am i qualified to install fire alarm?

[Engineer54]

First thing before all the above.....You need correct insurance.....knowledge in Design, install and commissioning a fire alarm systems.
Ability to cad drawings for approval....ability to create final O & M, complete with as fitted......issue certification in Design, Install, Commission and Handover. When this can be achieved, start installing....before this can I suggest course in install and commissioning first, then after a few years move on to a design course. FIA will been you best starting point, on course training, and are the approved route to BAFE.

Even our main contractor has subbed out the design, drawings, material take-off and commissioning to a specialised company. The only work the contractor will be conducting is the installation, and that will be ultimately supervised by myself. Fire alarm installations are not rocket science by any stretch of the imagination, it's the legalities involved that warrants specialised companies involvement...

 

[tazz]

Fire alarms are not rocket science.....but the design is precise and most sparks miss the maths used to complete a functional system.
If we take a smoke detector, with its detection range radius of 7.5 meters, and fit this into a square room, of 15m x 15m it will not actual cover the area, due to the being an a circular detection. So using an overlapping design, or a cross section measurement of 7.5m will give us a standard coverage of 10m x 10 m. There are many variations we use to design a system, height , area, envoiroment conditions and possible risks.
Its a shame really, that there are not many engineers entering the fire alarm industry, and as engineers retire, there is a big gap of cad/fire alarm designers

 

[Badged01]

Its a shame really, that there are not many engineers entering the fire alarm industry, and as engineers retire, there is a big gap of cad/fire alarm designers

I know I digress but "engineeers" entering industry/society in totality is a problem! In a society driven but material gains rather than vocational rewards, engineering is pretty far down the pecking order!

 

[Des 56]

No its not rocket science,but unless the person has sufficient training,it can be a death sentence to the user

Yes it is pretty straight forward,running a few wires here and there and plonking some accessories and a panel on the cables

The design of fire alarm systems are best left to those that are trained and have the skill to ensure the system does what it is supposed to do,work effectively and within set parameters



I would suggest Get specialised fire alarm installation/commissioning and design trained or install the work designed and commisioned by someone who has had sufficient training

 

[High Tower]

Also there is a small issue of something called "cause and effects" which are a mystery to most installers and engineers who poke their noses in to FA don't give it any consideration, and it is part of an engineers remit

 

[tazz]

Plant shutdown is a serious issue, along with lift grounding and disabled refuge communications......One which always gets me moaning is using class change for linking panels.

 

[High Tower]

We used class change to get a big addressable Vigi to talk to 17 individual conv xenex's that's the only exception

 

[tazz]

Dont know why High Tower, Xenex zones can be programmed for non latching, this allows the Xenex to show the addressable panel as a zone, and resets when the addressable is reset. The other good thing on gent Xenex, is the fire relays can be programmed to reset on silence.

 

[High Tower]

Shopping centre, house alarm in a vig, each shop has a interface outside with a quad I/O, each shop had it's own xenex installed by us, 4 zone, all four zones in use (ground floor, first floor, stairs, sprinkler flow switch) so used a 4 core from each panel to interface, one pair signaling fire from the output on the xenex into one of the quad Chanel's as a input, then the other pair as a output back from the interface to the xenex class change as a output from the interface, there was also an addressable strobe next to each interface, sectored on the loop to activate when the shop panel it was above went off, 4 min delay on vig going into fire with key switch over rides on each shop panel.

Tbh only way I could think of doing it

 

[tazz]

Standard shopping center I/O setup....Not knocking too much, but is nice to see a zone show up for on the shops panel, indicating centers main panel, instead of just ringing bell with no indication.....Had a great cause & effect in a shopping center once....if shop panel activated, centers panel was delayed for 2 minutes then set off either side adjoining shops, but pulsed all others after a further 4 minutes, all pulsed shops converted to full alarm....was a long code to write

 

[High Tower]

Standard shopping center I/O setup....Not knocking too much, but is nice to see a zone show up for on the shops panel, indicating centers main panel, instead of just ringing bell with no indication.....Had a great cause & effect in a shopping center once....if shop panel activated, centers panel was delayed for 2 minutes then set off either side adjoining shops, but pulsed all others after a further 4 minutes, all pulsed shops converted to full alarm....was a long code to write

i reckon i could just about manage that code, like you say, not rocket science but quite fiddly to configure.

Ill let you into a secret..........

There is a very well known shopping center group who shall remain nameless, for the purposes of this we will call them "Bestfield", they opened the country's biggest shopping center in 2012 adjacent to some stadium or something, all in time for some big sporting event.......vauge enough?? lol

The fire alarm contractor had only just become a Gent approved installer, and this was their first ever Gent job, possibly the biggest FA system i have ever worked on. 58 panels, 337 loops, 19,000 devices, all networked on domains.

The job was the undoing of this company and sent them under, they royalty cocked the cause and effects up!!!!, the biggest shopping center in the country, and the C&E were one out, all out!!!!! can you imaging the potential chaos!

I contact for the company that looks after it now, and they have an engineer there 5 days a week looking after the systems, i am the visiting contractor that looks after the place and i do all the alterations, installs and repairs.

When the center opened in time for this big sporting event, the system diddnt work and had no end of faults! it took 4 of us a MONTH!! to get the system working and to get the cause and effects right!

 

[tazz]

Oooh I hate those jobs of correcting some one elses cockups

 

[High Tower]

Oooh I hate those jobs of correcting some one elses cockups

Yeah, i agree, first time ive ever known it take a month to correct one tho

 

[Engineer54]

Fire alarms are not rocket science.....but the design is precise and most sparks miss the maths used to complete a functional system.
If we take a smoke detector, with its detection range radius of 7.5 meters, and fit this into a square room, of 15m x 15m it will not actual cover the area, due to the being an a circular detection. So using an overlapping design, or a cross section measurement of 7.5m will give us a standard coverage of 10m x 10 m. There are many variations we use to design a system, height , area, envoiroment conditions and possible risks.
Its a shame really, that there are not many engineers entering the fire alarm industry, and as engineers retire, there is a big gap of cad/fire alarm designers

Even with specialised companies being brought in for design and drawings etc, i've still had quite a few occasions where i've had to send the submittal packages back for corrections. Some of which have been quite bad discrepancies. So it's not always a case of these specialist companies always getting things right themselves...

 

[tazz]

Totall agree, find most of the local council designers to be the worst, missing roof voids, forgetting plant shutdown and always cocking db levels up.
This really should not be the case, fire design is set in stone, and a fire designer should have no excuse when working alongside building contractors