reached the required amount of experience. Texas, for example, moved to this in 2016 to accommodate different career paths and encourage licensure. (https://pels.texas.gov/decoupling.html) FLEXIBILITY I see this as a two-edged sword. On the one hand, offering flexibility in when the exam is taken can encourage more attempts at the exam and more licensed Fire Protection Engineers. If I’ve heard anything over the last decade, it’s that we need more good people invested in fire protection and licensed as FPEs. There continues to be a massive demand for FPEs. Allowing someone to take an exam before having kids or marriage, while they’re fresh out of school and still in ‘study-mode’, or during more convenient times of their life does well to benefit the examinee. ACADEMIC VS. REAL-WORLD On the other hand, this puts a lot of pressure on the test writers to get the subject matter correct. If we’re testing on topics that do not relate to the industry, then this ‘decoupling’ is pushing the new-grad into a massive advantage. Going back to our chemical equation question. Let’s assume the new graduate student, Person A, doesn’t know the answer. Let’s look at a practicing, experienced, and competent experienced professional. Let’s call them Person B, who has never come across this in the fire protection industry and hasn’t studied or taken a major test in two decades. Who does this question benefit? It’s Person A – and by a wide margin. They’re still fresh out of school. They’re used to exams. They’re used to studying long hours (hopefully). They remember how to take tests. They know test-taking strategy; they’ve just done it for years! Suppose the test prioritizes more theory or academic subjects. In that case, the green new graduate has a significant advantage in passing the test – even over people with many years of experience. I’ve been told multiple times from people with little to no relevant experience that they’ve already passed the PE Exam. What does that say? That the person is highly intellectual? They’re driven and self-motivated, and smart? That the exam can’t differentiate between relevant experience and someone who studies for the exam? I don’t know the answer to those questions, but they’re worth asking. To be clear – there is nothing morally or ethically wrong with anyone taking the PE Exam whenever they are eligible. Go get that thing! It’s a tremendous benefit in recognition and sets people up for a whole new career trajectory. What I question are the particulars of the exam itself. Its role is changing, and it probably needs to adapt and be a better indicator of industry knowledge than academic knowledge. The experienced professional should have a natural advantage if the test reflects real-world practice. Passing the PE Exam in Fire Protection should feel much more familiar and comfortable to an experienced person than a new grad. This is going to be a challenge for the volunteer test writers. It’s a tall task, and there has long been a complaint about the exam (that it’s too academic). If you feel called to that effort, contact SFPE and get involved! They’re always looking for help in test writing or exam specifications. Also note that they don’t allow crossover between the real writers and the outsiders who teach on it (us). The exam's subject matter is an important and relevant debate today. HISTORICALLY HIGH BARRIER TO ENTRY On an unrelated trajectory, Fire Protection as a discipline has gained increasing visibility in the design and construction environment today. To prepare for the Fire Protection P.E. Exam 15 years ago, SFPE’s handbook and online course were the only options for prep material. Today, SFPE’s online course continues, we have content and a book, the School of PE has a course, and others like PPI have also expressed interest in serving this space. With the older written book, an examinee needed to purchase SFPE’s Handbook ($500-$900), NFPA’s Handbooks ($300+), and nearly a dozen codes and standards (which could easily run $500+). Now, with the online exam, any relevant material is provided as part of the exam itself. Fifteen years ago, no one had to purchase an online course or optional handbook, but the cost of just the required reference materials could easily have run $1,500 or more, and the cost of a course on top could have easily added another $1,500. Fifteen years ago, there was a massive financial barrier to entry.  Required reference materials alone could commonly cost $1,500 or more in the older written-exam format. It was extremely burdensome to invest the time (three months or more) and the cost (regularly $3,000+) to take the Fire Protection P.E. Exam. Don’t forget – with having to wait a few years to take the exam – there was more at stake than time and money. There’s a major pressure of passing the exam when your employer, family, and colleagues all know how much attention and effort you’ve put in. In other words, it was an extremely high-stakes test. TODAY'S LOWER BARRIER TO ENTRY For one, the cost of codes and standards is pennies on the dollar. NFPA Link only costs $10 a month and gives access to all these codes and standards. The NCEES Handbook is free, and there are low-cost options like the NCEES practice exam (~$45) and our book ($250). Some courses and their materials can still run $2,000 or more, but the financial barrier to entry is a fraction of what it used to be. For example, if your employer is already on MeyerFire University, it’s only $130/year to add yourself as a user and get all the PE Prep. While that sounds like a shameless plug, I don’t mean it that way. I am sure you’ve seen enough about the University already. Concerning the cost - I’ve thought for years that access to this kind of information needs to be available and more accessible to the industry beyond only the PE examinees. It needs to be out there. So what easily ran $3,000 just 15 years ago could look a lot more like $500 or less today. WHAT COULD THIS MEAN? In some states, decoupling has altered the experience requirement for sitting for the exam. Breaking down the tradition of insane costs just to adequately prepare for the exam is going to lessen the barrier to entry in a healthy way. Reducing the costs also lessens the impact of not passing the exam on any one try. 1. LESS AT STAKE One possible benefit of decoupling and democratizing cost is that far, far less is at stake for one person taking the exam. So you’re a year out of school, take the exam, and don’t pass. Who cares? You can retake it next year, and there’s no shame or hole in your bank account. There’s less angst, less pressure, and less money at stake. That’s a good thing. 2. MORE FPEs? Could removing the financial burden mean that more people try the exam? What about a licensed engineer in another discipline? If they don’t realistically need to spend $3k to take the exam anymore, do they try it when they would not before? On average, if more people take the exam and give it the attention it deserves, we’ll get more licensed FPEs. That’s possibly a very good thing for the industry. In a way, if an organization's goal is to create more Fire Protection Engineers in the world, then reducing the burden to get licensure (reducing cost) could perhaps be one important way to encourage that. Not make the exam easier, but make it less expensive. SCARCITY VS. ADVOCACY Now, before we think of this from a scarcity mindset, and that more FPEs will mean more competition and less value for each existing FPE – I would challenge you with this: What is our biggest detraction from being more involved and doing better fire protection work in our industry? It’s our shortage of skilled, caring professionals. We can’t advocate for more involvement or be more involved without more highly skilled, caring professionals. They don’t have to be FPEs, but if more of them are – great. Advocacy for caring about and advocating for fire protection is half of our battle. If we have more FPEs in the world, that advocacy becomes easier. 4. COMPETENCY With decoupling, we’ve removed some experience component. Is the test measuring a person’s ability to study and take an exam? Is it a measure of intelligence? Is it a measure of competency in fire protection technical understanding? Is it a measure of what a competent, educated, discerning engineer should be? Is it protecting the care, concern, and craft of ethical and sound engineering judgment? Or is it playing into further apathy that’s already present outside of the fire protection industry? I don’t know the answer to any of these. But with decoupling, these questions come into play and become relevant in a completely new way. 5. MORE ONUS ON ABET-ACCREDITED ENGINEERING DEGREE Let’s say the exam parameters don’t change. That it stays fairly embedded in foundational engineering testing and leans a bit more academic than real-world practice. Suppose the exam itself shifts from the gate-keeping role of what it means to be a competent professional and rather is (pessimistically) a measure of academic achievement. What does that mean for the ABET-Accredited Engineering Degree that is required in order to take the exam? My gut says that the importance of the PE Exam decreases, and the importance of the engineering degree increases. If the PE is less of a barrier, then the engineering degree becomes the significant effort and more of the ‘gatekeeper’ of the profession. 6. KEEPING WHAT IS GREAT What sets the fire protection industry apart from others (looking at you, MEP) is our shared sense of responsibility. I find that many people are more loyal to a cause and to doing good in the world than they are to their own employer. We have a common sense of purpose, and I think that drives a lot of passion and care for the community that is our group of fire protection professionals. That’s a real thing. I don’t think that changes in licensure will affect the industry much, especially since so few people who practice in the industry are FPEs to begin with. But I do think that potentially lowering the barrier to entry (financial, time investment, or burden of failure) means we need to be on the lookout for ways to continue to embrace, encourage, and build-up newcomers to the industry. We care about it. People before us and people before them have cared about it. My hope is that the industry's major growth means that we grow the community and do not drift out of the passionate niche mindset that so many of us carry. YOUR TAKE Lots of food for thought today. What’s your take?
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Much of the MeyerFire.com concept started as a simple website around P.E. Exam preparation – that is – helpful articles, resources, and a book to help us all pass the Fire Protection Principles & Practice of Engineering Exam (P.E. Exam). We still support that effort today, now about nine years later. We have a book (the PE Prep Guide, now in it’s 8th Edition) and the PE Prep Series (20 weeks of online practice questions). I’m very excited to announce today that we’re upgrading that experience in a very big way in incorporating and upgrading our PE Prep Series into a complete exam prep experience inside MeyerFire University. WHY ADD PE PREP TO MEYERFIRE UNIVERSITY? Everything for the PE Prep space has simply been listening to you. I personally was very frustrated with the lack of quantity of materials when I took the Fire Protection P.E. Exam in 2014, and the following year sold maybe a dozen copies of a formula sheet I put together to help organize and clarify different formulas. Well, in listening to those who used it – the next year we added 100 questions and wrapped the formulas into the first edition of the PE Prep Guide (2016). That book was rough! Very rough. We had something like 20 to 30 different errata updates all based on questions and feedback about the book.
But – we listened, improved, and with a lot of community help – the book improved. In 2017 there were still many updates that needed to be made. Every mistake was like a little knife jab in my side – I felt every one. But I listened, re-wrote, published the errata and updated the book each year. The PE Prep Guide has turned into the #1 selling book in the Fire Protection PE Prep space. You might recognize it on the shelf of someone who’s taken the exam in the last few years. It’s helped many people pass the exam. We did the same with the PE Prep Series. It came about in 2018 when feedback kept coming back about more practice – more questions – more immediate feedback. That, and, we wanted a fun way to know where we stand as things progressed. That’s where the PE Prep Series came from. And now? REAL-TIME ANALYTICS, GUIDED STUDY, BETTER PRACTICE Again, based on your feedback – we’ve sought ways to give you real-time analytics across the different subject matter. We’ve sought ways to help guide your study to be more productive and see more immediate improvement in weaker areas. We’ve sought ways to help you build towards the PE Exam at any time, rather than a couple months out of the year. Why couldn’t an EIT be working towards the PE all the time? Over the course of a few years without a major time burden, but rather be learning, growing, and increasing understanding all the time? What if someone coming out of school could immediately see a path to the PE? And, at any time, know where they stand and the likelihood of them passing the exam today? That’s the line of logic where we ventured – and the answer is that we have that data. We now know what the odds of passing look like based on how you prepare and grow. And we can give that right back to you with each step along the way. That’s where I’m excited to announce that we’ll have an entire PE Prep Series (learning content, practice questions, guided self-study, worked solutions, live analytics, leaderboards, and exams) right inside MeyerFire University – at no extra cost.  In the next few months be on the lookout for course material specific to the Fire Protection PE Exam with MeyerFire University. Our current timetable is to have all of our added content on MeyerFire University by the end of September 2024; plenty of time to learn and grow for the April 2025 Exam. BUT JOE - I’M NOT INTERESTED IN THE PE? Maybe the P.E. Exam, specifically, is not of interest to you. That’s OK! The hope of having the prep material available (again, at no additional cost) and living inside of MeyerFire University is that you can access it. You can test yourself against FPE’s and FPE candidates. You can learn as much as you want in that space. The exam? It’s a credential. A big one – but it’s just that – a credential. If you want the knowledge, the understanding, the personal growth? Well – that’s our whole goal of MeyerFire University to begin with. Unlimited learning. If you’re in the back corner of the office and aren’t exactly getting the opportunities to grow or train or be mentored – well, we’re calling your name! We want you here; learn what you want to learn, when you want to learn it. Challenge and invest in yourself. That’s entirely the point of creating the platform to begin with. I am beyond excited about creating a resource like this – it’s exactly what I would have wanted to prepare for the exam. To challenge myself, know my standing (immediately), see a path to pass, and have a little fun with it along the way. WHAT ABOUT NICET? What about NICET? We love NICET; and we hear you when you’re asking for more and more in that space. We’re listening, and we’re working towards it all the time. There’s not a timetable that we’re ready to announce just yet, but do know that if it’s what you want to see, then it’s what we want to create. A BIG THANK YOU A big thank you, as always, for the ideas, tips, constructive feedback, and community support. This entire platform wouldn’t exist without you and the passion that we collectively have for the fire protection industry. We’re excited to push the envelope and help us all do great work in fire safety in the world. Thanks! - Joe Big news in the Fire Protection PE Exam space - the Fire Protection PE Exam, which is offered once a year, is moving from October up to April. It will still only be offered once a year.
The Fire Protection exam has been held on a single date in October for at least the last decade (but likely much longer). This shift to move the exam away from October is rumored to alleviate the lack of available seats at the testing centers, as space has been harder to accommodate now that so many PE Exams have moved to the online version. This is somewhat of a surprising and short notice for those planning to take the PE Exam in 2024 as the study timeline moves up significantly. NCEES hasn't published the new date on the Fire Protection PE Exam website (yet), but this memo from NCEES from May 2023 documents the change: https://www.ncbels.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Spring-2024-Exam-Changes-Member-Board-Memo.pdf To accommodate the new date, the SFPE PE Course is changing dates to the spring and we'll be updating the PE Prep Guide for availability following this year's exam as well. If you know of someone interested in taking the Fire Protection PE Exam - let them know. Many state boards require applications to be submitted well in advance of the exam date - and this change will certainly affect that application timeline. To contact NCEES with questions or concerns, they can be reached here: ncees.org/about/contact/ Hard to believe we've made it to that time of year again. Yes, baseball season. But also - the dreaded PE Exam Prep summer. It's fast approaching. We are carrying on our tradition of PE Exam Prep around here, with the hardcover 380+ page PE Prep Guide and our 20-week online PE Prep Series. If you're in the business of setting yourself up with as much content you can to pass the exam - you can get 25% off the online Prep Series by using coupon code BUNDLE when you checkout with both.
THE NEW 7TH EDITION OF THE PE PREP GUIDE Our goal with all of our prep content is that it's the best possible resource to help you pass the Fire Protection PE Exam. We need more FPEs in the world, and we're serious about helping you make that happen. With that in mind, we've worked to incorporate a lot of feedback from users the past couple years to update the PE Prep Guide so that it's as realistic to the exam as possible. The 7th Edition includes question styles that better mirror today's PE exam questions, added feedback and advice for passing the exam, and updated all of our references to match the current exam. Now if you have the 2021 Edition, do you need to buy a new one? Nah - the 2021 Edition is more than capable of providing a lot of help in preparing for the exam - just know that the references (NCEES and required references) have since been changed and that the question styling has been updated. The 7th Edition is in-stock and shipping now. WANT MORE? We've partnering with Chris Campbell at the Building Code Blog once again where he provides explanations and worked-problems as part of the PE Roadmap Video Series over at the Building Code Blog website. If you're looking for a more personalized, 24/7 access to lots and lots of worked problems and the explanations behind them, Chris is the guy. The feedback has been very positive.  HOW DOES IT COMPARE? The number one question we've been asked and wondered ourselves is how the prep content compares to the actual exam? What data is there to support how well those who use the prep material do on the actual exam? We spent a lot of time with this last fall and studied results from over a hundred users to compare how people performed on the actual exam versus our online PE Prep Series. If you're in the business of passing the exam this year - check out what the results were (click for the full detail):  For all the feedback we have - as of this writing - many more people have scored better on the actual exam than the PE Prep Series. I'd invite you to read through the article for the full data breakout.
Cheers to a successful prep season! Any questions - let me know at [email protected]. What a weird year for 2020.
Last year I thought this would be somewhat of a wild year for Fire Protection PE Prep - with the major computer-based changes, references changes, and question styling changes. That prediction ended up being too modest as we've had a total of 12 changes to the exam references (either removing, adding, or changing year editions) that shook up the prep space. Yet, that of course was hardly the biggest shuffle this year. For the first time, the Fire Protection PE Exam is getting a second day in January (January 12th, 2021) due to limited capacities (re: Covid) in the testing centers on the original October 22nd date. For those who are preparing for the exam and are in the PE Prep Series, all of the access for those exams are now extended through January 2021. Thoughts on 2020 Prep Season If you know someone taking the exam this year (...or in January), send them some flowers or ice cream or chocolate... if they're like many I've spoken with they probably feel like guinea pigs with all the changes, plus the uncertainty of actually being able to take the test, all on top of the normal uncertainty of whether all the preparation over the summer has been enough. That's rough. Around here there's been so many changes due to the exam. The Prep Series was pretty much overhauled, as was the 2020 PE Prep Guide. Just this year over 150 questions were written or re-written to match the new exam specifications. Along with those overhauls comes the pain of errors in those questions. I've been thankful for the loads of input and feedback since I first wrote the guide in 2016. Each year up until now the number of errors and tweaks found in the books has gone down... up until the 2020 edition. It's discouraging on my end when we find errors in the material, but that's nothing compared to the frustration for an examinee that doesn't have reliable content. My goal when I started the Prep Guide was to continually improve it year over year, and try to be as open and transparent as possible when it comes to getting the material right. If you have a Prep Guide and haven't seen it yet, I've posted errata and have made updates to it throughout the year. It's located here: www.meyerfire.com/errata I very much appreciate the feedback from examinees, especially with so many changes to the guide and online content this year. Next Year & Continuing the PE Prep Helping with PE Prep materials has been extremely rewarding for me. I saw a positive review online the other day that said the value of the materials is well beyond the cost. The review mentioned they hope I don't raise prices to match other content out there... I got a good laugh and am very happy to report that I have no intent to raise prices for future years. The whole goal here from getting into PE Prep a few years ago was to be sure that there is quality, affordable content for Fire Protection examinees. It was extremely frustrating to me when I took the exam that the materials were so expensive and that there just wasn't a lot of great content at the time. My whole goal here it to try and mend that gap with helpful material that is reasonably priced. I certainly hope that's the case now and the case going forward. Frequently Asked Questions on Scoring Correlations I've gotten maybe half a dozen questions asking about how close question difficulty comes into play, and how a score on a MeyerFire exam compares to scores on the actual PE Exam. There's a ton to discuss here, but I'll try and pick off a few key points. First, is that with the data I've compiled, the average score for an examinee across the 20-weeks of the PE Prep Series is typically close to the raw score on the actual PE Exam. Meaning - if someone has averaged a 7.5 out of 10 on the PE Prep Series questions, they tend to score roughly 75% on the actual exam. Historically I've connected these points from examinees who have reported their scores back and matched it up with the different data points taken in the PE Prep Series. In general, exam day will feel closer to a new PE Prep Series exam or the full-length exam in the Prep Guide than it will to the 4-hour review exam or the 8.5-hour review exam in the Prep Series. In both of those longer online exams, the questions are review-only and you've already seen content that is the same or similar. There's a noticeable boost to your score on those review exams that aren't reflected in the PE Exam. Also, just because we typically see a matching range on average Prep Series scores to the actual exam doesn't mean that it is always the case. There are always exceptions here both ways (people scoring much higher than the Prep Series, and people scoring lower). All that to say - regardless of how you've tested so far - don't be discouraged by your scores. Go into exam day with confidence that you're going to give it your best effort and just see what happens from there. The Blog Oh, where has Joe been for the last few months? Other than question writing and posts on the Daily Forum page - I've been working on an awesome project that has just debuted - if you haven't seen it check it out here. My hope in the coming weeks as the PE prep settles down is to hop right back in and continue to work on some new tools and tool improvements around the website going forward. Hope you and yours are safe and healthy and that you have a great week. If you are taking the Fire Protection PE Exam this year - good news. I've partnered with Chris Campbell at the Building Code Blog to help you pass the exam with the PE Roadmap, and he's extended the sale through tomorrow, July 10th.
It's a focused study plan with schedule, reading references, locations for practice content, and more analytics to help you study more effectively. Chris has extended the sale through today - check it out all the details here. Another summer on its way, and another year of feedback says that the Fire Protection PE (Principles and Practices of Engineering) Exam ranks as one of the toughest disciplines based on pass rate. Here are some figures for first-time examinees from the Fall of 2019:  And here's what we saw for repeat examinees:  Why So Tough? Why is the Fire Protection PE a tough one to crack? Most people say its the variety of subjects that the exam covers. While many might think of "sprinkler systems" when they think "fire protection", the industry isn't limited to just NFPA 13. The representative exam covers fire dynamics, water-based suppression, special hazards, detection & alarm, smoke control systems, explosion protection and prevention, passive building systems, means of egress, and human behavior. If you're like me, your day job might not cover the wide breadth that the fire protection industry represents. Studying for the exam usually involves a multi-month process of learning parts of the trade with otherwise little to no experience in it. I can say firsthand, it's tough!  What's New in 2020? This is a big year for the Fire Protection PE Exam. The long-awaited transition to computer-based testing has shaken up the exam with plenty of new offerings, new standards, new questions styles, and stirred up the prep-community too. Exam Updates I'll start with the exam first - this fall will mark the first Fire Protection PE Exam that's computer-based. They'll be given on a single-day this fall (October 22, 2020) at Pearson-Vue test centers. The exam is moving from an 8-hour, 80-question, multiple-choice only question style to an 8.5-hour, 85-question, varied question style exam. Why the change? The exam will start to feature "alternative item type" questions that have shown to better test knowledge than the multiple-choice style questions. The can consist of multiple-correct answer questions, point and click, sequencing, drag and drop, or fill in the blank style answers. While there isn't an expectation that all the exam questions will be this style, it'll be introduced for the first time this fall and should become more prevalent in future exams going forward. New Standards Gone are the days of lugging 75-pound suitcases full of hardcover books into the exam room. I say definitively say 75-pounds, because that was the limit the airline accepted when I took the exam. The new exam features ready-access to PDF versions of multiple standards, and a new NCEES supplied reference manual. Here are the changes across the board, by year:  In 2020, we're seeing a total of eleven references for the exam. This now consists of ten different standards, but pulls out the two largest volumes with the SFPE and NFPA Handbooks from the exam. While this is opposite of the direction we've been told the exam would take for a long time, it will do a good job of reducing the sheer quantity of content that's referenced by the exam into more practical deliverables. New 2020 Prep Guide & PE Prep Series The MeyerFire PE Prep Guide is getting an overhaul, as it does most years, to update to the latest exam standards. This year is taking some extra work and we're still looking to ship out by the end of May. The 2020 Prep Guide incorporates all the standard changes and has some new question styles, too. Each year is a bit of a writer's jam between when the exam standards are published and when I get the 2020 PE Prep Guide out for printing. This year has been especially busy and I sincerely appreciate the patience while I get this edition updated so that it's helpful for you, the user. If you've pre-ordered a copy and are dying to get started studying, reach out to me at [email protected] and we'll see if I can set you up with materials in the interim. Thanks again for your patience. The PE Prep Series will start the first week of June. It's our most adaptive and robust series of questions we have - the difficulty is closely monitored to help mirror the actual exam, all of the questions are timed, it's entirely computer-based, and it incorporates the question styles of the exam itself. Learn more about that here. New PE Roadmap The prep-space is updating as well. One of the frequent requests I've gotten the past few years is about studying - what should I study? When should I study? Am I on the right track? How do I keep myself accountable? In the past there's only been a study course or two to help with this. I'm now proud to say there is another option for those looking to go beyond the PE Prep Guide & online questions, but who might not be a good fit for a full-fledged course. It's the PE Roadmap by Chris Campbell. He's an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Maryland, a Senior Fire Protection Engineer, the writer at the Building Code Blog, and a great guy. With the PE Roadmap, he's building on the book and the online questions I've written with his own guidance on when & how to study with study schedules, guidance on study content, and one-on-one personal check-in calls. Check the full offering here: www.buildingcode.blog/pe-roadmap Thanks & have a great week! If you know someone taking the PE Exam this week, it's time to give them a hug. Maybe not an actual hug; don't be a creeper, but maybe a kind supportive attaboy wouldn't be a bad idea.
Final Call for the PE Exam This Friday is the day for the 2019 Fire Protection PE Exam... the same exam that at least two hundred fire protection professionals have been honing in on the past few months. Changes Coming This year marks the last year of the written examination. Major changes are on the horizon for the Fire Protection PE in 2020, including question style, references, and going to a computer-based environment. The biggest change may be that no longer will any resource be allowed in the exam room. There'll be plenty to cover on the 2020 exam later on. Perhaps because of the big looming changes, we've seen a major uptick around here in the interest in the Fire Protection PE Exam. I would guess that this year will set the record for the number of examinees. That's a great thing. I'm thrilled that the fire protection industry as a whole is growing, and I hear almost weekly about how rare Fire Protection Engineers are in our industry. What is the PE Exam? For those who don't know, the PE Exam is the Principles and Practice of Engineering examination which is administered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). The exam is the major milestone to getting a license to practice as a Professional Engineer in the United States. In order to take the PE Exam, examinees must typically first complete a four-year ABET accredited engineering program and a Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Exam as well as accruing four years of experience working with a licensed engineer. Of course the requirements vary by state but that is the most common requirement. Last Minute Exam Advice If you have a copy of the Prep Guide you already know there's quite a bit of detail on exam advice passed down through the years included in the book. Regardless of how many hours you've spent studying (whether two or two hundred), there will always be topics that are over-emphasized, poorly worded questions, and niche questions that seem to have no basis in any reference materials. Keep calm and exam on! Skip and come back to questions later. Some of these questions are just on trial for future exams and others will get disputed and thrown out. All you can do is your best. Don't worry about surprises you can't control but focus on what you know and give it your best effort. Best of luck, you've got this! Updates for 2020 PE Exam If you have sent in information on the 2019 Edition for suggestions or potential updates, thank you! With all that's happened around here this summer I haven't been as responsive to PE Exam emails as I've tried to be in the past. Please know that I go through all of these and make updates for future examinees, and I greatly appreciate your time in sending suggestions in. New Feature on Quick-Response Remote Area Reduction I've had a pet peeve about one of my own tools. Awhile back I created a calculator that will determine the allowable reduction in the hydraulically remote area based on the use of quick response sprinklers. It's a quick-hitter and one I use often. Each time I use it, though, I still end up using the reduced area and punching in 1.2 times the square root of the new area in order to lay out my hydraulically remote area. Being that I'm all about convenience (ie: laziness) and efficiency, I've now added that basic calculation in the tool as well. You can see the new feature here. If you have similar nuances on how these tools can be improved, let me know! I'm always happy to entertain new ideas. You can always reach me at [email protected]. Have a great week! Some big news on the MeyerFire front –
With the growth of the community here at meyerfire.com, I’ll be transitioning next week to support this venture full-time and begin my own design practice. This is a very big and exciting step for me, and I cannot express how thankful I am to have you be a part of the community here. It is because of your support and interest that’s made this possible. This week’s quick post is a collection of Q&As that I’ve gotten recently that I’m happy to share. What’s different now? Two big developments have come through in the last couple months. You may have noticed the website sponsorships that started in September. There is a good handful of interested organizations that serve the same audience and want to support our efforts at MeyerFire. Sharing their message has helped open up time I can contribute to site resources. I'd encourage you to click sponsor's messages as I both vet and have personal connections with each sponsor organization. The second big development is still in the works. It involves a major publication with a renowned fire sprinkler organization. I’ll be sure to relay information in time, but for now I’m excited to partner with an expert group and help bring more resources to the industry. This should be a complete volume by the middle of next year. Will the website change? Since July I’ve spent about 8 hours a week on the site. That includes developing content, writing for the blog, developing tools, helping Toolkit users, and supporting PE Examinees. This shift to full-time independence will open the potential to increase support for all these things. My hope is that you’ll continue to get better content and more useful tools with every new post. So this whole website thing is a lead-magnet for your design practice? Nope. MeyerFire.com will stay and keep the name and continue on where it is. I’ll continue to design because it’s what I love to do and it keeps me firmly entrenched in the industry’s hot issues. While it will launch this upcoming Monday the 21st, the new website for the design side of things will be www.MeyerFPE.com. My intent is to focus in on only a few specific small-business clients and support them extremely well. It’s also not my intent to hire any employees (see last week’s I’m terrible at management article). Of course business is fluid and change is constant, but that’s my initial intent. So How Much You Makin’ Off This-Here Website? When I started writing regularly about two years ago, I had about twenty subscribers. I would guess half of them had my last name. If I looked I would have bet three of them were just different emails my mom used. Since then (due to your support and sharing posts on LinkedIn & Facebook), the number of subscribers has grown dramatically. Those first few months in 2017 I was over the moon when three new people subscribed on the month. Now, somedays, there will be a dozen or so new interested professionals each day. It’s never about how many people tune in but about the impact of sharing best practices. The growth is well on the up and up and the distribution now approaches that of some of the leading fire protection organizations. You’ve made that possible and I can’t thank you enough for it. So money - the three revenue sources, if you will, are website sponsorships, PE Exam Prep content, and the Toolkit software package. The site sponsorships have just kicked off in September and have lots of interest. The PE Prep Guide is now technically the bestselling Fire Protection PE Exam book on the market, and there are now over 200 active MeyerFire Toolkit users. All of this combined still doesn’t make up a full-time income, but the impact that the combined effort is having has been incredibly positive. Not pursuing these in greater capacity would be something I’d otherwise live to regret. A Few Notes The transition to full time developer is a big step and a big transition for me and my family. It’s not without a lot of thought, nervousness, and a lot of excitement. Of course this is all really the beginning, but there are several people I’d like to thank just making it to this point. I’d like to thank the incredible team at SSC Engineering in St. Louis. They have a supportive and sharp group and I am so fortunate to have learned under the best these past few years. If you’re ever in the market for MEP, FP, or Structural design services, I would recommend the crew wholeheartedly. I’d like to thank some bigtime supporters and mentors for me. Far too many people to name, but those that have really stood out over the years are Mike Auld, Drew Robinson, Adam Hilton, Cindy Gier, Jeff Dunkel, Chris Cornett, Angie Grant, David Stacy, Aaron Johnson, Ed Long, and Mike Lonigro. You all rock. I'd also like to thank YOU for being a part of this community and being an advocate for better fire protection. I’m excited about what we’re going to build together. For the contractor clients I work with I regularly look over jobs pre-bid. I’ll review drawings, read specifications, and compile all my notes looking for red flags that could impact the job from a design standpoint. (The cheatsheets that I use to breakdown a job is now all in the Toolkit) Last month I reviewed an apartment complex job for a bid where the code summary had conflicts. The IBC Chapter 5 summary indicated and NFPA 13 system while the IBC Chapter 9 indicated an NFPA 13R system. There were no other references to a fire sprinkler system in the rest of the documents or specifications. These are the projects that I blame my hair loss on. It's another bad example of project documentation. Regardless, the question of NFPA 13 versus NFPA 13R is something that comes up regularly and is the topic of this and next week's article. Why Does it Matter? NFPA 13R is not built with the same intent as an NFPA 13 system. NFPA 13R systems are designed to “prevent flashover (total involvement) in the room of fire origin”. By doing so, they intend to improve the ability for occupants to survive a fire by evacuation. 13R design is primarily concerned with protecting areas of residential buildings where fires cause loss of life. It is not as concerned with fires in areas where fatal fires in residential occupancies do not originate. (Reference IBC 903.3.1.2 Annex) NFPA 13 systems, however, intend to provide a “reasonable degree of protection for life and property”. In a general sense, NFPA 13 systems are concerned with both life safety and property protection. The goal is to suppress a fire near its' point of origin, regardless of the level of risk to life safety.  Cost can be largely impacted by the NFPA 13 vs. NFPA 13R decision - especially in wood construction buildings with attic spaces and overhangs. Cost Impact Aside from having different purposes, NFPA 13 vs. 13R decisions can have major implications on system cost. NPFA 13R systems allow sprinkler omission in a handful of areas which 13 does not. These include small closets, exterior balcony closets, concealed spaces, elevator machine rooms, garages, carports, attached porches, and attic spaces. I've summarized these with a cheatsheet here. For wood-construction (a mainstay in residential design), attic sprinkler systems under NFPA 13 can command a major cost premium. These attic systems need dry valves, air compressors, use of steel in lieu of CPVC, special application sprinklers, and design requirements that can require large diameter pipe. Testing and maintenance is also a long-term ownership concern. Not only do dry attic systems require regular low-point drainage, but they often corrode faster than wet systems . Attic systems are one area of a building that can be a huge difference between NFPA 13 and 13R. That said, I’ve also worked on projects where 13R has little to no impact on the project price. A flat-roof building built with non-combustible structure, for instance, offers no major difference. The only impact was the lower density permitted for residential-style sprinklers. Using the 0.05 gpm/sqft in lieu of 0.10 gpm/sqft of NFPA 13 resulted in smaller pipe diameters for an NFPA 13R system.  Buildings must be residential, four stories or less, 60 feet in height or less, and not use any code exemptions for an NFPA 13 system in order to use NFPA 13R.
When Can I Use NFPA 13R? There are four global limitations where an NFPA 13R system can be used. These include:
"My project is design/build with deferred submittals. Can’t the contractor determine this?" No - and I can’t stress this enough – please do not leave this determination to a contractor. It doesn’t matter if you’re an architect, mechanical engineer, or the expert code consultant. There are a number of code exceptions that can only practically be determined by the design team. The sprinkler contractor is an expert on suppression – not on architectural design decisions and the code paths for those decisions. What are the building code exemptions that require an NFPA 13 system? The code exceptions show up for building height increases, building area increases, egress widths, travel distance limitations, occupancy separations, corridor wall ratings, hazardous material increases, inclusion of atriums, unlimited area buildings, allowable area of openings, vertical separation of openings, draftstopping, interior finishes, floor finishes, manual fire alarm systems, and several others. Sounds like a lot? It is. Fortunately I’ve got a cheatsheet coming next week where I’ll explore these differences in more detail. If you’re interested in getting a copy, subscribe here and it’ll be emailed directly to you. Other Thoughts A couple weeks I posted a link on this month’s sponsor Engineered Corrosion Solution’s whitepapers. Many of you have already checked it out, but if you haven't there's a MeyerFire welcome page here: https://www.ecscorrosion.com/meyerfire-welcome I had a couple people ask about the whitepapers, so here’s a direct link to them. Specifically, be sure to check out "Industry Myths Regarding Corrosion in Fire Sprinkler Systems" and "Six Reasons Why Galvanized Steel Piping Should NOT be used in Dry and Preaction Fire Sprinkler Systems." PE Prep Guide 2019 Selling Out There's been a ton of interest this year in the PE Prep Guide. I genuinely appreciate every single person who's checked out the book for this year's exam - there has been more interest than ever before and I suspect the exam turnout could be the most ever for the Fire Protection P.E. Exam. Next year's exam in 2020 will go computer-based and have major changes, so the PE Prep Guide will undergo big changes as well. This year's shipment of the 2019 Edition is just about out, and because of the big changes next year I won't be ordering extra copies. We currently have 16 copies available, so the 2019 edition will likely sell out by October's PE Exam. If you'd like to get a copy of the 2019 PE Prep Guide, please consider doing so now. After the 2019 Edition sells out we'll still have 2018 PE Prep Guides available, and I'll ship an errata list with it. Any questions, please reach out to me at [email protected]. |
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+ Unsubscribe anytime AUTHORJoe Meyer, PE, is a Fire Protection Engineer out of St. Louis, Missouri who writes & develops resources for Fire Protection Professionals. See bio here: About FILTERS
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