Fire Alarm Shop Drawing Industry Makeup?

8/12/2019

I'm considering testing for NICET fire alarm certification. What I don't yet know and would be very interested in is who typically prepares fire alarm shop drawings?

Do freelance fire alarm designers/engineers make up a large portion of shop drawing preparation, or is it mostly all completed by a fire alarm company's designer? Do large manufacturers (Simplex/JCI) complete all of their own shop drawing work with in-house designers?

Thanks in advance - I'm trying to get a better perspective for my career.

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2 Comments

David L Lewis link

8/12/2019 10:12:22 am

The design drawings and specifications should outline the requirements and generally a diagram of the network is provided on the design along with a sequence table.
The electrical contractor has a fire alarm system supplier who does the actual shop drawings showing wiring, devices, riser, sequence and wiring details of devices.
One item which seems to get "lost" now-days is who furnishes, installs and wires the duct work smoke detectors.
Most fire alarm suppliers do a good job of taking the design information and creating documents that can be used in the field.

Mike R

8/12/2019 12:38:32 pm

Generally contract drawings will show device locations and a sequence of operations and a basic system riser. FA contractors typically need to evaluate strobe and speaker intensity and confirm contract drawing locations are feasible. Usually FP and M drawings must be referenced for interface points like flows & tampers, dampers, etc... It becomes the responsibility of the FA contractor to do a final layout based on their system performance and prove via calculations. Different manufacturers have different specifications and different capabilities.

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