What's on your Sprinkler Design Checklist?

2/28/2019

What Project?

When I first started in the industry I worked on a long line of high-end retail projects scattered across the United States. Six months after starting I got a question from a project manager about concealed space wood-structure sprinkler protection on a particular store in San Jose.

San Jose? I was positive I never worked on a project in San Jose.

A little digging later revealed I did in fact work on a small retail shop in San Jose. The only problem was that it looked just like the other 30 stores I had worked on in-between. Did I evaluate protection or even consider the combustible above-ceiling space? Did I discuss anything with the AHJ?

No idea.

I quickly realized that if I didn't take project-specific design notes I'd have no way of revisiting my thought process when a question inevitably arose later in the project.

The Mad Man

Ever since then, and not entirely due to my undiagnosed organization issues, I've been on a mad hunt to find the best way to record project notes in the cleanest and most insanely-quick process possible.

For me it's partially about recording the design thought process, and partially about reminding myself about all the considerations that need to occur for a project.

I can't say I've tried every method for project note taking, but I have used word templates, checklists, spreadsheets, OneNote files, linked databases, access databases, and the good old pen and paper.

Important Pieces

I have several goals when devising project notes for me and the staff I work with:

It must be easy to edit
It must be clean
It must be consolidated (one page maximum)
It must be insanely quick to edit

If any one of those four items above aren't considered, the likelihood of adoption by people outside me is minimal.

An example project design sheet (click to see full PDF)

Latest Rendition

Here's where I am now - an excel-based, single page note page where a quick "X" above a cell highlights the one below. If I know all of the information in a project, it can be filled out completely in less than 3 minutes.

It can be a helpful accompaniment for sprinkler contractor clients when we're submitting a bid, or helpful notes to accompany a QC set of drawings.

What Am I Missing?

I'm sure your checklists and cheatsheets include a wide variety of considerations. In my attempt to better this one and incorporate the whole spreadsheet, what important elements am I missing? View PDFs below, and post your comments & feedback about important things to add here.