Fire Code Tech

Christian Jacobs is a chief fire prevention officer for Grissom Air Force Base. In this interview we talk about community risk reduction, fire service data, and tips for professionals. 

Fire Dawg Podcast Appearance

https://firedawg.us/podcast/the-firedawg-podcast-coffee-break-episode-5-data-collection-use-implications-christian-jacobs/

Grease Fire Video: 

https://www.facebook.com/christian.jacobs.12/videos/394425710593617/

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Welcome to episode 55 of fire code tech. On this episode, we're speaking with Christian Jacobs. Christian Jacobs is a authority having jurisdiction for a department of defense air force base. In this episode, we speak about fire prevention, community risk reduction data, and how it plays a role for the fire service and much more.

Christian has a passion for sharing knowledge about fire and life safety and trying to get the community involved. In this episode, he continues that legacy. Do me a big favor and subscribe to the podcast wherever you like to listen to the episodes and give us a follow on social media. Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, give us a five star review on apple podcasts.

Let's get into the show. Well, Christian, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for so much for coming on fire code. well, thank you, GU. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the invite. I really appreciate that. Well, I wanted to get started with telling people a little bit about your background in fire and life safety and how you got started with the field.

Would you mind telling me about that? Not at all. Um, as you pack a lunch, it's gonna be a long story. uh, I started as a volunteer. Uh, I was super interested in it when I was active duty in the army and, uh, my last, uh, base of assignment in Colorado Springs, uh, how to volunteer department right outside the gate.

I, I showed some interest in that and I just couldn. Put it all together at that time, that was in 1993, uh, fast forward about a year. And I got outta the army and, uh, found myself in a position to be able to start doing some of that. And lo and behold, uh, I got addicted and that addiction, uh, grew over the years into, uh, what has become today.

But yes, I started as a volunteer in August of 1994. In a little town of security, Colorado, which is a special fire protection district, right outside of Colorado Springs. Uh, I grew through that department and, uh, moved a couple of times as, as different, uh, opportunities came up. Uh, Uh, eventually finding myself working as a volunteer with, uh, Hanover fire protection district in, uh, 2004.

Uh, in between times I got hired, uh, by the air force in October of 2000, I started out as a dispatcher and, uh, worked my way through the department of defense system. Uh, eventually becoming a, an engineer in 2001 and. Uh, moved around quite a bit. Uh, one of the luxuries of being a military, uh, affiliated person in the Colorado Springs area is there are a lot of military installations right there.

Uh, I, uh, originally was hired at Shrever air force base, which is right outside of Colorado Springs. I went from there to the, uh, PUO chemical Depot outside of PUO Colorado. Uh, for about two and a half years, uh, was very fortunate to be picked up by chief earns. Pearcy at the air force academy. And I worked at the air force academy fire department for about five years.

Uh, went from there and started my prevention career at Langley air force base out in Virginia. Uh, in 2009, uh, I got picked up by chief PJ petty, John, um, Doing, uh, fire prevention and inspection code enforcement, uh, that eventually evolved into, uh, accreditation, uh, with the center of public safety excellence, and, uh, a lot of fire prevention education, a lot of code enforcement, a lot of plans review life safety code.

Um, all of those things came together and, um, Uh, life as, as it were would happen. And so I had a significant life, uh, challenge occur in 2012, uh, separated from my, my then wife and found myself. Uh, wanting to be with my current wife here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and started looking at installations that were in the area and got lucky enough to be transferred to Grum air reserve base, which is where I'm at now, uh, here in Indiana.

And I am the chief of fire prevention. Oh, very nice. Well, it sounds like that you have had a wealth of, uh, knowledge and positions in the fire service industry and have really, um, seen a wide variety of different positions all the way from dispatcher to, uh, chief of fire prevention. So that's pretty interesting to hear about your journey so far has been, uh, diverse.

Um, yeah, so. Uh, you talked a little bit about some of the roles that you held, but I wanted to ask you, you know, to describe, um, your fire prevention role, uh, now a little bit more for the listeners, you know, what does that mean before I started doing the podcast, I didn't have such a good picture of that role and how it, uh, interacted with the engineering and design side of things.

You bet. Um, so as a prevention chief in the air force, uh, the air force has, uh, three. When, when it comes to air force, fire protect. The air force has three main, uh, folk eye within the department. Now it's four originally it was three. Uh, and that those three were, uh, training prevention and operations. Uh, training is just, as you imagine, it's it's training.

Uh, operations is anything to do with. Responses. Uh, so it's all the folks that get on fire trucks and come and get cats out of trees and, and all of those things. And then prevention, uh, for a very long time was called tech services, technical services. And so it was kind of a catchall of all the other things that it took to have a fire department function.

Uh, the air force and the department of defense as a whole is highly. Fire preventive, uh, in that, uh, the true ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure all day. Uh, we focus a lot on prevent. Uh, and so my role in that, uh, I manage the, uh, hot work permit program in some installations, they manage the confined space entry program permit program.

Um, I also handle all of the, uh, scheduling of, uh, plans reviews. Uh, for both new construction and for, uh, existing modifications, building modifications, modifications to occupancies, um, and, and all of those things, uh, collectively fall into my realm. Uh, To finish out the story. That fourth thing that they've added, uh, lately has been health and safety.

Uh, it's been a focus of the air force fire emergency services, as well as, uh, the department of defense fire emergency services for a few years now. And so we're starting to see more health and safety chiefs, uh, here throughout the system. I see. I see. So what is, what is health and safety? How is that different from the traditional role of the fire prevention officer or chief?

So health and safety, uh, manages a lot of our, uh, work comp, uh, challenges, uh, uh, injuries on the job that, that we have inside the department. Uh, they also, uh, depending on the agency and it's totally up to the fire chief, what kind of things that they get assigned with. But a lot of them do, uh, the management of our, uh, annual air pack testing.

A lot of them do, uh, Uh, the management of our annual physical testing that, that we have to do every year. Uh, every year I go through a occupational health physical, uh, Just to, to make sure that I'm still good to go for performing the job. Even in my current role, I still, uh, complete that annual a health physical, uh, the latest thing that they've added to that is PFOS testing, uh, PFOS, PFO testing, uh, for, um, those forever chemicals that are included in, in foam suppression systems, as well as the, the foam that we have on firefighting.

Apparat. Exposure to that, uh, does, does increase your, your PFO S PFOA, uh, blood levels. And, and we test for that now to keep track of it, uh, on the prevention side, um, uh, it's, uh, making sure that my guys are, are taken care of, uh, as far as health and safety goes and, uh, just making sure that they're, uh, still capable, uh, both mentally and physically to.

Still do the job. Gotcha. And you might have mentioned this, but I think we've talked about it in our conversations leading up to the interview, but you also are involved with kind of the, um, Review of preliminary and final acceptance testings and plan review to some extent in your role. Now, did you speak up about that?

I apologize. Yes, sir. Uh, in my role, I do a life safety fire alarm, fire suppression systems, plan reviews. Um, I'm a certified, uh, plan reviewer, uh, That's one of the, one of the things that's required as part of my job is to be a certified plans reviewer. Um, and so I'm looking at, uh, you know, occupation, occupancies, occupancy types, occupancy loads, um, travel distance, number of exits appropriate signage.

Um, All of those things, uh, side by side with, uh, fire alarm, mass notification systems, not only on the design side, but as well as on the, uh, acceptance testing side. And, uh, as well as the suppression system. So we'll go out, uh, on the plans review side we'll review, uh, the specification sheets that are submitted by the contractors and designers, uh, to ensure that it, that the, the equipment they're using is gonna be acceptable.

Most of it, uh, really just needs to be listed, uh, listed for use and. On that side of it, then we'll review the drawings. And then when we finally build the building, we'll go out to the building and walk the building with the plans and make sure that it's the, the plans reflect, uh, the Asbuilt environment and then test all of those things, uh, to, uh, validate that it's been built and performs according to design.

Very nice. Yes, that's, uh, I appreciate that explanation of, you know, your role and kind of how you interact with the design and you know, what kind of scope that you use for. Your review of the documents. Yeah, that was, that was a succinct, uh, description. But you know, you mentioned, well, you were talking a little bit off air about, um, the pandemic and how that, you know, kind of.

Was difficult to organize, you know, a variety of community events and, you know, trying to encourage engagement with the public, with fire and life safety. But yeah, I I'd love to hear and for the listeners to hear about how the pandemic changed, you know, um, your role and, you know, some of your approaches in community involvement and community risk reduction.

Maybe we could get into that a little bit. Uh, you bet. Um, so the pandemic changed everything to put it in a nutshell, the pandemic changed everything. And I know I'm not the only one to say that. Um, and I know I'm not the only one that was impacted by it, but indeed changed everything. Um, At one point we were talking, we were looking at doing, uh, remote inspections, uh, having, uh, facility managers walk through on, uh, the various video casting platforms and transmitting that walkthrough to us.

While we sat in the office and watched the video as part of the inspection practice. So we never got to that point, but I know of places that did, uh, as, as a way of, of keeping folks from spreading that disease from one person to another, uh, the public education piece of it changed drastically. Um, and I know I'm not the only one to say that as well.

Uh, but, uh, it really forced us into. Increasing our social media presence. Uh, I don't have much of a social media presence, uh, as far as, uh, fire prevention and education goes, but I know of other agencies that do, and they really stepped up their social media presence, not only in increasing the amounts of information that they were posting.

But they were also including video tours of their stations, which was something I was considering doing, but just never got there. Uh, it's a lot of, there's a lot of work just like with this podcast. There's a lot of behind the scenes work that has to take place. Uh, I have no doubt that there's probably 10 minutes of work for every minute that you post on the podcast.

Um, and, and that translates to video presentations that you put out on social media and all of those things. One of the things that I'm gonna try again this year to do is to host a, uh, uh, ride along, uh, if you will, on for fire prevention week. And, uh, what we planned on doing is having folks, uh, come out to the station.

We'll give 'em a quick tour and. Put them in one of our crash rescue fire trucks and take them over to our training area and introduce them to our aircraft mockup. And we do live fire burns on that mockup several times a year, and we were gonna have them, uh, operate turt. On one of our aircraft or SUV crash trucks, uh, and put out fire it's one of the safest ways that they could do it.

They get the experience of being able to do that. And then they go back and talk to their friends about how good of a time that they have with it. And it, it just, it's one more avenue outside the box of, of being able to spread that fire prevention message. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. You know, um, it sounds like it would really drive engagement and involvement and, uh, interest in fire and life safety as something that I'm constantly talking about with peers is how do we, you know, I think even the fire service has a bit more visibility, then some areas of fire and life safety, like the engineering and design side of things.

Uh, relatively, um, obscure. So I think that's a great idea. I would've been riveted to be involved with that. I mean, I still would, but definitely as a, um, a kid or somebody who was interested in, uh, the fire service. Um, but that sounds like really interesting and, um, cool event. Yeah, I'm really hopeful that it really takes off this year.

Uh, I haven't been very successful with the last few years because of the pandemic, but, uh, I'm really hopeful that it really, it, it really just grows its own wings this year. Uh, I got the idea from, uh, a live fire demonstration that I used to do when I was at Langley. Uh, at Langley, I had a, a big problem of home kitchen fires.

Uh, uh, had a big problem of it. And so, uh, in, in trying to come up with a different way of approaching that problem, educationally, uh, I created a fire prevention, kitchen demonstration trailer. And in that trailer, I would, I had a stove and I would start a grease fire on that stove and demonstrate, uh, The best ways to put that out and what to do when that occurs.

And then at the culmination of that demonstration, I would demonstrate why you don't put water on a grease fire. And I would dump water on a grease fire and shoot a fireball at the end of the trailer. And it was really neat. It was really neat demonstration, uh, to my knowledge, they still do that demonstration now.

Offline, I can send you a video. I took a video of that that was posted to their social media. That way you can have it. And if you wanna attach it to the podcast, we can do that too. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. You know, uh, kitchen fires are one of the most common, it seems to be, uh, really, really frequent way that people get injured or, you know, where fires start even to begin with, even if it's not a grease fire.

So. I think that's a great point and good place to demonstrate where you can have some hazards where you interact with every day. But you know, you were speaking to me about your podcast appearance on the fire dog podcast and how you enjoy the fire dog podcast. And I went and I took a listen to your episode and, and enjoyed it for people who don't know about the fire dog podcast.

It's a, uh, podcast for people in. Aircraft rescue firefighting and, uh, the air force in specific. And so I didn't know, it existed before you reached out Christian, but really appreciate that. I wanted to let, uh, the rest of the listeners know about that podcast. And, uh, but yeah, I wanted to get into, um, you know, some of the topics you talked about, you know, in regards to data and the, you know, manipulating.

Fire service data in order to tell a story and create more effective response. Um, yeah. Love to hear about that. Sure. Um, Back in 2004, uh, I was hired at the air force academy fire department by, uh, chief earns. PCY he's retired now, but I still keep in touch with him on a regular basis. Um, and one of the things that he introduced me to was, uh, the process of accreditation and, uh, having an accredited fire department is a, is a big deal.

Uh, it's very similar to the commission. Uh, approval process for hospital systems. Uh, an accredited fire department is very, uh, it's not different from the ISO ratings that are, uh, given to fire departments, cross country, uh, which your home insurance rate is based upon your ISO rating for the fire department, your area, uh, and accredited a department.

Implies that that department has gone through a process of document review and has had a site team come and visit that department to verify and validate that they're, uh, doing all these things. Um, I believe the current number of performance indicators is on accreditation. Is about 250, uh, I'm a site team, uh, uh, peer assessor.

So I go out and I look at, uh, other fire departments. In fact, I've gotta go out next month and, and, and do one, um, and verify and validate that all of these things are taking place. A major portion of that is, uh, Collection of data on fire department responses. And so those fire department responses are, those are measured and, um, uh, agencies will take that measurement and compare it to themselves on, uh, terms of, of baseline and benchmark performance.

And so what you're looking at for response. Uh, for response times, is, um, are you doing better or worse than, uh, what your established standard is? Uh, for the department of defense, this is a standardized response in that, uh, for most of our responses, we have seven minutes or less to, uh, put a first apparatus on scene.

And within that seven minutes, uh, we get, uh, one whole minute to do call processing. So someone calls nine one, one. And, uh, the, the exchange of information of what kind emergency it is, where the emergency is located. Any other specific information about the E. All of those things are communicated and at 60 seconds or less, uh, from there, the dispatcher, uh, sends us on the emergency and that's, uh, what we call a turnout time.

And so we have 60 seconds to the time at the dispatcher starts speaking over the, uh, radio NPA system to announce the emergency, uh, to the time that we get the apparatus rolling outta the station. Uh, and then from there we get the, the remaining five minutes to arrive on scene. And then we have to do that.

Our benchmark is to do that 90% of the time. So you get that 10% grace of, uh, you know, the truck witness start or the. Uh, that the call process took longer because we were dealing with someone who maybe, uh, English is not their primary language, or we were working with someone who is a child reporting in emergency.

And so that takes more time, uh, to do the call process on that. Um, But all of those things are measured. Uh, all of that data is, uh, accumulated, uh, nationally that is accumulated into the national, uh, fire incident. Reporting system inverse N F I R S hopefully I got that. Right. I was shooting from the hip.

Uh, the inverse system takes all of that data and, and that's publicly accessible. It's managed by FEMA, uh, at the national, uh, incident. I don't even wanna guess on that one. It's managed by FEMA there go. And one of the subsets of FEMA, uh, holds all that data and that's publicly available. You can go into the, the, the national.

FEMA website and drill down to that and, and get information for your area. Uh, you can take that response data. And what I do a as part of, uh, being a, a fire data analyst is to, uh, accumulate that data and, and measure it in, in a multitude of ways. Uh, I look at it in terms of, uh, not what types of responses we're taking, but how often those responses are.

Uh, what types of services are we providing on those responses? When do they occur in terms of not only days of the week, but hours in the day? I, I can tell you from my agency, uh, if you're gonna have a medical emergency on the installation, I can almost guarantee that it's gonna happen Monday through Friday.

Cuz that's when my base population is at its highest. A and so I can almost guarantee, not only is it gonna happen Monday through Friday, but it's gonna happen between the hours of about 9:00 AM and about 3:00 PM, uh, that you're more than likely to have it on a problem on a Friday than on a Tuesday. Uh, and so all of these things come out of that data analysis process.

Huh. Very interesting. And so when you're, when you have this data set, um, I know I heard you talking about using Excel to kind of manipulate and process this data, but how are you, you know, um, manipulating and displaying and analyzing this data. Uh, so I do the, those five measurement or I do five measurements on response times.

Uh, I measure, uh, our call process time, which is that time at the dispatcher takes collect that call information. Uh, I measure our turnout time. I measure our first arriving unit response. Uh, that's an initial, uh, initial unit of assignment measurement. I measure our, uh, balance of assignment, which is the.

All of the forces that we commit to any one particular response. So for example, uh, a, uh, full structure, fire, uh, reported structure fire, we would have that one minute call process that one minute turnout, uh, the first unit on scene would have five minutes of travel. And then the remaining units that we would assign to that, uh, would have an additional five minutes after that point.

To arrive for a total of 12 minutes total. Uh, and we would also put, uh, an appropriate number of apparatus on scene for my agency. That's, uh, two firefighting apparatus, a rescue apparatus, and a command vehicle, uh, for a total of the four and, uh, a total of 13 personnel. And so all of those things are measured and, and.

Compared to each other, compared to previous years, uh, in a historical, uh, vantage point to make sure that we're staying on target for what we wanna see for our benchmarks. Very nice. Very nice. Yeah. That sounds like really good information. And I'm glad that that's being tracked. I wasn't aware of that, but it makes a lot of sense for, um, incident response and how to effectively improve on those kind of measures.

Well, it's, it's huge for, uh, management, because then we can go back at the end of the year and say, okay, well, based upon. Past performance, what can we expect in the coming year? And we can allocate resources appropriately for that. So if we can see in a up trend in, uh, emergency medical services, uh, and emergency medical services provided, then we would know almost intuitively that we would have to increase our budget for medical supplies.

Yeah, that makes sense, man. That's uh, that's very progressive. I wanted to, I know you talked a little bit about your community involvement, but you know, I hear this term thrown around a lot, this community risk reduction, but, um, wanted to pick your brain on what that means to you. And I know that you have a passion for public education and just providing services.

People in order to be more fire safe, but yeah, just wanted to pick your brain a little bit more on community risk reduction. Uh, you bet, um, a again, uh, uh, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If, if I can prevent, uh, a response than that is so much easier than trying to, uh, mediate that response on the, after the.

Uh, and so, uh, community risk reduction, uh, is, is focused on that, uh, reducing, uh, those comm those risks within your community. As the name says, um, in, in my area, uh, my, one of my more frequent responses to fire alarms. And so I have a. Focus on reducing the numbers of false alarms within my community, within my response area.

Uh, Do that through a bunch of different ways. It goes back to data analysis, uh, and community risk analysis, uh, which is the basis of your community risk reduction program. So you've gotta go out there and you've gotta find those problems. And, and one of the easiest ways to do it is to do it through data analysis.

And so I, I take a hard look at the types of runs and type of responses that we go on. We go on and. Uh, I look specifically, uh, at fire alarms and what caused that fire alarm? What caused a, a, uh, if it was a malfunction or if it was, uh, supervisory or trouble alarms and ways that we can look at reducing the risk involved with responding to those.

I don't think I'm ever gonna be in a position where I'm gonna eliminate all the false alarms. It is just not gonna happen. The. It's just, it's not possible, but I can reduce, uh, the level of risk that we're taking on as an agency for responding to those alarms. For example. Uh, 10 or 15 years ago, it was quite common for the departments that I was on in the past to put a full-fledged structural fire response on a fire alarm.

No confirming nine oh ones, no other indicators that there's an actual fire occurring. Just the fire alarm system saying, well, maybe there's a fire. Maybe there's not. And so we would commit, uh, lots of resources that, um, A classic example of that is, uh, an agency that I was with in the past would put three engine companies, a truck company, a rescue company, and a command vehicle, all on an automatic fire alarm without any confirming 9 1, 1, without anybody saying, Hey, yes, there is no kidding, really a fire going on.

And so that's a lot of resources that are committed to what may or may not be an actual fire and I'm not advocating. Don't do that. You, by all means you have to go and look, but do you really need to commit 20 firefighters, five pieces of apparatus, uh, to that, or on the other side of the coin, could you commit a.

One or two apparatus and do a thorough investigation. And once you arrive there, make a quick assessment of what's going on at that facility. Uh, do a good 360 degree, uh, look at the facility, verifying that there's no smoker fire showing go into an investigative mode. And if you are putting other apparatus on the road, either slow 'em down to reduce your risk or.

Uh, eventually turn them around, send them home, or maybe not even put them on the road at all. Uh, based on, uh, the, the impact of that facility on your community. Um, for example, if it's a, uh, fire alarm at a. Storage warehouse, uh, while it's very important to the facility owner, that, that, yeah, we go and check that out as a community.

Uh, that one facility may not be that important if it's very small, uh, it's a self storage facility or some other occupancy like that, where that facilities impact on the community would be very. Uh, versus, uh, say an Amazon or other big box distributorship, uh, had lots of jobs, lots of people employed at that facility that would have a larger impact.

And, and so community risk reduction. And I know I'm going. Shotgun effect. Uh, but, uh, uh, community risk reduction encompasses that and, and the agency response to that, uh, In today's day, day, and age, we, we measure that on, on what's called a, a tri a Triax axis risk model. It's, uh, three different, a axis. So it's, uh, impact to the agency impact to the community and, uh, probability.

And, and so the probability, yeah, that that's based on historical. Uh, responses got that, uh, impact agency and impact community. You know, how much of my agency's resources am I willing to commit to that response? And, and is it appropriate and you take a hard look at that based on, uh, past performance, uh, based on, uh, the, the type of emergency that, that.

We were called for and an impacted community, uh, a small 1000 foot, uh, 1000 square foot storage facility, uh, is gonna have a smaller impact to my agency or my community than a 10,000 square foot elementary school. Uh, if it's the only elementary school in my community that losing that facility is gonna, that's gonna be a huge impact.

And so the impact community has to be assess. Interesting. Yes. I didn't think about, you know, you frequently see, um, signs online for cities and municipalities about nuisance alarms and fees associated with that. But you know, it really brings to light the nature of. Um, how misattributing these resources can, you know, put the community at risk.

And so I appreciate you talking about that a bit. I've not thought about that aspect of community risk reduction and that facet of how we can be more analytical and discrete about how we allocate these public resources. That's an interesting, um, Point that you've brought up there, Christian? Um, I like that.

Well, one of, one of the things that I'm charged with is, is managing the, the public dollar. And for me to allocate. A great deal of resources is something that may or may not need that many resources allocated to it each and every time, regardless of the type of response that we're going on, it, it just doesn't make any sense to do that.

It makes more sense to allocate an appropriate amount of resources based on historical performance and based on, uh, historical responses to that facility and the impact of that facility on the community, uh, to. Make a wiser investment and then gain a better return on that investment ultimately. Yep. Yep.

That makes sense. That makes sense. Being a steward of the public monies. Um, I can appreciate that. Yep. Even on the. Uh, private side or commercial world. I mean, it's always somebody's dollar and, you know, understanding the, um, balance between fire and life safety and the unavoidable cost implications of, you know, every decision that you make.

So, um, yeah. I think that's pretty neat, but I wanted to ask you about your, um, work as a, uh, teacher in teaching, fire and life safety and your, your classes that you've been involved with. Would you, uh, tell me about some of the courses that you have taught in, you know, the, the course that you're teaching now.

Uh, sure. Uh, I got my start, uh, teaching part-time, uh, just on my off duty days, uh, at my local community college at the time I was stationed in Colorado and I taught for the, uh, Pikes peak community college, which is part of the Colorado community college system. Uh, there, they have a fire science program it's, uh, an associate's degree program.

Um, Geared toward, uh, fire science and fire science management. Uh, I believe they do a fire science technology program now as well. Uh, and as well as emergency management, but, um, at the time that I was teaching for them, uh, I was doing, uh, certification testing. It's how I got started. I started as a person doing certification testing for them, for firefighter one, firefighter two.

Hazmat awareness, hazmat operations, uh, that eventually grew into doing certification testing for driver operator, uh, for doing, uh, instructor one, uh, certifications and, and, and all of those associated certifications with their program. Uh, it was. The, the vision at the time was for us to have a, a program where you could come and, and get your degree.

And that that degree would come hand in hand with, uh, professional certifications recognized in more than just the state of Colorado. Uh, at the time those are IFAC accredited certifications and they were good. And about, uh, 25 or 30 different states. Uh, so even if you moved out of the area, those, those would be, uh, universally accepted.

If a is, is one of the two major, uh, certification oversight bodies, uh, uh, professional qualifications. So what some people call pro board is the other one. Uh, they provide oversight on, uh, educational, um, certification offerings, uh, throughout the country. And so it, it's a big deal for me to, to teach to that standard.

What is now referred to as the Fey standard. And then, uh, don't ask me to tell you what the abbreviation stands for, but, uh, it's a universal Fey is a universal, uh, universally accepted, uh, standard. Uh, that's taught for fire emergency services. Uh, Educational opportunity that I had to teach for Pike's peak, uh, eventually grew into, uh, teaching online.

Uh, the online demand right now for, for college education is huge. Uh, catalyst was the pandemic, uh, taking, uh, traditional brick and mortar, uh, institution and, and transitioning to an online environment was huge. I teach for I today. Still I teach for my local community college here in Indiana. Uh, the Ivy tech community college system.

It's a statewide system across Indiana. I wanna say we have about 15 campuses, um, plus the online environment and I teach building construction for them. Um, And I also teach for, uh, Emry riddle aeronautical university. Uh, their home base is down in Daytona beach, Florida, but they have a huge online presence.

They've had a huge online presence for several years, uh, several different programs. Uh, everybody knows them for their flight program and, and that's a cool program. And now at one point that was, that was a program that I wanted to get into. I have an uncle who is a, a graduate. He got his helicopter pilots license through that, uh, served in the army, um, years ago.

Uh, he's an embryo little grad, uh, my niece, his granddaughter is, uh, attending there right now. And so, uh, uh, I have a lot of family ties to Emory. Uh, the opportunity came for me to teach for them, um, and in an online environment. And so that was perfect, cuz I don't wanna move. Uh, I'm in my retirement home in, in my forever home with my forever wife now.

And so, uh, uh, so I didn't wanna move, so that's a huge thing for me. And so that was a big plus, uh, when they recruited me into their system, uh, they originally brought me in to do, um, Uh, fundamentals of fire protection as part of their safety management program. And so I do, uh, it's a junior, uh, 300 level class, uh, teaching the basics of fire protection.

So why fire does what it does on a chemical level, uh, into, uh, introductory hazmat hazardous materials. Um, Both storage and operations, uh, and, and the, the very, the very basics of fire protection. Uh, and we do a lot of case studies with that. So I talk about station nightclub, fire. I talk about Marco polo, apartment complex fire, uh, and, and the impacts that those fires have had on fire protection code enforcement changes in the code.

Uh, And, and the fire code and, and the built environment that have occurred since those, uh, major disasters. Uh, I also teach for them. Uh, I also teach a, uh, course on fire protection and life safety systems design, uh, which is based on, uh, life safety code from NPA. And so, uh, weekly, we do, uh, different discussion groups and, and those are also case based, uh, on different.

Fire disasters that have occurred. Um, I try real hard to, to give students the field view cuz not everybody teaches that. Uh, a lot of people teach straight by the book straight what the code says and, and without tying that to real life, examples of why, uh, that's very important.

Yeah, I think that that's a huge, um, piece that I always enjoyed about, um, my school in Oklahoma state was not just, Hey, here's the theory of fire protection systems. And then, you know, go have fun in the real world, but no, here's how you physically reset a, um, dry piped valve and, you know, real world application and.

always enjoyed that, um, pairing of the intellectual property with the physical and commercial ramifications of, um, why you're learning this thing and, and how they apply it to the world around you. So I think that's a very critical thing to be aware of. Um, yeah, don't get me wrong. The, the theory's important and you have to have that as a foundation, but the practical application of that theory is it's a huge, huge deal.

Definitely definitely. Well, Christian, I wanted to ask you a couple professional development questions and just get a feed on, you know, your pulse on the industry a bit. But yeah, I wanted to ask, what are you seeing as a trend in the industry and you know, what are you seeing on a macro level from fire and life safety that you're keeping an eye.

Um, uh, professional credentialing, uh, it's one thing to go to college, earn a degree, uh, go to a class, earn a certification. Um, As a whole, as, as a whole person, uh, to be able to demonstrate to another peer that not only have you gained a certain educational level, a certain certification level and in a certain experience and expertise level, but to be able to demonstrate that in a peer environment, Uh, I think is gonna be the next great thing.

Um, one of the things that the center of public safety excellence does is a professional credentialing program. Uh, not much different than a professional engineer credential that you might earn. Uh, we have Provinal credentialing and, and fire and emergency services. Um, As well, uh, they offer several different professional credentials.

Um, I currently hold, uh, one, I'm getting ready to, to pull the trigger on my application for another, um, And those professional credentials are, are directly tied to, uh, positions that people hold within fire emergency services. I'm a prevention chief. Uh, I, I come from a broad spectrum background of EMS and fire prevention.

Um, my current credential is a chief EMS officer and so, uh, chief emergency medical services officer. And so with that credential, I I've proven to, uh, a group of peers that reviewed my application for that, that, that I have not only the educational background that supports that credential, but an expertise in that area, a, uh, level of experience in managing EMS programs and, uh, and, uh, are earned that credential that.

Uh, the one that I'm about to apply for is the chief fire officer credential. Um, it it's, uh, a credential for fire chiefs, deputy fire chiefs up and coming assistant chiefs, upper level management within fire emergency services, uh, to demonstrate that they have, uh, the, again, the, the level of expertise, the, uh, professional experience.

Education, uh, educational appropriate educational level, uh, appropriate certification levels. And so it's, it's, um, a broad spectrum look at, uh, the individual and, uh, it it's, um, not much different than, uh, whole building design guide that we do for buildings. It's a whole person design, if you would, uh, on.

You know, professional development, are you doing all the things that you're doing and, and better than that, are you keeping up with all the things you should be keeping up? Yeah, I think that's a great point. Professional credentialing is a great way to not only, uh, keep your skills and your skillset up to date, but also to signal to the, um, industry and the commercial world that you are, um, proficient and, you know, Should be compensated for these, um, proficiencies and capabilities.

So I think that's a great, um, thing to keep an eye out. And I always recommend for professionals to find out what are the most critical, uh, professional credentials for your industry into seek those. Because they immediately give you a competitive edge over candidates for the exact same position. Um, one for one, if a candidate has a PE or doesn't have a PE it's night and day difference for what a company will, um, be interested in them.

So, uh, that's a great tip Christian. Um, and then, you know, you mentioned a lot of good podcasts out the air and resources that you like to listen to. Uh, what other places do you like to go and learn about fire and life safety? Since it seems like you have a very good beat on that idea? Uh, I really enjoy well.

I really, and first of all, I, I have to say that I, I really enjoy your podcast. It really gives me the engineering side of the. Of the house, uh, is something I've always been interested in, but never quite got out of that science rut. Uh, my, my educational background is all science all the way. I never really got into the engineering side.

I'm I'm a little mathematically challenged at times. So. To, to go in and, and had to stare down the barrel of taking college calculus and physics and, and all of those things was, was a little bit daunting to me when I was going through college. So I, I, I, I took the path on the other side of the road, um, for sciences, um, But I also, I listen to, uh, CR radio, which is, uh, a podcast down by Gary Kumon, uh, through it's, uh, community risk reduction and, and different things that different folks are doing in the interview that he, uh, uh, that he hosts, uh, different things that different folks are doing around the country for reducing community risk around their agencies.

Um, Uh, I also listen the N NFPA journal podcast. Uh, it keeps me abreast of what's going on, uh, on, uh, in the N FPA area. Uh, The, uh, national fire academy has just started, uh, a podcast. I'll listen to that. Uh, Dr. Uh, Lori Moore. Morere who's our, our national fire administrator, uh, does a podcast over there. Um, But, yeah, I'll listen to a wide spectrum of, of things just to, to keep up with, um, the, the latest and greatest things that are going on.

Not only in, in my little fire world, but, uh, uh, other things that have impact on that. Yeah, I think that's, uh, some good recommendations. I appreciate the fire and light safety podcast recommendations that are not, um, so technology focused and more fire service oriented because I, I don't always have that, uh, side of things as well covered.

Um, Well, it's really about getting outta your silo. I mean, it, it's so easy to get into a, a silo within your own career field, or within your own, uh, career choice. Other external those external stakeholders and that those external influences have impact. And so being able to, to keep a, a pulse of that impact and how those things re interrelate with, uh, with what you have going on, uh, those things are important, uh, and keep track of those things.

I think they'll keeping track of those things is, is real important and, and how they impact. Your community and how they impact your service deliverability. Um, and, and ultimately the product that you produce. Um, the product that I produce is paid for by the public. And so I, I feel morally and ethically obligated to P produce and deliver the best product that I can.

And this is how I do that. Well, sounds good. Well, I think that is a good note to end on Christian. I just want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Um, we covered some great stuff and I think that there is still plenty of meat on the bone if you ever want to come back. But yes, thank you very much for speaking with me.

You bet. Thank you very much for having me. I, I appreciate the time that you've spent with me here. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes code zone standards, interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Hello All! Welcome to episode 37 of the Fire Code Tech solocast series. In this episode we are talking about freeze protection options for water based fire suppression systems. Tune into this episode if you want to hear a high level overview of dry pipe, preaction, dry barrel sprinklers and design considerations for all the above!

Transcription

Hello. Welcome to the solo cast of fire code tech in these episodes. It's just gonna be me, your host, Gus Gagliardi. There's gonna be a range of topics, but I'm gonna talk about specific technologies, installation, standards, codes, and how they work as well as some other interesting topics that don't neatly fit inside of the context of a normal interview.

Hello, all welcome to episode 37 of the solo cast series of fire code. On this episode, we're talking about freeze protection. Yes. I thought that after our conversation about any freeze systems, that it would be, uh, interesting topic for a solo cast to cover some of the freeze protection options for, uh, what pipe, fire suppression systems or.

Water based fire suppression system. In this episode, we're going to talk about dry pipe systems, heat trace, dry side wall heads and anti-free systems. Well, maybe not anti-free systems. You can go back and listen to the solo cast on that one, but we'll talk about it as an option. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button.

So you never miss an episode and give us a follow on social media. Oh, and if you could do us a big favor and give a five star review on apple podcast, that'd be a huge help to the pod. So similar to our discussion with anti free systems, this conversation comes at the preface that you have already determined the codes and standards for the building that you're looking at.

You have determined. The fire sprinkler system is required or there is an existing fire sprinkler system. And then the next piece of the flow chart is you have determined that there is a space within your building or a space connected to your building that needs freeze protection and the coverage of a fire sprinkler system.

So that is where this conversation sort of starts. Your building is sprinkler, or you have a new building or an existing building that is going to be sprinkler and you have an unconditional space. So for a code reference, we're looking at NFP 13 and the section in the 2016 version. N FBA 13 that talks about protecting piping against freezing is 8 16, 4 1.

And the specific language for this code section says where any portion of a system is subject to freezing, and the temperatures cannot be reliably maintained at or above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, or four degrees Celsius. This system shall be installed as a dry pipe or pre-action system. So let's talk about dry pipe and pre-action system first as an option for freeze protection.

The definition section of NFPA 13. And again, we're looking at the 2016 version of the code section 3.4 0.5 states, dry pipe, sprinkler system, a sprinkler system, employing automatic sprinklers that are attached to a piping system containing air or nitrogen under pressure, the release of which as from the opening of a spring.

Permits water pressure to open a valve known as a dry pipe valve and the water then flows into the piping system and out of the open sprinklers. So this touches on the main feature that keeps water from freezing inside of piping. That is the main problem with providing a wet pipe sprinkler system in a unconditional space.

Is that the expansion of freezing water will rupture the piping put over time. Even small amounts of water in piping will cause, um, fractures and weakening of the integrity of sprinkler piping. So that is the key value of dry pipe systems is that they. Not normally filled with water. They're filled with air and or nitrogen as described in 3.4 0.5.

Now, why would you want to have nitrogen filled in a dry pipe system? Well, dry pipe systems are notorious for corrosion because of the water air interface inside of the piping. Now you might be asking, well, didn't you just say. You didn't want any water inside of the piping while testing for dry pipe systems, as you release water into the system, in order to show the time for the fluid to reach one of the most remote sprinklers.

And so when you do this kind of testing, You fill the system with water and unless you've designed the system extremely well, there are going to be portions of the system in which you cannot get water out of. And there will be a water air interface in which corrosion will be greatly encouraged cuz of these system conditions.

And there will also be. A potential for freezing to happen. Dry systems are sometimes unavoidable, but present a lot of problems because of this corrosion. This system lasts anywhere from about, uh, a third to a quarter of a wet pipe, sprinkler system's normal lifespan. If you can rely on a wet pipe sprinkler system to last.

30 40 50 years. You may only be able to rely on a dry pipe sprinkler system to last anywhere from seven years to maybe at the maximum life. Uh, probably around 20 and change. I would imagine. Using nitrogen instead of compressed air is a very effective way to reduce the corrosion inside of dry pipe systems, nitrogen generators, or a way to nitrogen inert.

Your dry pipe system will add cost implications, but it will save you cost on the long term maintenance and lifespan of the system. So like the definition described, there is a differential valve in a dry pipe system that is activated when a sprinkler head opens dry pipe systems used closed sprinkler heads.

And when the sprinkler head is opened due to thermal. Characteristics of the sprinkler head, the frangible device, whether it be a glass bulb or a mechanical fusible link will melt or burst and release air or nitrogen from the system. Once enough air or nitrogen is released. The differential valve will activate and open, which will flood the system with water and the water will have to push the air out of the piping in order to send itself out of the open sprinkler dry pipes systems have volumetric limitations placed on them.

Common volume thresholds for dry pipe systems are. 500 and 750 gallons. There are additional equipment requirements that are required when you exceed these volumetric capacities. Here's the definition for pre-action sprinkler system, a sprinkler system, employing automatic sprinklers that are attached to a piping system that contains air that might or might not be under pressure.

With a supplemental detection system installed in the same areas as the sprinklers. So single and double interlock reaction systems always kind of gave me trouble early on in thinking about these systems. A single interlock reaction system needs one of the two. Options to happen in order to activate the differential valve that we talked about previously for dry pipe systems, you need a initiation device or a sprinkler head opening in order to trigger the differential valve for the pre-action system.

A double interlock pre-action system is a system that needs. Both a sprinkler head to pop and an initiation device to activate in order to release water into the system. I've seen these systems used fairly frequently in, uh, data center rooms. Um, I'm not a big fan of 'em. There are, um, more features required to install these systems.

And so there are. More reliability concerns with the added sequence of events needed to operate in the instance of a fire pre-action systems and dry pipe systems are more expensive than white pipe sprinkler systems, the expensive evolving, and in the instance of a dry pipe system, the added. Drains and the need to have code required pitch for the branch and sprinkler mains are a additional design, implication or consideration.

If you have a space with a limited amount of ceiling cavity or, um, area to run sprinkler PIP. You have to take special consideration for the pitch in a dry pipe sprinkler system. For instance, I was doing some work on a, uh, parking garage and there was very, uh, limited clearance between the drive lane and the parking structure.

So there is a minimum amount of space that the building owner. Uh, wanted to give the largest vehicle that would be in the parking garage. And we had to really be mindful of the piping routing and the sprinkler placement inside of the parking garage. One of the other really common options for freeze protection is dry barrel side wall heads or extended coverage, dry barrel side heads.

this piece of technology looks like a piece of sprinkler piping attached to a sprinkler head, most commonly a side wall sprinkler head. Although these, this technology comes in the form of, uh, pendant and upright sprinklers as well. Although I can't imagine a time where you would. Put in dry barrel, upright heads, uh, pendant for sure and sidewall, but, um, fairly positive.

They come in dry barrel uprights as well. These sprinkler heads are connected to wet sprinkler systems, but they are used for the coverage of areas that are uncondition. So a common application for this technology is say, if you have a loading dock that is approximately 15 foot in width on the exterior of your building, and you don't want to add a antifreeze or heat trace system or dry pipe system.

So you can get away with, if you can find a sprinkler listed for the 15 feet, which you can, uh, spraying providing sprinkler coverage from your dry barrel side wall heads installed on your wet system, inside the building, that piece of empty piping between the sprinkler head and the connection to the wet pipe system is used as.

Insulative barrier of sorts in order to provide a small gap so that the piping in the exterior wall of the building does not freeze dry heads are a great option because they are a bit more expensive than normal sprinkler heads, but they are far less expensive. Dry pipe systems or pre-action systems.

If you can get away with it due to the exterior configuration or interior configuration of your freeze protection space. But as you can imagine, there are some definite space configuration limitations for using these sprinkler heads. Dry flex heads are another option for freeze protection spaces. These are even more costly than dry barrel sprinklers, but they have more flexibility in the configuration that you can place them in.

I believe that they have links that are up to four foot and maybe even six foot or eight foot as far as how long the flexible extension. Between the water charged piping and the sprinkler head looks like there is a 38 inch, uh, 50 inch and a 58 inch dry flex head listing. So those are a expensive, but, uh, could be based on the savings and installation.

And the elimination of the requirement for a dry pipe sprinkler system, a advantageous solution for freeze protection required spaces. I think that's gonna do it for this episode. Apologize. Didn't get to heat trace, but that would be a great topic for an episode on its own. We'll see you next time. And thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes end standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

On this episode of Fire Code Tech we are speaking with Bill Denney about an alternative fire suppression technology. Bill breaks down common occupancies aersol fire suppression is utilized for, design considerations, and lessons learned from his career. 

[email protected]

https://www.hochikiamerica.com/firepro-xtinguish-landing

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Hello, all welcome to episode 54 of fire code tech. On this episode, we're speaking with bill. Bill is talking with us today about aerosol fire suppression. It's a pretty unique episode in that bill was listening to a solo cast about alternative fire suppression that I did weeks back and reached out to talk about aerosol fire suppression.

Since I mentioned that I didn't have much knowledge about this subject. We get into design considerations, layout, physical and chemical properties of aerosol fire suppression systems, and much more. Also, we break down what our good occupancy and use fits for this technology. Really enjoyed speaking with bill.

He is so knowledgeable about aerosol fire suppression and has a deep understanding of fire science and all of the component factors of this suppression technology. Don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode and give us a follow on social media. And if you do me a huge favor and give a five star on apple podcast, that'd be a big help.

Let's break into the show. Well, bill, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Welcome to fire code tech GU. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. And, uh, I really look forward to our discussion today. I enjoy your podcast very much and to oh, awesome. Think to think that I can be here. Just great.

Couldn't be better. It's very touching. Yeah. I really appreciate, we were talking a little bit off air about how you discovered the podcast and how you've been listening for a while. But yeah, I'm excited too, to speak with you about, um, your career and, you know, then the knowledge you have about aerosolized fire expression.

But as you all know, I like to get these things started with giving people a little bit of background on your career history. You know, kind of how you found fire and life safety. Uh, yeah. Would you mind telling me about that? Yeah, sure. Be happy to, uh, like many of your guests that you have on the podcast.

I did not set out to have a career in the fire and life safety business. It all came about, uh, quite randomly. Um, the mid nineties I was looking for work. I had left my. Installing car stereos. Uh, you're a guest. Uh, you had Joseph Savantas on. And a few of the things he said kind of resonated with me. He was installing car stereos at one point.

That's what I was doing, uh, at the time. But I left that and I was looking for work and I couldn't seem to find anything, but every time I looked in the paper, I always saw an ad for a company that was looking. Alarm technicians for burglar alarm systems and CCTV and stuff like that. And I had, um, you know, electronics background from high school and some correspondence classes I had taken.

And so I thought, well, you know, something's better than nothing I'll apply. And if I get it, um, I'll keep looking, you know, to find something better. And I'll just do that until I can find something that, uh, that I like. But, you know, funny thing, I, I really found that I enjoyed the work. We were, um, you know, installing all types of alarm systems, uh, security, fire, CCTV, access control, Intercom, everything, low voltage.

And it was nice because you, you know, you get to move around. You're not at the same place every day and you get to use your brain a little bit. You get to a, a place and the, the panel is in trouble and it's a ground fault or something. You gotta kind of think, well, you know, what's going on here? What could be the problem?

How am I gonna fix this? And when you do fix it, you know, you use your tools and your brain and you figure it. You leave? I, I like that. I felt like I could go away with a sense of accomplishment that I did something. Um, but after a couple of years of that, I, I kind of realized I probably couldn't make a lifelong career out of being in a, you know, truck moving around, climbing up and down the ladder every day and everything like that.

And, uh, the, uh, company we work for, um, Okay. We were a big, um, Radis distributor. We sold radi security systems and, and a lot of them. And I, I learned that Radis was looking for technical support people. And so I went to my, uh, my boss and, uh, I told them, Hey, you know, Radis is looking for tech support people.

I'm gonna try to apply. Uh, Radis was in California. My parents lived in California and it just seemed like. A good move. I could get into an office environment and, and a company where I might be able to progress. Whereas with the alarm installation and service, you know, it, it, it kind of, it is what it is.

And, and there was really no path forward. And he said, yeah, sure, no problem. You know, I'll give you a reference and, and everything, but he said, but they're not going to hire you. And I said, well, He said, they're looking for people that have a lot more experience in the industry than you. I had only been doing this work for about two years and, uh, but he said, go ahead and try.

And, and I applied and they did hire me. And I think he was always kind of pleased with the idea that one of his guys got hired by a manufacturer. And so I worked there in the tech support department for, uh, a few years and, uh, Radis was, uh, bought. Buy another company and they closed the office in California and moved everyone to New York.

Um, at that time I didn't wanna make that move. And at Radis we used hoki smoke detectors and, and products and hoki was starting to come in with their own fire alarm panel around that time. So this was around 2003. I went to work at cheki for tech support and training and I've. Kind of been there pretty much, uh, ever since really.

That's awesome. Very cool to hear about how you had a similar through line in your incipient stage of your career as Joseph Savantas having that, uh, proclivity for electronics and really searching for something in the job market and those things kind of clicking together. That's cool to hear that, uh, come together like that.

That was another thing that, uh, Joseph said, uh, when he started out, he realized if he was gonna get ahead, he had to really read a lot and study, he read the code books and everything, and I was the same way. Uh, I devoured whatever information I could get. My boss saw that and he bought N FPA 72 for me in 70.

And that was little over my head at the time, but I kind of realized if I'm going to be able to continue and progress and grow professionally, I'm going to have to learn. I'm gonna have to do more than just go on service calls every day. And that was something that Joseph, uh, emphasized as well. And I think it's a good point probably for everyone.

We need to have some way to grow, um, uh, professionally and learn and expose our. You know, to other parts of, uh, of the business and the industry. And that's one of the things I've really appreciated about your podcast. I get to hear, uh, experiences and ideas and, and, you know, things from, from people that are doing different aspects than, than what I might be doing every day.

Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I I'm really inspired myself by people's stories and it's always been, um, You know, one of the things that has given me a lot of meaning and just hearing about how people have taken the challenges that life has to offer and, and overcome that's like helps provide some, even if short lived motivation and inspiration to, um, really try to lean into your own life or bettering yourself.

I feel the same way, bill. Yeah. Um, about just professional development and personal growth, but yeah. So I'm excited to hear about how you started and then your transition to a manufacturer and then your movement to cheki. Um, yeah. Would you go over a little bit in more detail, some of the roles that you've held at cheki since you started.

Kind of what those have looked like along the way. Oh, sure. Um, you know, starting out in the field, obviously I was just an installer pulling wire and, you know, mounting devices and doing service calls with all kinds of different things. Um, when I went to, uh, radios, of course I did, uh, technical support there.

That was, that was kind of a transition that I didn't expect. You know, when you are in the field and you go to a site and you've got a panel and it's got a problem, Use your eyes and your hands and your tools, and you can kind of check it out and see it and work it out. But when you're on the phone now in a tech support role, and you're talking to this, someone who was there and they see it it's different.

Uh, it, it, it was a transition for me. It took me probably about six months or so to really get my head around that, because now you have to ask them to be your eyes and ears and, and hands. To identify what the problem is and how to fix it. And not everyone is at the same, uh, skill level. You know, some guys, they, some of the guys that would call that, you know, they were just kind of thrown into it and they didn't, you know, maybe have the, the training or the background and they needed help.

Um, and sometimes that help might include explaining to them how. Uh, use the meter, you know, to measure, uh, DC voltage or how to, um, you know, do other, uh, things that are necessary to be successful as a, uh, technician. And sometimes, um, you know, they might think that you're just going to tell them some quick answer, that's gonna solve all the problems in the whole world.

And it doesn't always work like that. And, and, you know, you might say, well, did you check the voltage on the zone? And they say, yeah, yeah, yeah. I checked it. I check. Say, okay. Well, how much was it? And they tell you some number that she know is completely impossible and you think, okay, they didn't check it

And now the, the challenge now is how do I ask them to check it or have them, you know, do what I need for them to do without insulting them or offending them in some way, how do I help them to see that I'm on their side, you know, and we've gotta be a team and work together here. And it took a little time to kind of get my head around that.

But once I. That was nice and it was enjoyable. Um, moving over to hoki, I started with tech support at radios. We'd get a lot of calls every day. Um, at hoki, when I started, we would get four or five calls a day. It was me and, um, another fellow who were doing the work. And, um, but I did the tech support there.

I helped with that and I developed the training program. For the, uh, panel that we released at that time, an analog addressable panel. And, uh, from there I've done some, uh, writing of technical, uh, manuals documents. I've worked in the research and development department. I've um, done some, uh, firmware validation testing.

I do design and application support for our customers now. Um, You know, whatever comes my way. And that's one of the nice thing things about being here is I do get a lot of variety. Um, it's uh, every day is something different and that always keeps it interesting and an opportunity, you know, possibly to learn something along the way as well.

Yeah. That's awesome. It's always rewarding to have, uh, you know, I've spoken with people. About, you know, where they had jobs. I spoke with one individual early on in my career who had a, um, CAD tech job where he laid out cabinetry for a big box, uh, you know, manufacturer company. And he'd said that, uh, like the.

Monotony of just laying out these same CAD details over and over again was just mind numbing. And so I have never had to deal with that being in fire and life safety has been, uh, I rarely if ever, you know, even buildings where people say they're identical, they're usually not . Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Identical. And it's very hard to present, uh, identical with, you know, everyth. and then siding. So that's, I agree with you, but you know, this podcast started because you reached out and were talking to me about how, you know, aerosol, uh, fire suppression. And I had made some comment in one of my solo cast episodes.

I was talking about alternative, uh, fire suppression. Um, I think it was section 9 0 4. I was talking about in an episode. and a solo cast. And you reached out because you have a specialty in that subject, but, um, yeah, I, what is, is, am I even using the right terms? Aerosol fire, fire, uh, suppression or aerosolized fire suppression.

What, how would you term that? Usually they would call it aerosol or maybe condensed aerosol fire suppression. That was solo cast 27. Yes. I was walking and listening that day. And you were going through the list of alternative fire extinguishing systems in section 9 0 4 of the IBC. And you were going through them, what?

Chemical, dry chemical foam, CO2, clean agent and so on. And I was wondering if aerosol would come out and it did. And I laughed and I said, I've got to reach out to Gus and offer to send him some information about the, uh, the technology and you're right. It's not something that, um, everyone knows about. Um, it's, uh, been around a long.

Outside of the United States, but the NFPA and UL standards that are applicable to it, haven't been around a long time, but, uh, aerosol fire suppression or condensed aerosol, uh, basically an aerosol, right, is a suspension of very tiny particles. Uh, in a gas. It could be fog is an aerosol smoke is an aerosol condensed aerosol fire suppression works.

Um, uh, by using very, very tiny particles of potassium suspended in the air. And, uh, so it's really kind of clever, um, how they do this. The aerosol itself before it is discharged is contained in a solid. Okay. Um, it looks a little bit like, uh, to me it looks a little bit like maybe a chunk of, um, particle board or something like that.

And the aerosol is, uh, stored inside of these, uh, steel containers. They might be cylindrical or they might be a kind of like a box and they have holes on one side so that the aerosol can get. And these boxes or these cylinders are called aerosol generators. That is the term that is used in, uh, N FPA 2010.

Uh, they don't really generate the aerosol necessarily. Um, but they do contain that solid. Compound and these aerosol generators or containers are installed inside the hazard area. They're not pressurized. They just have this solid compound in it. And a few other little, uh, components there. So they're installed in the hazard area and maybe on the ceiling or high up on the walls somewhere.

And they're activated usually electrically from a listed releasing control panel. So it would be like a clean agent. In that respect, you've got a cross zone of smokes or smokes and heats. The panel goes into alarm. Both of the zones are an alarm. The panel starts counting down a pre-discharge time, uh, to allow people to get out of the room.

And at the end of that time, the panel will send an electric voltage, usually 24 volts to these generators and that voltage, um, creates a Condit. Where that solid compound is converted from a solid mass of aerosol forming compound to an aerosol that's based on very, very tiny particles of, uh, potassium, uh, carbonate.

There's also some, um, nitrogen generated and, uh, some water vapor and things like that. But it's primarily the potass. The particles are very small. They're according to the definition there in N FPA 2010, they're generally less than 10 microns in size to get an idea of 10 microns. 10 microns is the average diameter of a human blood cell, red blood cell.

So the particles are extremely small and the generators will just, you know, fill the room with these tiny particles of potassium carbon. Um, now the potassium extinguishes the fire by interfering with the chemical chain reaction of the fire. The, um, uh, potassium is a, um, it's one of the alkaline metals and it only has one electron and it's outer shell.

So it's able to, uh, disassociate and become a potassium ion. And that's what happens. The potassium moves into the. The heat of the flame creates a potassium ion that has a positive charge that positively charged potassium, ion bonds with the free radicals, from the fire and breaks that chemical chain reaction that is going on.

And that's how it extinguishes. It doesn't displace oxygen. It doesn't work, you know, primarily by cooling the fire or things like that. But it works on that chemical level. And because it works at the chemical chain reaction level, the extinguishing action is very fast. Um, during our training classes, uh, that we have on this product, we have one of the test results from the UL testing, and then the UL testing.

They have a, a small, uh, uh, space, you know, where they like test fires and, and check to see how well the aerosol works. And, uh, for the test results that I have, it shows that all five of the test fires were extinguished in about two and a half seconds. So the extinguishing action is very effective and it's very fast.

And primarily, I, I that's because of the way it works, you know, focusing right in on the heart of that, uh, chain reaction. I. Hope that makes sense. no, yeah, that's great. I love the visuals that, uh, 10 microns is an interesting number because that's also like around some of the thresholds for combustible dusts.

So I, I appreciate you using some, you know, information to really drive home the point and you have a really solid understanding. Not only the technology, but the fire science behind why this technology works to extinguish the fire. Um, yeah. I really appreciate that. Yeah. When I started doing the, uh, the training, which also was sort of a, another unintended thing, I was asked to develop a training program for this, uh, technology, this product at cheki.

I didn't know anything about. I told them. Sure. You know, I'll, I'll make a presentation. I figured I would read the manual and I did, I read the manual and, uh, I saw that, you know, it breaks Kim chain reaction fire, and I thought, okay, well, that's great. But then I started thinking, you know, somebody's gonna ask me, well, how does it do that?

And so I thought, I need to investigate to see how fireworks, you know, how does fire burn, what happens during a fire. And, uh, while that was. That was quite an investigation. I guess I still don't have a grasp on that yet. As I started studying, I found out the fire is a very complicated thing. Um, but yeah, that was, um, that was part of it.

And, and all of that, I, I guess I was anticipating questions that never really came. No one ever asked me about that. It's funny. I've been doing this training now for probably seven years, eight years. I don't think anyone has ever asked me, but I had to know for myself. How does it interfere? You know, what does that mean?

Exactly. And so, yeah, I, I did a lot of reading on that and it is quite interesting. I I'm sure you had to learn a lot about combustion and things of that sort, uh, in, in getting your degree. Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny you say that because I can't tell you how many times I've looked at the, you know, the fire Tetra Hedron now.

Or just understood that, you know, when they talk about inhibiting the chemical chain reaction and how that can, uh, you know, stop the course of a fire, but I've never really, you know, and I, uh, have taken quite a few chemistry courses and, um, because I originally, uh, I was going for a different degree in chemical engineering before I transitioned.

Fire protection. And so I made it all the way through like organic chemistry two, but yeah, I never, it ever had the thought to really investigate the actual, uh, mechanism at the atomic level for how these particles inhibit that reaction it. So to me, that's extremely interesting, like. Go ahead. No, I'll just go.

I was just gonna go on like one of the, one of the, like another reason, um, why your vivid description of the, um, chemical chain reaction and like the 10 microns being associated with the blood cell. Like my first, one of my big moments in my life I ever realized I had any interest in science. My chemistry teacher in high school telling me that a mole.

So like Avagadro's constant for, you know, how many particles are in, you know, like the standard mass that we use to count for elements, like 6.02 times 10 to the 23rd, like to get a visual representation of that number, like a Mo of peas would cover the entire. With three feet of peas. And so that was how he described like the sheer size of this number, you know, what 10 times to the 23rd really looked like.

So that, yeah, yeah. That, uh, really was. Like a big aha moment for me. those kind of things help us, I think, but still the idea and the concept of it is, uh, I find it to be very challenging. Um, you know, that many, uh, piece all around the earth. Sure. It's a lot, but trying to, you know, visually picture that is, is, uh, I find that to be, uh, still a bit of a struggle it's interest.

Well, we'll come back to that later. Uh, the aerosol particles, but. , they are very small. And in fact, um, 10 microns is the size of the largest particles. Um, most of them are actually smaller than that. Very cool. Very cool. So is this like similar, uh, compounds in like. Technology as fire extinguishers, are these the same kind of bicarbonate and potassium compounds that are in extinguishers?

Is this like similar technology it's different. It really is different. Um, the particle sizes are much smaller. That's kind of what I was going to say just a moment ago. It's not a clean agent, right? Because it is based on these very, very, uh, tiny particles of potassium. So there is gonna be a little bit of residue, um, like a dust, like a very fine dust after a discharge, not like a dry Kim system, not like a handheld extinguisher, much, much lighter than that.

And I used to get questions in the beginning. I was doing, uh, product trainings and people were very, you know, interested in that obviously. I think they were picturing dry chemical systems. And I would try to tell 'em, it's not like that, you know, it's more like a, a kind of a, a light dust. So I, I was very clever.

I thought I was clever and, and we were doing a, uh, a discharge one day at the cheki office and I thought I'm going, here's what I'm gonna do. Great idea. I'm gonna get a broom and I'm gonna try to sweep up some of the residue and put it in a little. and I can take it around with me and show it to people.

You know, when I do the training, this is what it looks like. Mm-hmm , but you know, the particles are so small. This is one of the things about the aerosol. The particles are so small and buoyant that they want to float. They, they tend to stay suspended in, in the room or in the air. You know, if, if there's a ceiling they'll stay suspended for maybe an hour, hour, 15 minutes or so before they finally all settle out.

Wow. We were doing this outside in a little, um, area that we had kind of covered with plastic. And as a result, when we opened it for me to try to collect my, uh, aerosol specimen, it all floated away. wow into the air and I didn't get anything. Um, you know, so, um, I thought it was a great idea, but in reality, Didn't work out, uh, the way I intended it, but that is one difference.

I know we're gonna talk about differences and that's why it has a different NFPA standard. 2 20 10. It's not a 2001 clean agent. It does use particles. That's what makes it an aerosol, but the particle size and the, the, uh, the residue that's left is, is very, very fine, very light. Wow. That's incredible. I never would've guessed.

That really brings to mind the physical. And now you talked about the physical characteristics and the chemical characteristics, but it really is unlike. Clean agent or like, you know, a dry chemical fire extinguishing system. Mm-hmm , that's, that's pretty remarkable. Really. I, I wouldn't have guessed that.

Yeah. It's kind of been a class of its own, you know, it has its own UL standard. It has its own N FBA standard. So it is, it is unique technology in that regard. Cool. So let's talk about the codes and standard structure around, um, aerosol fire suppression. Um, Would you speak a little bit about that NFPA standard in which you had base the design for these systems on yes, absolutely.

That's NFPA 2010. That's the standard for fixed aerosol fire extinguishing systems. And of course, um, at nfpa.org, as you have mentioned before, and I remind people quite regularly, you can sign up and you can see all of the NFPA standards, Sarah at no. So N FPA 2010 is the one it's in its, uh, third official revision.

We're on the 20, 20 edition. Um, right now it's not a big standard. I would guess the body of the standard is maybe. 20 pages, something like that. It's not like the NEC or 1 0 1 or anything like that, but the information is there, you know, um, the definitions, of course, in chapter three, um, general information, and then the information about how to design a system, things that we need to be aware of.

Um, as we design, um, the system as. And then some information in the annex is also the UL standard for testing is UL 27 75, which is the standard for fixed condensed aerosol extinguishing systems. There are other standards. As I had mentioned, this technology spent around a long time outside of the United States.

There are European standards, the, um, ISO 1 57 79. Is there a condensed sterol systems standard? Um, there are some, uh, other approvals Marine approvals. There's a, uh, uh, a Russian standard, uh, N PB 2198, um, that, uh, they have for this technology. Another thing that kind of comes into play too, is the EPA, the, um, environmental protection, uh, association.

The EPA has the snap list, you know, about the snap list. They, uh, develop that list in an effort to identify substitutes for ozone depleting chemicals, like Halan, you know, um, and so the EPA snap list also has a place, uh, for condensed aerosols so that they can be, um, evaluated and included on the snap list and EPA, uh, the snap list will look at the aerosol from.

Two aspects, I guess. Well, maybe three, the first would be, is it included on the list at all? Um, another would be, can it be used for normally occupied spaces or is it only for normally unoccupied spaces? And so, uh, the snap list to EPA would also apply here in the us N FPA 2010 U 27 75 for the manufacturers.

And then the, uh, EPA snap list. So I don't know too much about the snap list, although I, I understand the concept of these substances that the EPA is saying let's move away from these substances. Um, I know that, uh, most recently we've seen the industry start to, um, deprecate and move away from. Like FM 200 mm-hmm so some of these HFC having clean agent systems, and then, you know, obviously Halan in the past being a huge one that, um, they've moved away from.

But that's interesting to hear you speak about that. Um, part of the industry. Yeah. Um, you know, um, Halan was very effective. But it, uh, the Montreal, uh, protocol obviously, um, you know, they were concerned about identifying ozone depleting substances and, um, so that was addressed. And as you pointed out, I understand that some countries are now sort of phasing down HFCs, too.

I had understood that that really applied more to, uh, HFCs used in refrige. , but it may be touching fire suppression or perhaps at some time in the future. Um, it will, you know, and, um, so yeah, those are, uh, I guess, considerations, um, for those types of products, you know, I could be wrong about this. People should double check me, but, um, I'm pretty sure that I've seen formal communication from some of these manufacturers.

How they're phasing these systems out. So it's going to be expensive to, um, in, I believe FM 200 specifically, uh, maintain these systems because the agent is not gonna be made in the same capacity anymore. So it's likely gonna be more expensive. So, um, but yeah, but I wanted to ask you about, so what kind of spaces.

Or occupancies. Are you seeing these kind of systems implemented in I'm sure there's a wide variety, but what occupancy, um, would ping in your mind as being a good fit for these systems? Well, the product is, uh, generally listed for class a class B class C fires. Um, that's what NFPA 2010, uh, allows. Or the technology, anything outside of that would need to be tested to the satisfaction of the authority, having jurisdiction, but class ABC that gives us a lot of room, um, you know, um, to move the product.

Um, I see it used in a lot of applications. I think perhaps some of the best applications. Would be things like, um, equipment rooms, electrical rooms, you know, battery rooms, transformer rooms, things like that. Um, I've seen it used in, um, remote, uh, locations where maybe they didn't have sufficient water, you know, to put in, um, some type of, uh, of water based system.

I see a lot of applications with. Um, you know, alternative energy, battery, energy storage systems and solar, and, uh, wind things like that. Um, some people, uh, and it has been done often, they will use it in server room applications. Uh, I usually would suggest when that comes up, that perhaps aerosol would not be the first choice because it is an aerosol and there.

A, uh, cleanup that's involved afterward. Now, if you have a fire, you're gonna have to clean up anyway, I suppose. Um, you know, but there are clean agents, there's the floor, native keytones and gases and things like that. Perhaps, you know, perhaps that might be a, uh, uh, a better first choice. But I have seen occasions, one that comes to my mind was a, uh, server room for a city and they, um, They were going to put in a clean agent system and the company came out and they did the Dohan test room, integrity test, and the, the room failed horribly.

And they, uh, did some investigation in the room to see where it was leaky, put together a proposal to seal up the room so that they could install the clean agent system. And the quote to seal the room came back at like a hundred thousand dollars. They said, well, we don't have a hundred thousand dollars for this whole system, you know, uh, allotted.

And in that case, they were considering going to an aerosol system because one of the things about the condensed aerosol system, because it's not a pressurized gas, there's no requirement in the 2010 standard to do a door F. We need to have a room that's reasonably closed up. You know, we can't have open doors or windows or things like that, but because the aerosol is not highly pressurized, it's not going to try to seek out every little nook and cranny and escape.

There's usually no trouble maintaining the concentration for the hold time. And, um, so that's one advantage, uh, of the system and in that particular applic. They were talking about moving to an aerosol system because they also had sprinklers in the room. And if the sprinklers go off on their servers, obviously that's probably not gonna be a good thing at all.

Um, the aerosol they're going to have to clean the little light residue there, but if they follow certain steps, you know, they should be able to do that and continue to use their equip. So there are a lot of, um, different things that come across. We, uh, protect, uh, equipment like CNC machines, um, you know, different things like that.

So there's, uh, there, there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of things that come along and, um, I always try to tell people, um, in the training that condensed sterol is, is like a, a tool. To add to your tool belt, right? I, I think it's safe to say that there is no one single fire suppression technology that is effective for a hundred percent of the applications.

100% of the time, right? Each one has certain strengths and each one has certain characteristics that perhaps are not strengths. And so the, um, the challenge for the fire protection. Professional is to identify which solution is going to be best for my customer. You know? Um, in this case, you know, it might be system type a and this system is completely different.

You know, this needs to be something different, maybe condensed sterol or something like that. So, um, you know, it can be used at all sorts of different applications, but I always try to urge people to consider. The application, consider the needs of the customer and consider what is going to be the best solution for that particular application.

You know, if we do that, we're gonna, um, have plenty of opportunity, but more importantly, I think we're going to give the customer the best solution for them. That's going to make them happy. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah. It's all about, um, being appraised of the different solutions and applications of these technologies and, and what fits and what doesn't fit.

So mm-hmm, um, very interesting to hear about some of the, uh, pros and cons of aerosol fire suppress. Yeah, but yeah, since you touched on a bit of the, you know, location and design requirements, What other kind of, um, you know, programmatic or design and specification requirements should professionals be thinking about when they're looking at applying one of these systems?

Like, are there like how much room should they intend to have floor space wise or wall mounted for these generators? And. I know you spoke to the releasing systems and the, the panels involved with that. Um, but yeah. Can you give a high level overview of what kind of other design considerations you would offer?

I will try. the, um, the design for the aerosol system or the calculation. For how much of that aerosol forming compound is needed is basically, uh, the volume of the space that we're protecting multiplied by the design application density for the particular product you're using. Uh, there are a handful of condensed aerosol manufacturers.

And each product is a little different, you know, in its makeup, they're fundamentally the same, but there will be little, uh, differences perhaps in the makeup of the, the compound itself. And so to design that part of it really is pretty straightforward. I tell people I could do it on my phone. Uh, probably, um, we need to know the volume of the space.

Okay. So if you've got a room or a space. 200 cubic meters or a thousand cubic meters or whatever it is. You just multiply that by the design application density for that product. Now the design application density will come from the product manufacturer and a little bit about that. When UL does their testing of condensed aerosol, they are testing the product to identify the quantity of solid compound.

That will extinguish their test fires a hundred percent of the time. All right. So maybe there's a aerosol manufacturer over here and they do their tests and UL says, um, a hundred grams per cubic meter. And, and that is called the application density. That is the amount that UL has confirmed will extinguish 100% of the fires, every.

Extinguishing application density. Now, when we do our designs, we use the design application density, which according to NFPA 2010 is going to be 30% extra. So if I need a hun, if my extinguishing application density is a hundred grams per cubic meter, my design application density is gonna be 30% more, 130 grams.

Per cubic meter. And that's what we're going to use. 130 grams times the volume of the room of cubic meters. That's how much aerosol I need. Now, the aerosol generators come in different sizes. They have different amounts of the solid compound. So then what you have to do is say, okay, I need, I need, you know, 5,000 grams of solid compound for this room.

You would choose the generators that would give you that, uh, quantity. Of aerosol. And then that is what, um, that is what she would use along with the, uh, control panel, some type of detection, obviously there's notification involved, um, notification for any fire alarm. There's a pre-discharge notification notification that the system has discharged.

Um, generally there's going to be a manual release, at least one manual release, uh, pool station, possibly an abort switch. Um, the idea or the, the desire, really the design of the system is to give people enough warning so that they can leave the room. That way, when the system discharges, the doors will be closed, no one has to go out or anything, um, like that.

And, uh, so that's it, there, there are other, uh, considerations, um, um, maybe we will, um, Consider that as, uh, as we move on here, but fundamentally that is my high level overview, I guess. Um, the, the, the design is pretty straightforward really? Oh yeah. It sounds very similar to clean agent design in, uh, as far as the design concentration and the volume.

You know, capacity of the room and whatnot. Mm-hmm so, yeah, that sounds very interesting. I appreciate you going into the explicit details of calculation. I sure know. There, there is, uh, some things that are required in the, uh, clean agent systems that are not required for aerosol. So in a clean agent system, you've got to do flow calculations because you've got piping, right.

And certain links of piping and nozzle sizes and things like that. You've gotta make sure it's gonna be able to discharge all within 10 seconds. And the flow was right. And if you've got multiple nozzles that the balance is right. Convince theirs all this and have any of that. There's no. There are no ized cylinders, you know, the generators themselves contain and discharge, um, the aerosol from them.

So a again, from that standpoint, it's, it is a more basic type of design, a simpler system, uh, to, to put together. Interesting. And so when these systems release, is there, is it like some sort of charge. That sets off and disperses these mm-hmm into the air is like a little, uh, charge in this cylinder. I'm taking a look at.

That that's it. Um, you know, the fact that they're activated electrically, what really is going to happen here is that solid compound is going to convert to a, um, to an aerosol. And it uses a, a pyrotechnic based chemistry to do that. So the electrical connection to the generator when 24 volts. Whatever the activation voltages is applied.

There's a little heating element in there very much. Um, like an incandescent lamp electrically when you apply that voltage, that thing heats up super fast. And when it heats up, it is able to heat that mass of solid compound, which starts that, um, exothermic reaction from the solid into the aerosol and the aerosol just sort of expands.

And, and comes out of the generator. It looks, um, it looks a bit like a cloud, uh, when it comes out actually. And, um, and so, um, that's just the, the billions of, of particles, I guess, um, that are there. Well, yeah, I appreciate that. Um, explanation again on the, the actuation method, but so I, I wanted to get your.

Insight on some professional development topics, since it seems like you have such a passion for fire and life safety, and you found me somehow in this niche little podcast. So I'd love to hear about. What other kind of resources do you like to use to keep appraised of the fire and life safety industry?

Uh, obviously I'm listening, uh, to you on my phone. There's my technology. And, uh, you know, I listen to the fire science show too. Uh, it's a very good, um, I use, uh, every webinar I can find N F P UL S F P E a FAA. I think I'm signed up for all of. So any webinar I can get on, um, as long as it fits into my schedule, uh, I will attend those.

Um, I, um, recently purchased the S F P E handbook. I'm trying to read that in my spare time. I have to tell you that's a little. That's a little difficult. Yes. Um, that's dense reading there. Yes. Uh, but I'm, I'm skipping around. , I'm skipping around a little bit and trying to find the, uh, the parts that I can understand, which, um, so far is the, the title page and everything past page one is way above my head.

But, um, I figured, you know, and that's one of the things I like about your show. GU, I've got to tell you, I listen to your podcast. and I start thinking, you know, um, you know, there's all these people out here that have all this knowledge and experience in these different aspects of the industry and it, it, yeah, it, it makes me think, you know, I, I there's so much to learn.

I need to try to learn something. I think I bought the S F P a, uh, S F P handbook in, in response to listening to. Actually, wow. Um, cuz I thought there's so much to learn. I've gotta try to apply myself. I've gotta try to grow. You know, it's easy to get stagnant and just do the things that you do. You know, I've been here at hoki a long time.

I kind of know what everything is, is about more or less. And I can go through my day, do a lot of things, but what am I doing to grow professionally? You know? I'm gonna buy this FP handbook. uh, I bought, I bought a used one from a library, so it wasn't super expensive, you know? Thank goodness. Thank goodness.

I was gonna say, I feel really bad for throwing you into a handbook that is so calculations. Wasn't about to determine heat flex on of a radiant pool fire. Like. You know, 40 meters away and poor you're, like he said, this was a good resource. I feel like I'm being abused. Trying to read this thing. No, no, no.

You inspired me. And uh, you know, I'm happy to have it. And like I say, I didn't expect that to understand at all, but I did think I would understand a little more than I do, but the, the point is, is I've got it. And you know, I've got the internet, there's tons of resources out there. And, uh, so if I see something that I think is interesting to me, I can take some.

I can look it up and maybe somebody can simplify it down to like second grade level for me. And I'll go. Yeah, just like fire. When I was researching fire, how does fire burn? I don't know. Yeah. Turn on the stove and the fire comes out, that's it? You know? Um, yeah, but there's a lot more to it than that. And, um, so I've been thinking about that, uh, uh, a lot lately and like I say, you, you really have been sort of a catalyst for me.

Um, You know, unknowingly to you of course, but I'm pretty sure there are other listeners out here who would say the same thing. You know, your show makes us think there is more to learn and, and there's more that we can do. And so I want to thank you because, uh, it's, it's been great for me. That's very touching bill.

I sh I sure appreciate that. Um, That's a big deal to me. Uh, you know, the more that I've gotten to learn about this show, even starting this show, I don't think I knew I was just pulling the Tiger's tail. I didn't know that, you know, there would be so much that I didn't know about. I, you know, I figured that I'd learned about fire sprinkler and fire alarm.

I knew about that come outta school, but mm-hmm I didn't even, you know, you don't know what you don't know sometimes and right. Just like this conversation we're having now I could have. Told you really? It was three years ago. Now when I was thinking about even starting this podcast where it would lead me.

So mm-hmm, um, I appreciate that. That means a lot. I've, I've learned a lot on my way as well, so that's awesome. Yeah. Well, we're all learning along with you out here, listening to you. So, um, so keep it up, please keep it. Well sounds good. Well, what, I don't know if I can top that, that seems like a, a awesome way to end it, but I would like to plug you for, uh, anything that you wanted to talk about more, um, anything you wanna discuss?

Any questions about anything? I answer, whatever you want after a glowing compliment like that. not that I'm bribing you. not a problem. We didn't cover everyth. Obviously in this conversation, you know, um, I mentioned that when the aerosol is converted to solid, it's an exothermic reaction. So when the aerosol comes out of the generators, it's very warm can actually be even hot if you're nearby.

Wow. So there are minimum safe distances that have to be consider. Obviously, because the aerosol is made up of all these tiny particles, there's going to be some, uh, uh, uh, impact on visibility. And there are ways to try to address that you had a podcast with, uh, Zachary Green about photoluminescent technology.

Mm-hmm right. Photoluminescent uh, exit marking systems can be used, obviously training for the people working in these protect. Spaces, you know, so that if for some reason the system does discharge and everyone couldn't get out, you know, they need to be able to find their, their way out. And there are ways to help, um, you know, make that, uh, easier, uh, for the people.

Again, we have the pre-discharge warning, so people will leave, but anything, uh, can happen. And another thing too is, is we have these very ti uh, tiny particles. And because they're so small, they are respir. right. And, um, so if you're in a room when it discharges, you know, you may possibly breathe in some of these particles, they might get into your eyes and sting them a little bit.

Um, the discharge is not to toxic. Um, but at the same time, our goal, the objective is to have everyone out of the room prior to discharge. We don't want them to open the door. Know, have any impact on the hold time and, uh, gotcha. Just like that. So, you know, there's always more, and, and perhaps in the show notes, you can put my email address.

Uh, certainly if you wanna put our company, um, um, you know, web address or whatever information you want, if anyone has any questions or, uh, interest in discussing this further, I would be very happy to. Definitely. Definitely we'll drop some information down in the show notes for those who want to learn more about you or about aerosol fire suppression.

And yeah, that's been, it's been so great bill. You were talking about didn't know if you were gonna be able to produce a good podcast and you produced a hall of Famer. So , I don't know what you were so worried about before the show got started, but yeah. Hall of, of favor. I, I don't know about that, but I appreciate it's it's been a real pleasure and I I'm really happy that you reached out to me and who knows maybe someday in the future, I can figure out something else.

And, and we can talk about maybe when I get the. S F P a handbook, uh, uh, SF P E look, I can't even say it SF P E handbook when I get it memorized or something I'll come back on and I'll, we'll talk about those pool fires and stuff, man, man, that's, that's a pretty high goal. I let you come on before that, for sure on the show lot before that, but that's well, it's a deal.

It's a deal, Gus. Uh, appreciate everything you do. Please keep it up. Will do. All right. Thanks bill. Take care. Thanks for listening, everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Hello all! In this weeks episode we are talking about life safety and egress components. This solocast breaks down exit, exit acess, and exit discharge and the theory behind chapter 10 in the Internation Building Code. Tune in if you want to buff up on your life safety terminology. 

Visual Aid for Egress components

https://blog.lapeyrestair.com/exit-discharge

Patreon Link for more Solocasts

patreon.com/firecodetech

Transcription

Hello. Welcome to the solo cast of fire code tech in these episodes. It's just gonna be me, your host, Gus Gagliardi. There's gonna be a range of topics, but I'm gonna talk about specific technologies, installation, standards, codes, and how they work as well as some other interesting topics that don't neatly fit inside of the context of a normal interview.

Hello, all welcome to episode 36 of the solo cast fire. Cut. On this episode, we're talking about means of egress. Yes. I wanted to give some consideration to life safety design and in specific discussing egress and egress components, as well as how does the building code address egress and what are important factors to be appraised?

When addressing life safety and or egress analysis, just want to take a moment to thank everybody for listening and say that I've really been enjoying producing the podcast and the interviews that's been happening recently. . If you have interest in suggesting a topic or have a recommendation for a guest for an interview episode, please drop me a [email protected].

That's G G a G L I a R D [email protected]. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. So you'd never miss an episode and give us a follow on social. Also, if you would like to do me a huge favor, go and give a five star rate and review on apple podcast. That would be awesome. Let's get into the show. So I want to talk about life safety today, but more in specifically, I wanna talk about means of egress means of egress is a portion of life safety design that is commonly performed by the architect.

After you've determined that the international building code is applicable for the facility that you're working on. And you've determined what addition of the building code is applicable for your facility. Then in the context of this solar cast episode, we're going to be talking about chapter 10, which is titled means of egress.

This chapter really goes over a lot of the common components of egress, egress sizing, and a number of key definitions for how to analyze the life safety components of a building life. Safety is a really broad topic in the same way that fire safety is a really broad topic. And so this is just one component of life safety.

Chapter 10 in the international building code has an about this chapter section. That I want to go over as a preface for a conversation. It reads chapter 10 provides general criteria for designing means of egress established as the primary method of protection of people in buildings by allowing timely relocation or evacuation of building occupants.

This first sentence is really interesting because it shows that the building code considers the exit components and means as egress as the primary component of protecting people in a building. This goes a long way to tell you how important this subject is and how it is a basic, fundamental and cornerstone of life safety for facilit.

both prescriptive and performance language is utilized in this chapter to provide a basic approach for the determination of safe exiting system. For all occupancies egress components are a common feature in which performance based design is used. We've talked about this in other episodes. Performance based design can sometimes be a very effective tool for facilities in which prescriptive design does not allow proper accommodations for, or there are tricky situations in which a engineer or an architect needs to apply some additional provisions of performance based design in order to make unique situations work.

This section goes on to read. The requirements detail, the size arrangement number and protection of means of egress components, functional and operational characteristics that will permit the safe use of components without special knowledge or effort are specified. So these are a couple of key factors.

The number arrangement. Size of these means of egress components. So if we just take a look at one aspect, this applies to many aspect, but let's take a look at doors. Number of doors, the size of doors, the arrangement of doors. These are all factors in the consideration of life safety and the means of egress.

This next section tells a little bit about how this chapter dovetails with the rest of the international building code and the general layout of chapter 10, since it is very detailed and dense, the means of egress protection requirements, work in coordination with other sections of the. Such as protection of vertical openings, C chapter seven interior finish C chapter eight, fire suppression and detection systems C chapter nine and numerous others all have impact on life safety.

This blurb speaks to how the broadness of fire and life safety applies to the rest of the building. , this is by no means an inclusive list of all the other chapters and sections that apply to the building code and fire and life safety. For instance, the chapter in the building code for elevator systems is not mentioned in this preliminary description of the means of egress chapter, which is chapter 10, chapter 10 is subdivided, and to four main sections.

The first one being general. Which is sections 1,003 through 1,015, the second exit access, which is sections 1016 through 1021. The third, which is exit sections, 1,022 verse, 1,027 and exit discharge section 1,020. Exit access, exit and exit discharge are both key terms that we will speak about in their literal definitions within the building code.

The about this chapter concludes itself with these following sentences, special allowances for the unique requirements for assembly spaces, section 1,029 and emergency escape in rescue openings. 1,030 complete this chapter. Chapter 10 of this code is duplicated in chapter 10 of the international fire code.

However, the international fire code contains one additional section on maintenance of the means of egress systems in existing buildings. So a topic I like to mention frequently is that the international building code is free and available online at a number of sources. Uh, for this episode, for my research purposes, I've used up code and the I's website for the digital version of the building code.

Okay. So I know I just took a long time to go over the preface to chapter 10, but I think it provides unique insight to how this chapter is laid out and the importance of the chapter. let's break down those definitions that we talked about before, exit exit access and exit discharge. The first definition is exit and I'm reading these definitions out of chapter two in the international building code, which is the definitions chapter.

In more specifically, I'm taking a look at the 2018 version of the international code. That portion of a means of egress system between the exit access and the exit discharge or public way. Exit components include exterior exit doors at the level of exit discharge, interior, exit stairways, and ramps, exit passageways, exterior, exit stairways, and ramps and horizontal exits.

So to me, this definition brings up about eight more questions about other definitions that are I. It mentions exit access, exit discharge, a public way. All of these terms are detailed and discussed in the definitions chapter of the international building code and are important to the understanding of what uh, means of egress is.

So the three main components of a egress system are the exit, the exit access and the exit discharge. So this last part of the definition, it tells you exactly what an exit is. It includes a door at the level of exit discharge, an interior exit stairway, a ramp, exit passageway, or exterior, exit stairways or ramps and horizontal exits.

All of these have their own definitions, but we're gonna keep on exit access and exit discharge. Exit access that portion of a means of egress that leads from any occupied portion of the building or structure to an exit. I find exit access and exit discharge to be a little bit less intuitive. I'll include a blog with a visual aid, so that if you want to look at a picture of these different components and how they interact with each other, you can go take a look.

And for me, that is a very critical learning tool for understanding how these pieces and components interface with each other. So go check the show notes and I'll drop a link to a blog. What. Visual representation of exit, exit access, and exit discharge. A couple of examples of exit access structures are rooms, interior, doorways, or corridors or hallways.

So if the exit is the portion of the facility, Leads to outside of the building, then exit access is the piece of the building that is leading up to that exit. Let's talk about exit discharge. This definition says that portion of a means of RIS system between the termination of an exit and a public way.

This portion of means of egress is the least intuitive. once you're through the exit and out of the building, this is the exit discharge from when you get out of the building to a public way, like a sidewalk or an area that is away from a building, just for a little bonus content will give you public way for definitions, a street alley, or parcel of land, open to the outside air, leading to a.

That has been deeded dedicated or otherwise permanently appropriated to the public for public use. And which has a clear width and height, not less than 10 feet. So this is a, so you are clear in a way of the facility with an open space that takes care of our introduction to means of egress. Topics I would be interested in covering in the future and intend to cover are more in depth, detailed calculation, and justification of egress component sizing, and talking about some of the location requirements.

Hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we will talk to you soon. Thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation.

Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Welcome to episode 53 of Fire Code Tech. On this episode we are speaking with Drew Slocum from the Fire Protection Podcast about professional development, podcasting, working for tech focused companies in fire and life safety, listing process, and more!

Inspect Point:

https://www.inspectpoint.com/

Fire Protection Podcast:

https://fire-protection-podcast.simplecast.com/

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Hello, all welcome to fire code. On this episode, we're speaking with drew slum drew is a entrepreneur who is a co-founder of inspect point, which is a software development platform that specializes in inspection, testing and maintenance for the fire and life safety industry. If you haven't heard it, drew came on the podcast before, so you can go take a listen to episode 13, where we get into a bit more of Drew's background and how he found his way in fire and life safety and how he's got initially started within spec.

But this conversation is an update on what drew has been doing over the last two years. Um, you know, it's probably been a year and change since I spoke with him. But it's packed full with tips for business development entrepreneurs, how to be a more competitive professional. And I really enjoyed speaking with drew.

If you would do me huge favor and hit that subscribe button, I would greatly appreciate it. Also give us a follow on social media. And before we get into the show, I just wanna say, if you could give a five star review on apple podcasts, that would be a big help to the show. Uh, do you like Zen cast? Man. I really like it.

It's free. So I've been using it the entire time. And, um, I've only ever had audio issues like maybe one or two times. And, um, uh, Too bad. I think I'm gonna move to zoom. I'm just gonna do it on zoom, cuz it just, I don't know, seems the best. I mean, Zen Caster's free, but they're gonna charge you at some point.

They're gonna take a cut at some point, but I I've been using Riverside cuz it has decent video, but it's got a bunch of quirks in it and I the last podcast I did last week. Um, uh, I think it, it like dropped and I was all paranoid cuz I wanted to get it out quick. So. No love for Riverside FM. So if there's any podcasters listening to it, uh, this don't don't don't sign up with them.

what's funny is, is I've heard a lot of people like engaging with Riverside and it, my brother had experience and he not speaking so about it. I know it's, it's not that old it's. I mean, as far as like, those technologies goes compared to like a. Whatever, like, no, it's pretty new. I think the, the STI fire stop, that's where I first saw it and he did a great job.

Those guys did a great job with it. And, uh, anyway, I tried using it. It's just it's, you know, you gotta use Google Chrome. It's like this whistles. Yeah. Yeah. Only problem I had was in caster is like people with. Uh, like firewalls sometimes get blocked out from big organizations. Cause it's like, uh, you know, it's not like a teams or something it's real commercially like, well branded or known.

So some companies firewalls are like, what's this they're trying permissions for. But other than that, pretty, pretty solid. Cool. Yeah, man. So. What have you been thinking about the podcast? And now you're talking about like your, your effort level and just, you know, kinda keeping it going. But yeah, I would love to hear about what you've been doing with the fire protection podcast and how things have been going.

Yeah. It's been going good. It was a good start to the year. I've I forgot how many episodes I've had maybe four, so, but, um, I've got a bunch in the queue to, to get recorded. I, I can pump 'em out pretty quick. Like get 'em out to the. Um, essentially it's writing up the blogs and stuff around it and, and making sure, you know, people read about it and, and everything I had the, the, uh, 4 21, the marijuana one last week, which was, uh, um, very timely on four 20, uh, oh, nice.

That's good deal. Yeah, it was actually really good. Uh, and it wasn't, you know, there's everybody laughs at it, but, um, it was just called, is called four 20. But I think NFPA really stepped in and, you know, leaned. And we had a great discussion cuz there is a big issue within that, um, that industry. And uh, yeah, so I'm try, I'm gonna try to get two, you know, once I think probably once the summer hits a little bit more, um, uh, two podcasts a month, but really focus on, you know, things within the industry that are problematic or just trends that we're seeing kind of.

And I, I do like having manufacturers on, um, You know, I don't like them self-promoting as much, but, uh, uh, because I, I don't, you know, I don't charge for sponsorships or anything cuz cuz I wanna a, I wanna ask them tough questions if, if, if I have the chance, um, So it's been good. I think there's been some good traffic there.

We've we've got a decent amount of subscribers. Uh, Chris, Logan's really doing a good job. I know. He's, uh, he's got a lot of subscribers on the sprinkler podcast, so that, uh, that sounds cool. That that four 20 episode, I know I, Steven Lewis, he was working on that coming out, but I know there's a lot of.

Really substantial hazards with that. So that's a cool topic to talk about and get into. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. It's it's in the Northeast. It's I talk to fire protection engineers and even contractors and it's like, there, it is just this crazy growth market and no pun intended and, uh, it it's, it's, uh, there's a lot of issues with.

It's just, it's just, it's, it's going up so fast that the facilities and, and the changes in their technology of producing it and extraction and all that, that, um, they don't understand some of the fire protection concerns. And, um, luckily there's FPE that are, that are kind of. Working on it now. So I think, um, I don't think there's, there's been a couple big incidences, like in California, I think there was an extraction extraction facility that exploded or whatever, but, uh, uh, yeah.

But, you know, nothing, nothing like all the, the home Depot and in warehouse fires lately, which has kind of been, oh my gosh. Have been crazy. So yeah. Did you see that, uh, Walmart distribution center that went up and they could see it from like the weather patterns from space? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, it's nuts.

And. I, I don't, I don't know. I, I haven't, I haven't dug into it too much. I mean, there was probably, there's probably some topics there to talk about. Yeah. Um, you know, it'll take probably a few months for, for things to come out out of the wash. So yeah. I think people love that forensics are like fire investigations.

It's hard to. Well, I haven't had, like, I haven't sought very many professionals on that topic, but like went to a fire Marshalls conference recently and they were talking about, there was a pretty substantial fire, like within stones from where I was working in downtown Oklahoma city. And it residential residential facility that was a, a month away from opening.

And then just went up like, Match sticks. Um, wow. And so they had like ATF and, um, some like a panel of fire investigators talking about, uh, common features for fire investigation and also like the, the, we only have one ATF guy for the whole state of Oklahoma. So like one dedicated, uh, ATF guys. So he was talking.

Some of the resources and some of the things that were requesting in regard to like this big fire, but, um, seems like people love, uh, uh, talking about fires and things like that. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's uh, Hot topic for sure. For sure. Well, uh, so I wanted to, you know, we could talk more about the podcast, but I was really excited and was thinking about you, uh, and to come on podcast episode and speak, just cause of all the cool stuff that's been going on recently.

Yeah. I'd love to hear about, uh, what's been going on. You know, um, things you've been working on. Yeah. I mean, you know, we started the, uh, the company's still pretty young, right. Um, we started about 7, 6, 7 years ago. I, I actually don't know the date. I mean, it was kind of, we threw it out there cuz there wasn't a great solution.

Um, for inspection testing and maintenance and fire protection, and there's a few out there, but they're on. And there's still antiquated platforms that, that, that the industry's using. And, you know, you know, the fire protection industry, it's, it takes it, you know, it's a lot to change it and there's, you know, the industry drags their feet sometimes.

And a lot of. You know, a lot of that goes into the code of, of how the code legs. Um, so I, we just obviously saw an opportunity in spec point and, um, you know, I, I had the fire protection experience and partnered up with, uh, some really, um, really powerful software developers and other professionals, uh, pat, Jen and Phil, who, um, Who had been in software and, and been involved in startups and kind of the whole, uh, process of that.

So it was, it was kind of a, a perfect marriage and, you know, we got some product to the market and it really took off really the last couple years. And in solving, obviously the fire protection appliance problems with ITM, but driving, I. As you see every day there's contractors are, are being acquired, left and right.

And it slowed down a little bit with the economy and everything going on, um, and rate hikes and all that. But I mean, it's all tied to reoccurring revenue. So it's the inspection and service companies that are getting valued to highest. And if you don't have a, so. To obviously optimize that recurring revenue.

You're you're not value aside. Right? So it, we kind of, we, we, we had the platform, there's a lot of, uh, big users of the platform and it, it, it kind of hits one of the huge growth areas in the industry. Um, and you know, other people obviously saw that and, uh, We were at a point where we, we were hiring people.

And, um, I think there were 20, 20 something people at the company at the time, uh, late last year. And, you know, there were so many opportunities for growth to, in the platform to develop new new features and, um, just get out to the market better in, in, in different, uh, market segments as, as well as geographic segments too.

And. You know, we're approached by, um, a great company, main sale, main sale partners who is very well versed in software. Um, they they've been great to work with. They were great from the start when we first started talking to them and you know, they have, they have a great formula to. They're in all these different niche software, um, markets they're in heavy duty trucking they're in pest control.

They're in landscaping and all these little, little niche markets that they've invested in software. They have a, um, They have, uh, one for like liquid waste in porta potties, like who, who would ever think there's a, you know, software for, uh, porta potties, you know, , that's pretty wild, wild that's that's yeah.

I mean, but they're porta potties are ubiquitous or all over the place. So that makes sense. If somebody was trying to figure out, you know, company company outta , that's pretty hard. I did a septic guy, you know, show up at my door. I had to get my septic tank pumped last year. I'm like, you know, they're they're service companies.

Right? So. You know, that fire industry has got all the compliance in there. Um, it's got all the compliance in there. It's it's super niche. We've, we've made a, a good name for ourselves. We have a huge growth and, you know, 50% of the market's still on antiquated methods, like pen and paper, Excel or PDF. So stuff like that.

So, um, There's just a lot of them grow. So partnering up with them, it really infused us with a bunch of, to cash, a bunch of cash to really, um, you know, grow. I mean, we were, we could hire one or two people at a time before and, um, and it wasn't a struggle or anything. It was just slow growth. Now we can really develop, I mean, I, so far this year we've had like, I don't know, five huge new features and over the next six months, it's going to.

Products are gonna really transform and, um, help the fire protection industry to kind of push forward. You know, that's super exciting. I mean, that has to be a wild time for you as a, as a founder and somebody who has been in since the ground up. I mean, even 20 people in a company is a substantial company.

That's by no means a, uh, like startup or a bootstrap, so right. To be going from that to. You know, you're quickly approaching like medium size company. Um, and in some really cool technology in a space that is without a doubt, fascinating to me. I mean, um, the intersection between, uh, tech company and fire line safety, I think that's just awesome.

Really cool to hear about. Yeah. It's, it's, it's funny. I worked for obviously two big, um, manufacturers, Tyco and, and Viking, uh, prior, prior to spec point. And they were great. They, they they're great for training. They, they knew what they were doing within the, the spaces they were in, but technology is just, it was so slow and a lot of it was code and, and testing and stuff like that.

And making sure the, the market fit the product, um, Which is tough, you know, they're in a tough spot. You can't just throw something out to the market. But, uh, the, the tech side with, with software and technology, it's like, You throw it against the wall, develop it and see if it works. And, um, yeah, you still need, you need to prove it out, but it's a lot faster than developing a sprinkler head or a, a new extinguisher or something like that, you know?

Yeah. I guess you don't have to like, get the inspection it software like listed. So that cuts out a huge piece of that, um, kind of hindrance that you're speaking to in the fine. Industry, like it ties itself to code and kinda, um, inhibits that quick growth or that technology model that's been so successful.

You know, like another thing you're talking about that just makes so much sense. And I see so many, um, tech companies capitalizing on is like the subscription model and. And how to develop a service that, you know, generates a lot of value and, you know, just a, um, a consistent subscription basis for people to, um, latch onto for inspect point.

So. That's that's pretty cool. But I wanted to ask you about, like, you know, you mentioned some features that you are, you know, have released this year or that you've been developing recently. I'd love to hear about, you know, what some of those features are you, I know broad overview of point is, but yeah, my own interest and for the listeners, like, you know, what are some of these features or some of these value ads for.

Uh, a lot of it, you know, we, we've kind of, there's a few focus areas. Um, one of 'em the main one, or at least for, and it'll probably continue is the FSM. So it's, it's field service management. So, you know, we're great at the, um, inspection side and the compliance side, and that's always improving too. We thought we'd be done with it in like a year or two and we're still having to do it.

Cuz code changes. You know, the workflows for compliance and everything can get better. Right. And it's always, that's always changing cuz the code's changing, but the FSM side's so like dispatching getting, um, you know, there's, there's, there's like a hundred different, a hundred plus different service and dispatching softwares out there.

Right. Uh, That handle your landscaper, that, that, you know, that handle your H V a C. So there's like a lot of generic that are great for that, that dispatching and, um, fleet management, stuff like that. There's only a few of us in really the fire protection side. Um, so bringing that fire protection and blending in the, uh, field service management is, is the biggest goal.

And we've been doing that over the last few years. Anyway. But getting, um, and just scheduling improvements of how fire protection is scheduled and getting, uh, quotations out to your customers for contracts, for follow ups, um, really making an impact on, on the contractor or, or the facility. We, we handle a lot of facilities as well, but as ma majority contractors and, um, equipment distributors, things like that.

So. You know, the follow up work, and then, you know, we're developing a full, uh, kind of time and material. So any, any field technician, whether they're doing install, inspection, service, whatever they're doing, you the, the. Uh, the business will be able to grab their time and material. Right. Which is the main cost to, um, even on the engineering side, you gotta grab your time for the specific projects, right.

So, um, a better time capture mobilely. Uh, that that's gonna be launched, uh, next month, I believe. And then we're getting specific into the fire extinguisher side to make it easier to do swaps and inventory on, on the trucks. So that's really cool to see. And, um, What else we got here, we've got some really cool.

So we, we have our platforms based on, you know, we have an API, which an API is a, a, essentially a connector to other different parts of other different software platforms like QuickBooks online or, um, financial platforms. But, uh, there's these compliance. Um, compliance engine in these third party platforms where, you know, the fire jurisdictions, those fire marshals, um, require every building to upload all their data into there.

So that's a big kind of problem. I wanna say, it's a problem. It's just a hindrance within the industry to make the data flow better. From the contractor to the building and the AJ. So that'll, that'll be worked on this summer. Um, that's a, that's actually a huge problem, um, at least on the contractor and building side.

So, um, Yeah, that's good. And again, FSM, and we've got like 20 to 30 big, big initiatives, but, uh, those are, those are the main ones right now. Very cool, man. Cool. To hear about. I love, you know, got coding a bit for a, and so love hearing about. Tech and, and APIs and how to take some of these, you know, big concepts and integrate them into fire and safety, which is something that I, I think about a lot, um, just as an entrepreneur and somebody who is interested in seeing the industry develop, but you're mentioning like how that data piece and that reporting data piece is a big problem, but I don't think I, I fully understand that and why that's an issue.

Would you just like to explain a little bit more? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So, um, what it is is, uh, fire jurisdictions, AJS fire marshals. Um, you know, whether it's a city, whether it's a town, whether it's a state, they want to look at all of their fire protection systems. Right. Make sure their fire alarm, you know, buildings have correct protection per the fire code, which then comes down from the international building code.

Right. Um, so they're installed per. Usually NFPA standards, right? At least in the us, uh, the NFPA standards. So they're installed that way. Now they have to be maintained at a certain frequency, right? Usually, definitely annually, but there's more frequent, you know, with like sprinkler and some extinguisher and everything.

Um, so up until like, I don't know, 10 years ago, there was no great way for the HJS to find out how their buildings are doing. With maintenance. So are, are there fires happening because of faulty, you know, sprinkler systems or not, you know, uh, a fire alarm panel being off, whatever. So there's these third party platforms that emerge about 10 years ago that essentially it's a software platform that.

Takes every building from the city of, uh, just say the city of Austin, Texas, right? The city of Austin, Texas has, I don't know, 25,000 different buildings. Now they all all have different fire protection systems and the fire marshals wanna make sure that they're up to, up to code. Right? So these software platforms.

Force the buildings, uh, to upload all inspection and deficiency data on, on four inspection testing and maintenance on those buildings. That's usually done by the third part or, or the, the outside contractor, right? The fire alarm service provider, the sprinkler, the, uh, suppression provider. So you know, of the, of the 15 to 20,000, um, Contractors in the us, they're having to upload this data into these third party systems.

Now they're being charged for it. Um, somebody's gotta pay for it at some point anyway. So I think it's, it does drive, um, more service and more compliance. Right. But getting the data into the system, hasn't been easy. So that's what we're trying to figure out right now. We're we, we work at the contractor level.

Um, we, we do a great job in gathering that data. If we can. Push that into there. It just makes it so much easier, so much faster for the HGA to react if there's a critical deficiency and, uh, a lot easier for the contractor react. If they have to create a, um, uh, a fix on a system, you know, that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. I think like, uh, that's an interesting proposition I've had to get. That data into that database, that, um, whatever, uh, however you term that, uh, compliance database. Um, but I wanted to like speak with you a bit more on like, just the, the idea of data and as a company that is like effectively a software company inside farm life safety, you guys, you know, from all these.

Different, um, sources and contractors and, you know, people using the, the program. Um, is that how you would describe inspect point program or like an application? Uh, it's a, so software platform, a software platform. So like, how are you guys using data and like leveraging data, um, is like a way to further the business.

Cause I feel like it's gotta be like an integral piece of the whole equation. Yeah. I mean, we're not, we don't do anything with the data in, in our, in our terms of service and everything that whoever's purchasing, the platform owns that. Um, so we're not doing anything with that. Um, but we do create different workflows that we see that, uh, promote better compliance.

Also promote. Um, faster fixes and honestly more dollars to the, to the contractor at the end of the day. Right. And so if, I mean, we have a statistic. If we can, if you can get an, you know, as soon as the inspections completed and reviewed, if you can get a quotation without out there within 24 hours, there's an 80%.

More likelihood it's accepted by the building owner cuz it's in front of them. And, and we really push that because you know, so many companies are behind in getting those compliance and inspection reports out to the, to the client. If you can make that faster. And then, you know, you know, think of about your, you know, if you have somebody show up to your house, that's doing an inspection on your H V a C system, right.

Um, If it's a, you know, you got a bad transistor, uh, uh, piece of equipment somewhere, you know, just don't don't come back out, just fix it right now. I'll sign here's my credit card. I'll sign on my finger. Well, you know, why can't we be doing that in fire protection? So, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

Taking these, making that more streamlined, efficient process. I mean, we're. With life safety here, you know, we don't need to be up extra barriers to making these things.

So let's, you know, you little bit about the projects that you've working on and like some different features for inspecting. Um, you know, what kind is the, the big dream or like the big goal for the company? I know you guys have some serious growth metrics, but, um, I mean, like, what is like, is the goal to like make point like hundred person or person, like thousand, like grow this thing to the moon?

Or like, what are you guys like big, bold dreams for inspection? I mean, the, the goal for this year is to, is, is I think about almost 50 employees. Which is crazy. It's doubling. And then we'll probably double again in another year, year and a half from there. So, uh, yeah, there's a lot of room, I mean, and we're just really in, in us and Canada, we're gonna, we're starting to expand out.

I mean, we're big in Canada right now. Uh, we have different languages, uh, supported now. So I think, um, NFPA is a good baseline, but you know, in Canada we have the ULC platform, which. Um, Canadian specific, uh, we, we can go into a lot of different avenues with that. Um, you know, as you know, there's gonna be a lot of add-ons with the product as well.

So as, as, uh, you know, and if I, I, one of your questions had, has to do with that FPA nine 15, which is remote inspections. Which is coming really fast, but it's not really a adopt. It's not a, it's not a standard yet, and it's not, you know, that's gonna be adopted HJ to HJ. They're gonna, they're gonna decide that.

Right. But it's gonna have the option within the different codes of 25 and 72 and all those other ones, um, to have the option, to do remote inspection and testing. Um, so we're, we're primed for that. We're ready. We're ready. You know, you could essentially do a remote inspection now we'd have to, we'd have to turn it on.

But, um, I don't, Marcus is not really ready for it yet, in my opinion. Um, and I don't think the structure and the codes there yet either. So, but that's that, that's, that's interesting to see right. Of, of why, why can't a junior technician go out. Um, Not to like a critical facility, but maybe like apartment complex or something like that.

Can't they have a set of Google glasses on, or, you know, virtual glasses on and why can't a. You know, if they have a question on a, you know, a specific technical question that could go back to a senior technician who's back in the office and they can kind of troubleshoot it and get it fixed right away.

Yeah. That makes sense. There's already labor problem with technicians and, and, uh, in installation techs. Right? So this is only gonna help that I think, I think the fear is. There's there's a little bit of fear right out there of, of, of how that's gonna work and making sure that there are certified people doing that.

Um, but that's all, that's all gonna be handled within the code. Right? I don't, we're not trying to take away. Um, People's jobs are just trying to make them make them more efficient. And, um, there's already a problem with labor shortage. So how do we solve that? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's a lot of big issues with even making sure that this, uh, you know, inspection testing and maintenance gets done.

So, um, how to, uh, you know, build a better mouse trap for, um, how this gets done and, and integrating it. Technology, I think is only the inevitable. Um, so inspect points, you know, poisoning itself to, um, make that transition or integrate that service when the code cycle in the market is really has an appetite for that is, um, really, uh, um, unique thought, um, needed like a cool idea.

Yeah, I see the challenges with it and just like people in their hesitance to adopt, um, something like this, even though it makes sense. I mean, you know, video capturing of these inspection pieces and we're starting. Two, you know, we do everything over zoom and we're starting to record everything of, of just reach outs to our, our customer base and presentations that we give.

Right. So there's documented, you know, um, video of the meetings, right? So why, why can't we do that? You know, live, I mean, that's a big compliance thing too. So if you show that you're doing the inspection, you're showing you're doing the testing, um, That could potentially open up to liability if you're doing something incorrect.

But, uh, I don't know. The more, the more eyes and ears you have on a, on an inspection. I think the better, um, anyway, this is my thought. No, you're right. Think you're right. And I think that, um, we're only gonna see more and more opportunity for this to, to be adding value. I mean, I know. I spoke with, uh, I don't know if you've had Christina Francis on the, on the podcast, but she was talking about in her time at Proctor and gamble, like, you know, some of the, um, uh, remote testing and inspection that Proctor and gamble had in place.

Yeah. Where, um, they could, you know, run gauges. Had readings from gauges at all times, and yep. You know, readings on the pumps and could kinda get like an EKG of the system and see performance. And so, I mean, I think that's where the industry's headed in, you know, fire protection really doesn't have, you know, it's all still manual valves.

And most of it, you know, most of the industry is, um, a lot of tech that is not new or right. You know, sexy cause of that listing process that we, we were talking about. So yeah, so listening, I, we work with Proctor and gamble with our platform. Right. And. Christina very well. She, she helped us out early on and I know she's, uh, AAG eager to see her in, uh, Boston at N FPA, but, um, in what she's doing at Tesla, but they've, they, you know, they were able to do a lot of that because they were their own kind of HJ within the, those facilities.

Right. Um, So, and, and they have, they have some really forward thinking, um, systems that, you know, grab, grab readings, right? Grab the fire pump, uh, churns automatically. And, um, uh, I will, would love for the market to do it. I think there's a price point and just a comfortability of, of the market. Um, I, I hope it gets there.

I think it will in our lifetime, but, um, Right. The code and listings have to change to a certain point and, you know, being involved in N FPA, that doesn't happen as quick as, as technology comes out, right? Yeah. Yeah. Without a doubt, the wheels on this, I'm sure people are tired of me saying it, but um, but, uh, Yeah, it's interesting hearing, like, you know, before talking with Christina, I didn't even know people were doing that sort of thing.

So even here that's happening in the industry at all felt positive to me, but it just, um, you know, how doddle the line between innovation and advancement of technology and, you know, services. And then also, you know, this listing process of doing our due diligence on the technology and making sure. You know, these pieces of equipment and these services are vetted properly.

I know that's a pretty substantial financial and time barrier to entry for bringing a product to market. You know, that I've just like a big interest in technology. I know it's been a through line in your career as well. And so, um, I'm kinda like, I guess just gung-ho on like wanting that to be progressed, but I understand that there's gotta.

Checks and balances, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think the main manufacturers are starting to push it at least on the fire alarm side, some of the automation, but you know, some of the, the sprinkler systems, suppression systems, definitely in the extinguisher end it's it's, uh, manufacturers don't move that fast and it's, you know, a lot of it's the tied to the code and, and the listings.

Right. Unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the money and just like where it viable for

it's it's not like, uh, it's not like a fringe case thing. It's like, no, we know for a fact there's a market for this and you know, we're gonna bring it. We're gonna bring that product there. Um, which you know, who am I telling? You know, that way better than me, but. No, uh, I wanted to talk to you about just like you

always enjoy when you conferences. Yeah.

Really like hearing about that stuff. I think it's a great. Professional development piece for people. Yeah. I mean, um, the I'm really excited for NFPA in Boston. Um, you know, N FPAs headquartered in Boston, so that's, you'll get a good turnout there. It's tough for some people on the west coast to get to in, in, in the Midwest.

Right. But, um, I mean, NFPA is a, a huge one. Um, I go to a lot of the trade associations, right? The AFSA N FSA is gonna be coming back around again. You know, COVID kind of put a damper on a lot of that the last couple years. So I think everybody's rare to get back out there. Um, I'm, I've, I've, I'm presenting at all three NAS.

I've actually presented twice NA fed in a couple weeks in Indianapolis. I'll be there. Uh, we'll be at the American fire alarm association next week. Jeff will be down there from inspect point. So, um, ISC west, which I really wanted to go to that was really well attended. That's on the fire alarm and security end.

Um, that's gonna be in New York city, I think, in, in the fall. Um, but the, the trouble with, you know, the, the expos and trade associations, you know, they don't even gather half the market of, of who's out there. Um, and the manufacturers are definitely there. Um, most of the time, but a lot of times the service providers and contractors and even engineers are not there.

Right. If they're not members of, of the associations, I mean, you could probably see that in the fire protection engineer community of are, are they, are they involved in S F P I mean, S F P probably. What has, I don't know, pretty low percentage of the FPE out there. And that's that that's, that's tough. I, you know, I wish there were.

And I don't know how, and, and maybe there's a swing cuz it used to be, I think there was a lot more participation and maybe there's been a lull and the new generations taking over that wants to be more involved in some of the associations and everything. Um, But I think the associations have to change to a certain extent, a little bit too, to entice more participation and cater to the newer generations too.

Right? Yeah. With, without a doubt, we I've been seeing that at the local chapter level for S F P just like. How to get engagement from people, you know, um, we've been working on trying to be more like digitally minded, not forcing people to come into in person meetings. Mm-hmm, , um, trying to focus on some different initiatives to, you know, get the students involved.

It's hard. I mean, like, it's really a lot of the old guard who are participating in the larger numbers. Um, you know, Are not opposed to these in person interactions where you're speaking with people on a face to face basis. And I mean, I think, um, probably my generation and, and definitely the, the new generation coming outta school is just like, way more comfortable with that, with that digital, um, engagement.

So I know, I think it's that that participation piece is huge. And I think there is a lot of professional organizations struggling with that, but. A very interesting point. You, you bring up about like, you know, how much of the fire protection engineering community does SF P really capture? I, I sure would be interested to find out how do we get more people to the do, do we, it easier for people to get involved and like bring their knowledge to the table, bring like their businesses and service to the table.

You. Well, I think what you're doing, you're, you're doing right here and I, I do in the podcast, in the, on the podcast, right. Uh, we get way more listeners and downloads than. Then any trade show out there, right? Yeah. You could pick NFPA in Boston and if you put, you know, podcasts up for a month, you're gonna get way more listens than you will attendees at NFPA.

Yes. It's not the same. You're not gonna see the product meet the people face to face, but I think it's a, it's a, it's a great avenue for, um, I don't know the new wave and you've done a great job. Uh, Chris, Logan's done a great job and you know, we, we're trying to set the table as well. Yeah, I appreciate that.

You mean, you know, that's like why I got into it, honestly, cause I wanted to go to some of these big conferences, but one or two year professional, outta paying, paying $2,000 for me to go, you know, whatever, fly to Vegas or something and put me up for a night and like, you know, send me to the conference.

So, um, Do think that like more webinars, like what we're doing with the podcasts and just, you know, more content in general is, is really good for the community and everybody, as far as just like stimulating that conversation and trying to get people. Um, excited or even engaged with the industry. It's free too, right?

Yeah. You can do it anywhere. you do it on the way work. You do it, right. He leaves in the yard. You can do it whenever. So, I mean, you know, I, I know that you're a podcast fan too, so, um, yeah, that's, that's how I was, you know, started thinking about it. But I know you were telling me before about how you were a podcast fan and that's what got you thinking about it, but it just makes too much sense, you know, for people who really wanna listen to.

To fires talk like it's out there and available for you. Yep. Totally. But, uh, yeah, so like, um, just wrapping it up and like ending and thinking about like professionalism or, you know, kinda, um, advice or, you know, things that you could offer to people listening. Um, you know, you're somebody who has, you know, seen success in your professional career.

I've seen you. Build rapport with people and, you know, establish and, and keep relationships. And, you know, I think that's an incredible skill and something that brings huge value to businesses. But yeah. What kinda advice would you have for, um, people who are listening or just like, you know, how to maintain business connections, how to, you know, like I know your professional, uh, involvement.

You're kind, uh, going to these conferences is big piece, but yeah. Do you have any thoughts for that? Yeah, I mean, uh, to, to, to go on the Association's piece, if you're a young professional, I mean, have get involved, uh, go to the meetings, volunteer, they need volunteers to be on these committee, you know, these different local committees, you know, and then obviously you can move into the national at some point.

um, but you know, it takes some time and you gotta, you know, give up a few nights and, and days to, you know, your spare time to do it. But I, that, that's how I got started, at least in the New York Metro area. Um, and you know, you kind of earn a name from that. Doesn't happen overnight, takes a few years, but, um, that as well as, um, you know, Make sure everything social like LinkedIn and social media wise, that you're up.

Well, at least LinkedIn, professionally. Um, you kind of keep an up to date with that. I think that's, that's very powerful. Um, you know, not everybody's doing that, but at least the younger, you know, it is a younger generation thing and it's older too is just there's, it's more predominant percentage wise, probably on the younger side, but, uh, stay active there.

And, um, I don't know, just be open to learning, learning new things, um, within the business and, you know, ask questions, volunteer your time to, to, uh, put yourself out there. Right. Um, I remember working back in the day with, uh, Tyco JCI. You know, I was just supposed to be doing sprinkler and all that, but I, I wanted to learn everything.

It throw everything at me, send me to any training you can. I want to be heavily involved and, um, you know, talk to people, pick their brain. Um, Whether it's something, somebody like me or somebody even like you GU, right. How, how, how have you done it? And, uh, Chris, Logan's the same thing. He's like, I, you know, I just wanted to learn more.

So now he's like, you know, everybody knows who he is. Not everybody needs a podcast, but, um, Yeah. I think even connecting with people from, from the, the podcast that are out there, there's a few hundred, right? Yeah. Um, connect with them, say, Hey, I, I heard you on this podcast. I think that's, that's really cool to hear.

Um, you know, I get it at various conferences if people know who I am and it's, it's flatter. That's cool. That's cool to hear. That's always makes your day when that happens. Oh yeah. You'll you'll you'll you're, I'm sure you're getting it, you know, once you get to a few shows, so yeah, it's, it's fun. It's always, even if it's, you know, a student or something it's always flattering, but, uh, yeah, I think that's a great piece of what you're saying about like professional societies and.

How it takes a while to build a name and you know, it's not gonna happen overnight, but if you keep showing up to these professional societies and keep trying to volunteer and keep trying to do things over the course of a couple years, you are gonna see dividends paid in your professional and social life.

So it's about putting that work like you're saying, which has. You know, a big benefit for me is being open to, you know, taking, taking the new job, taking, taking the new task to really learn and figure out and being open mind and eager to learn. So, um, I think that's all great points. Cool. Anything you wanna cover that I didn't talk about?

Or, you know, uh, no, no, not really. I mean, um, Subscribe to the podcast, obviously subscribe to your podcast too. But, um, um, if you're, if you're interested in learning more about in spec point, um, it's pretty easy in spec point.com. My email is, uh, drew ed and spec point.com. Um, we'll kind of show you some of the, the bells and whistles of it and, um, yeah, look forward to, to seeing people at NFPA, I'll be at NAFI in a couple weeks and, um, Yeah, excited to excited to have the summer here and kind of things slowing down with, and everybody getting back together after the kind of the pandemic's subsiding a little bit.

So, yeah. Yeah. Super nice. I was on the plane. This last year, a weekend or two ago. And just like not having to wear a mask was, was nice. Right. So it's pretty crazy. I know it's kinda, you don't think after like couple hours on the plane, how much relief that would be, but yeah, but, um, yeah, it's nice. Things are starting to get more normal, not completely normal, but, um, yeah man, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge and talk about, you know, what you've been doing, but.

Yeah, big. Thanks. And, uh, yeah. Excited to see where you're gonna, what you're gonna do with inspect point is podcast mean it's all good stuff. Yeah. Stay tuned. And, uh, we'll talk to you soon. Yeah. And subscribe to the fire. That's right. Both of them fire podcast. Go do it now. all right, man. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved. Fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

This solocast episode covers key definitions, equipment considerations and design details for antifreeze systems. Tune in to find out about some of the factors you should consider when evaluating these systems. 

Transcription

Gus Gagliardi: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to the solo cast of fire code tech in these episodes. It's just gonna be me, your host, Gus Gagliardi. There's gonna be a range of topics, but I'm gonna talk about specific technologies, installation, standards, codes, and how they work as well as some other interesting topics that don't neatly fit inside of the context of a normal interview.

Hello, welcome to episode 35 of Fire Code Tech, the solo cast series. on this episode, we're talking about anti-freeze systems. Yes. Recently I had done some research for a study in a job that we were working on and I was able to look at some preliminary details about anti-free systems and some different listings and manufacturer qualities [00:01:00] of the couple of listed antifreeze.

There are out there. Learned a bit about how these technologies work and the salient factors around implementing these systems. So wanted to relay what I had found in my research. I'm by no means in expert in anti-freeze systems probably only have interacted with one or two during my career, but I think they have a unique application and a set of problems that they can solve.

And so I wanted to speak about those pros and cons in this solo cast. This is your first time to listen to a fire code, tech solo cast, or a fire code tech in general. Welcome. And you know, don't forget if you enjoy to please subscribe. So you don't miss any episodes on content or topics that you would be interested.

Also, if you wanna give us a five star view on apple podcast, that would be big help. And I would [00:02:00] greatly appreciate it. Let's get into the show. Let's start off with the basics. Antifreeze, sprinklers or antifreeze sprinkler systems are a subsect of wet pipe sprinklers systems. And it utilizes a additive to the sprinkler system in order to provide a listed fire suppression system that is capable of operating in environments that are below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Speaking about the codes and standards portion of this system. When you. Find out that you have a need for a fire suppression system or a fire sprinkler system to be more specific. You would determine that with the international building code, assuming that you are working in the us in a jurisdiction that adopts these codes.

And then after you have determined that the sprinkler system is required, [00:03:00] you would go about designing the sprinkler system for the facility, and maybe you have a attic space or a unheated space in your facility that requires a system with freeze protection. So that limits your options to dry pipe systems, pre action systems.

anti-freeze systems. You could try to use dry barrel sprinklers. In fact, I'm, I'm realizing, as I'm saying all these options, I definitely need to do a solar cast episode over just freeze protection, but suffices to say, after you determine that you need a sprinkler system and that the space is not going to be heated on a regular basis, or there will be times in which the space will be below 40 degrees.

Then you can elect to use a antifreeze sprinkler system. And so if we look in an FPA 13 in the definition sections, it defines [00:04:00] antifreeze sprinkler systems, and it says 3.3 0.20 6.1 antifreeze sprinkler system in this section says a wet pipe system using automatic sprinklers that contains liquid solution to prevent freezing of the.

Intended to discharge the solution upon sprinkler operation followed immediately by water from a supply. Let's cover another definition since we're in chapter three. And just talk about the. Antifreeze solution or as it's defined in chapter three of N FPA 13, specifically, I'm looking in the 2019 edition.

It's 3.3 0.10 or 0.16, excuse me. And it's called pre-mixed antifreeze solution. And this definition says a mixture of antifreeze material with water that is prepared and factory mixed by the manufac. With quality control procedures in place that ensures that the antifreeze solution remains homogenous [00:05:00] and that the concentration is as specified.

So this gets at the point of why antifreeze solutions, where antifreeze systems were not in use for a number of years. There were some significant fire events. Due to the improper mixing of antifreeze solution antifreeze is a mix of generally a proprietary mix of Prolene, glyco and other additives.

And in the wrong concentrations. These solutions can be flammable. So there were some significant fire incidents that happened that where the sprinkler system, which is intended to extinguish or control or provide life safety feature for building actually added to the fire. And so this [00:06:00] was largely, I believe.

From my recollection in the brief blog articles, I've read over the subject due to the hand mixed antifreeze solution. So the, whoever was, you know, charged with filling the antifreeze system, they would hand mix this solution with water in order to. Achieve the right concentrations. Well, you could see how this would be problematic, but so now they have in the last recent, and the last five years, they have a couple companies have developed listed antifreeze solutions.

So they're, pre-mixed off the shelf in the right concentrations. And now these systems are being newly installed. so that's a little bit about the history and some key definitions around any free systems. Yeah. I really just wanted to cover that as a note about that these [00:07:00] systems and what they kind of are, how you would get to be requiring these systems.

But I want to talk further in design limitations. System component architecture, since that is something that I've found intriguing in my brief research of the subject. So these systems are restricted in the hazard category that they can provide fire suppression for. So you need to think about the hazard determination of your space before you even elect to design and or specify in any free.

so antifreeze that are listed and available currently are listed for 13 D occupancies 13 R occupancies, light hazard, occupancies, ordinary hazard, occupancies storage hazards, and they [00:08:00] are not listed for ESFR sprinklers. Within these allowed hazard determinations, there are limitations for light hazard, ordinary hazard and storage systems in regards to volume.

So I'm just gonna boil right down to where I see the big value add in any free systems and it is where you can within the listing of the anti-free. So. Apply the antifreeze system in a way that you can utilize light hazard, sprinkler, discharge density, without having to implement the 30% increase for dry system design.

So for those of you who may not be aware if you design an antifreeze system, Under the volume thresholds [00:09:00] listed in the antifreeze system, technical data sheet. So for example, NFPA 13 light hazard design, less than or equal to 200 gallons in accordance with, you know, NFPA 13 design criteria is what you would calculate that system.

So this is a big advantage for dry systems. Overdrive systems because there is a 30% design area increase for dry dry systems. You have a water supply that is marginal at best, and you are very close to having to be required to have a fire pump or a fire water storage tank. This may be a huge benefit for you to be able to provide.

A NFPA 13 light hazard design density, or a NFPA 13 R designed density in a freeze protected space. [00:10:00] There are some additional equipment differences in regards to antifreeze systems. First, there is the backflow prevention device needs to be. used pressure zone, fire protection, backflow prevention, assembly as defined in the international plumbing code.

Yes, because antifreeze is a high hazard contaminant to a domestic water system. You need an additional avenue of protection than the conventional backflow preventers for systems utilizing this type of industrial. so you need a means to fill the system with antifreeze. And that generally looks like a fill cup or a pump in order to hook up to a connection and fill the system with the pre-mix listed antifreeze [00:11:00] solution.

Also, depending on the layout of your system, you may be required to have a thermal expansion chamber. There are a couple of different physical layouts for these systems. And based on if you have a means to automatically fill and discharge pressure from thermal expansion, you may be required to have one of these thermal expansion chambers to look up the NFPA 13 requirements for.

Antifreeze system layout components. You need to look in 7.6 antifreeze systems in the 2016 and earlier edition or in 8.6 titled antifreeze systems as well for 2019. And on, there are some good diagrams in these photos. And it, I used to always look at these and not really understand what was [00:12:00] going on, but after.

Take a look at some of the data sheets online for the enterprise solutions and their listings, and read up a little bit more about how these systems are filled than these diagrams tend to make a little bit more sense. In my experience, there are a ton of different qualities that are important for the specific listed varietal of antifreeze that you are using for these.

So really dig in deep on the cut sheets for the antifreeze solutions. There are some potential material incompatibility and specific temperature listings for these antifreeze solutions. Think that's gonna do it for this episode on any pre systems. I think there's still more for us to talk about on this subject, but we will see next.

thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't [00:13:00] forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

This episode is an interview of Richard Alpert a fire protection engineering with a career in the fire service. Mr. Alpert is a Senior Fire Protection Engineer with GHD, a global engineering consulting firm in their Richmond, VA office.  He has over 37 years of experience in the design, construction management, and commissioning of public, private, and commercial projects including projects for high rise residential and office buildings, sports arenas, historical and cultural buildings, and government facilities.

In addition to his engineering career Mr. Alpert has been involved with the volunteer fire service for over 45 years and has served in many leadership positions within local fire departments including those of Vice President and Chief.

He holds several national certifications including ICC Building Plans Reviewer and Pro Board Fire Officer II.

Standpipe Article: 

https://www.sprinklerage.com/standpipe-systems-design-installation-requirements/

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Hello wall. Welcome to episode 52 of fire code tech. On this episode, we have Richard. Mr. Alpert is a senior PR fire protection engineer with G D a global engineering consulting firm in their Richmond, Virginia office. He has over 37 years in design experience, construction management and commissioning of public private and commercial projects that include for Highrise residential and office buildings, sports, arenas, historical and cultural buildings.

In addition to his engineering career, Mr. Alpert has been involved with the volunteer fire service over 45 years. And has served in many leadership positions within local fire departments, including the vice president and chief. He holds several national certifications, including ICC building plans, reviewer and pro board fire officer number two, really enjoyed this episode, Rick and I talk about professional development, how to mentor remotely and how he has dealt with the pandemic as so far.

Technology and, you know, learning to adapt in the modern construction environment. Do me a big favor and hit that subscribe button. So, you know, every time when the podcast comes out on Mondays, And follow us on social media. So you can see the graphics and the information that I put out about fine life safety.

Also, if you find some value in the content, I would just ask you please, to go rate and review on apple podcasts. It helps other people be able to see the show and it helps me be able to continue producing this show. Let's get into the episode. Welcome to the podcasts, Rick, thank you so much for coming on and you know, just excited to talk with.

Yeah, thank you for having me this morning. Typically I'd like to get started with, um, letting everybody know a little bit about your background, sir. Would you, would you mind telling the listeners, you know, kind of how you got started in fire and life safety? Guess started? Uh, my career basically, would've been, I guess my 16th birthday.

I got my application to the Tom Enson volunteer fire department up in Tom Enson PA uh, grew up in rural Pennsylvania. My father joined the fire department, I think in 64 when we moved to Pennsylvania was always around the station being in rural Pennsylvania. You know, that was the social life at that area was the firehouse.

So I joined as soon as I could, like I said, I got my, uh, application for my 16th birthday, uh, joined, uh, liked to volunteer fire service thought I would go into a professional career. So ended up going to a two year college down in, uh, Salisbury, North Carolina with the intent of becoming a professional firefighter.

Uh, graduated from that school, did some interview, uh, with some fire departments also. Oh, with some industries such as Tennessee valley authority. And they were discussing that I would be the fire tech and I would report to the fire protection engineer. Uh, and that intrigued me. And I asked one interviewer, you know, who's the fire protection engineer.

And he said, well, if he's the engineer, he'll be in charge. And I said, well, if I wanna be in charge, how do I do that? And he says, well, you've gotta get your engineering degree. I'd never heard of an engineering or degree in fire protection engineering. Uh, he mentioned, uh, at that time, Noise Institute technology and, uh, university of Maryland.

Uh, so I looked into that, ended up, uh, enrolling in university of Maryland. Uh, went there for four years and then that launched my career into fire protection engineering. Oh, very nice. I have some family in Western PA. And so I'm familiar with the area a little bit used to go up there all the time, but.

That's cool. It cool to hear about your origin story and finding it through your family and yeah. Getting interested. That's a, seems like a, a fairly common career path having family in the fire service, but that's awesome. Good to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. My entire family was, my father was involved. My mother was in the ladies, auxiliary.

My sister was in the lady, a auxiliary, so it was definitely a family affair. Wow. That's awesome. I bet you had lots of, uh, lessons learned from your family being involved so heavily that probably, uh, helped you get integrated faster for sure. Yep. Yeah. So I basically never had a choice. in the fire service indoctrinated pretty early into the fire service.

I liked that. Yeah. Well, my father always had me hanging around the station and you know, back then it was rural. So everything back then, it was either no call or it was a, a working barn fire. So it was, you know, the whole neighborhood would go out there, support the firefighters. The women would bring refreshments and everything.

And my. But, uh, she wouldn't have to drag me out there. I'd be in the car before she would get out there and watch dad fight the fire. So, wow. That's a good experience. That sounds like, uh, good memories. Mm. But, um, so you went and got your, um, engineering degree at, um, Maryland and then yes. So after you got your engineering degree, kind of, what was your path forward still working with in the fire services, understand that you have been continually, um, uh, working in the fire service mm-hmm um, is that correct?

Yes, as I've, I've moved around and taken different jobs. I've tried to stay in the volunteer fire service, uh, which is tough. When I first got outta Maryland, I entered in and got some job supporting the nuclear industry, uh, which basically their, their term contracts. You work here for six months. If you're doing a good job, you get to stay for a year or two or three.

And then. Then that job's usually done your, your company gets another contract at another nuclear power site and they move you to another site. So during those years it was tough to stay, stay fully involved with the volunteer fire department. But I tried to, if I was in an area for a couple years to at least join and support the local volunteer fire departments, if I could, or if a lot of the power plants too had, uh, fire brigades.

So if I was up there, I was trying to help with at least with training. Something with the fire brigades at the nuclear power plants, if five could. But then once, once I got out of that industry and settled down, once I got a family, I joined the local fire departments whenever I could, where I lived. Oh, very nice.

Yes. So what was your experience like? Um, working in and around like nuclear facilities. Was it more like helping with ITM and that sort of thing or more focus on like plan, review and documentation? Uh, what kind of different roles and, um, did, were you involved in during that time in your life? Most, mostly in nuclear power plants was, it was compliance.

Type job functions. Uh, NRC had their guidelines and requirements. A lot of that came out of the Browns ferry fire, uh, as far as fire protection, fire stopping fire barriers, programs, and that sort of stuff for the nuclear industry. Um, Basically, we would move from plant to plant to support their programs in ensure compliance with the, uh, NRC regulations, whether it was a fire barrier program, fire stopping program, fire protection programs, uh, systems, operations training, just to support the NRC requirements.

Very cool. Very cool. That seems like a, a very interesting career path. Nuclear. Um, I have a good friend from school. I graduated from the Oklahoma state, uh, fire protection technology program. So, um, it was a common career path for a lot of folks to mm-hmm. go into nuclear. But it seems like a very interesting, um, career.

Yeah. One of, one of my locations, I ended up in, uh, Fort worth, Texas supporting the power plant out there and. I got picked on out there. Cause I was the only Maryland grad. Everyone else was from Oklahoma, so, oh no, they enjoyed picking on me out there. Oh yeah. They're probably just jealous. Mm, no, I'm just, uh, it's a really cool program outta Maryland.

I was always, you know, tell people that there's. Different specialties and different, you know, um, good things to get from each program. You know, I think that the, the engineering side of things and the more fire phenomena focused, uh, it, well from the outside looking in, um, Maryland program seems like, uh, You know, a good pair with the more, um, technician focused, uh, okay.

State program, so, right. Uh, I wouldn't be opposed to, to going to both colleges but, uh, no, that's cool. So, um, and actually met my wife in the nuclear industry too, so that worked out. Okay. Well, that's a good deal. It sounds like that sounds like a win. Yeah. Met, met her at one of my locations. Oh, nice. So after you, uh, you know, worked in nuclear for a while, um, I understand that you've had a couple of, you know, um, positions as a, uh, engineer for architecture and engineer in, uh, construction industry.

Like what did. How did you make your way into that sort of role or what interested you in that sort of role? Well, there were, I guess, two reasons, uh, for looking to get the nuclear industry. One was. I met my wife, who that time was fiance and the intent to settle down. Cause like I mentioned before, the nuclear industry, you're, you're bouncing around every year, every two, every three years from site to site, it's never a permanent position, uh, wanted to be able to settle down.

And at that time too, the, the nuclear industry was starting to go through a change. Some of the plants were shutting down. A lot of them were reorganizing. Some of the power companies were buying up a lot of the nuclear power plants. Uh, so there were less seemed to me that there was gonna be less and less opportunities in the nuclear industry moving forward.

And it just seemed like a good time to get out and make the jump. And, uh, had a friend of mine that I had known was working for an AE firm in, in Philadelphia. At that time I was based outta Philadelphia and. Talked to him and looked into making the jump and then made the jump from, from the nuclear industry, into the AE industry and joined his firm in Philadelphia.

Very nice. Very nice. Yeah. That's unfortunate about nuclear. Um, that's a sad deal. I wish that wasn't the case. I think that globally, that is a, seems to be a trend though. Um, people want to the public perception of nuclear ramping down to some extent. Um, but, uh, so you were working for a firm out in Philadelphia mm-hmm and was this just a engineering firm or an architect and engineering firm.

And, and what kind of work were you involved in, in this first position in Philadelphia? It, it wasn't, it wasn't AE firm. They did full, uh, architectural engineering support in house. Uh, worked joined, joined that group, uh, ended up before I left. I guess being in charge of the, uh, fire protection group there, um, it was nice in that firm.

Uh, they did a lot of, uh, sports and entertainment complexes, which I enjoyed. So they did, uh, we did work on the Phillies ballpark in Philadelphia, uh, supported the ballpark down in their training facility in Florida, did a lot of, uh, Ray. Which was interesting work, uh, working with the race tracks and the casinos, uh, doing that type of work, uh, highlight facilities, uh, stadium work.

So that was definitely enjoyable and some large and, uh, complicated projects working for that, uh, group. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really interesting and different work to be working for sports complexes and, and big arena type facilities. That's a unique hazard without a. It Def definitely learned there how to, uh, work with all the work with the architects and, uh, all the consultants and all the different disciplines.

Uh, cause when you get into large projects like that, it's, it's definitely something you need to work with everybody together. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I mean, uh, it's interesting. It seems like, uh, you know, just from like briefly looking at, um, your career on LinkedIn, like that you've always kinda worked for some pretty, uh, larger firms or like had to good.

You probably all, you know, uh, to start with those large kind of ballpark projects. Um, that's, that's a pretty significant way to get started. Um, it's not like you started with a whole bunch of small stuff, so that's interesting. Well, it's serious. Cause I've worked, worked for large firms, worked for small firms, uh, jumped back and forth.

Probably you can see if you have my resumes, people ask for my, uh, work history and it's like a. Page and a half long on the companies I've worked for. So, oh, nice. Well, it's good to have that perspective on, you know, because it's quite a difference, um, in the industry between, you know, whether you work for a full service AE firm or just a engineering firm or, you know, a small company, a medium company, or a, a huge company.

So yeah, I wanted. Speak with you about just like your perspective from, it seems like a couple of your roles have been for some really large company and I I've never had the opportunity or, uh, uh, to work for like a big corporation. So I, you know, I can, I've worked with people who have, but what's your thoughts on just like working on these large scale projects and, you know, um, just some of that perspective with large companies and large projects.

Uh, As far as the large companies. Cause I work for large companies work for small companies, I guess. Cause, cause basically with, with companies, you know, we're the large company, the, the human resources, the tech support, all that's gonna come from from like the larger company. And I guess that's. Between a small company and a large company, they're basically the same.

It's all how you get that information and that support. Uh, the big difference is from what I found out, doesn't matter whether you work for a small company or a large company, it's a two year immediate group you're working for. And that makes the difference. You know, your supervisors, uh, senior engineers, junior engineers, you're working with, uh, cause whether it's a small company or large company, that that's what makes the difference.

The people you're directly interacting with and the, the support you're getting directly from your, your supervisor and your peers, cuz you can work for a large company, uh, get the support, you know, from corporate, but not get the local support and you can work for, uh, you know, a small company and not get the local support.

So, so that's the difference is, is the, the people immediately around you and, and how they're gonna support you and, and the interactions with that group. Yeah, that's a great piece of advice. I, uh, you know, thinking about that early on in the careers, as I had professors who had told me, you know, thinking about thinking about who you're working with, think about your manager and your direct support.

So that makes a lot of sense. Mm-hmm um, whether it's local or international, uh who's how's your team and what's the support structure around you. That's interesting to hear. I like that answer. Yeah. It's definitely a, I guess an offshoot is, is COVID has changed a lot of that too with, uh, not going into the is a lot, I guess what, it's been three years now and I haven't really been back to the office, uh, since matter of fact, the position I'm in now, I'm basically permanently remote.

I don't report to an office. Okay. So especially now, You know, being able to, to, uh, access stuff from corporate, you know, as far as benefits, pay stubs, expenses, that sort of stuff. And then, uh, support with within your little local group, being able to get on teams and support people have meetings. You know, you, you don't have that day to day contact.

So. Even more so than ever now the, the work within your immediate group is even more important trying to making sure you've got that connection. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, it, I'd be interested to hear more your thoughts on, um, the pandemic and just how that's changed the way you work at. Spoke with a variety of professionals from, you know, really early on in their career and to more 10 year professionals, you know, trying to coach people for, you know, uh, young students outta college.

Like mm-hmm, how they can find mentors and, and figure out all these tools and how to do their job in pandemic times has been, uh, Uh, a struggle for some people, but yeah. What are your thoughts on, um, remote work and just the, the new landscape of, um, delivering projects in, uh, this digital age. Yeah, well, for me, it's been interesting cuz I got outta Maryland in 84 and people listen to this podcast.

They're gonna laugh. Cuz back when I was in Maryland, we still had punch cards and punch machines. You know, you you'd stand in line for 45 minutes to, to get on the punch card machine and make your punch cards. So you could hand 'em to someone behind the counter and, and run your programs. And then they give you a big printout on whether your program worked or not.

So we had no computers, no laptops or any of that. I got out. I started working drawings were still hand drawn. We didn't have cat operators. We had guys with pens and pencils and drafting boards. You know, we had the old, the blueprint machines with the amonia had always smelled in the back of the rooms.

So I, I came from that generation, you know, and then slowly got into computers, cat, uh I've. I guess since early on, uh, since I, when I joined the AEs, uh, firms, I was already a senior engineer, so I never had CAD load loaded on my programs. I've never done electronic drawings. I've always had a, a drafting tech or CAD support.

I've I've never done it myself. My experience was drawings, like I said, was hand drawings. Uh, the drafters would do 'em. We'd send 'em through the blueprint machine. I'd mark 'em up in red. even a couple years ago, you know, I had my, my drafting tech, I he'd set up the draws. He'd print 'em out. I'd mark. 'em up with red pencil.

Give back to him and he'd draft them up. Um, now with the remote, you know, everything's over blue beam or some other platform like that. Uh, the junior engineer, the, the CAD tackle send me something electronically now and I'll get on to Bluebeam and I'll mark it up and electronically. And, and that's been a process.

For me. And I'm sure people in my generation I've, I've had to learn quickly how to do everything on the, uh, on the desktop and a laptop. And, uh, people laugh at me, uh, when I was, uh, A little link back to the fire service. Uh, before I moved down here to Virginia, I was the, the fire chief up in Pennsylvania for the department up there.

And, uh, since I was fire chief, the, uh, local township, I wasn't allowed to have, uh, any of the social media platforms cuz they, they didn't want people sending stuff to me and they didn't want me reacting and, and getting stuff out there on the platforms that they didn't support. So I wasn't allowed to get on Facebook, so I never did.

And. Always had a phone supplied by the fire department. Uh, so up till this Christmas, when I guess, uh, our telephone company called and said that they would no longer support my flip phone, uh, my wife actually finally bought me a smart phone for Christmas. Uh, finally migrated over to that. So. I've always been a little bit behind on the technology, but people laugh now.

They see my smartphone. They're like, oh, you finally got rid of the flip phone. Huh? So what mean? Yeah. So it's, well, you've probably got better mental health for it, so it wouldn't worry too much about it. Yeah. My, my, my son's been helping me learn how to use that thing. So, uh, but that's been, that's been, the biggest thing is the, uh, learning how to use the technology that.

Never had to, or never been forced to use before. Uh, and in learning how to, you know, interact with the junior engineers. And, you know, instead of sitting down with 'em and saying, you know, sitting down, you know, with a set of plans saying, you know, here's how we mark up the plans. You know, here's how we, we draw in, this is what this building requires and sitting there and actually doing it by hand, you know, now it's over teams, meetings and marking up, uh, in Bluebeam and stuff like that and presenting this stuff to 'em.

Yeah. That's been the biggest change and the biggest challenge. Wow. Yeah, that's definitely some, uh, some different takes on, you know, there are a couple different revelations in there from, from drawings to, to CAD and from CAD and now it's, everything's doing 3d, so mm-hmm I mean, so it's just like multiple, uh, evolutions and then yeah.

Finding. Uh, relationships with people when you don't get the face to face and you don't get, uh, nearly the richness of communication with, you know, looking somebody in the eyes to see if they're really getting what you're saying to 'em as you're marking up and drawing. I mean, uh, that's, uh, it's definitely, um, harder over, over the computer.

Not that it can't be done. I think a lot of people are doing really great things, um, with remote work and, but yeah, definitely proven some new challenges. The biggest thing I've, I've given some lectures and lessons and stuff, uh, over teams meeting is it's much more difficult when you're not seeing the, the faces of the people and their reactions and, and trying to invoke questions from them to see if they're understanding.

The presentation you're giving. Yeah. It's tough when you just see a little circle with initials and you don't see the faces and the, the interactions. Yeah. The silence is deafening when you're given a presentation or something. And then it's just like all dim circles and, uh, yeah. You're like, man, this really feels like.

And, you know, any absence of head nodding or, you know, any social cues that you would get, if you were in the room with somebody would let you know if people were just like asleep or clicking through their phone or something. But yeah, that's definitely different. Um, yeah, learn learned if I'm, if I'm, uh, going over something or doing a, uh, a lessons or something like that, you you've gotta intersperse it with questions to keep everybody involved.

It's a good tip. It's a good tip. So you mentioned, so the fire service has been a through line in your career, but mm-hmm, always like to ask professionals when they get 'em on that have, um, the great opportunity to have insight to, um, actual firefighting and then pair that with the technical knowledge of engineering, like, just be interested to hear how that has affected your career.

What kind of insights had you gained by having that time in the fire service? Uh, well, I guess I, I can answer that by. I guess the biggest example of we had a, uh, one AE firm. We had, we had a project, uh, in a military base up in, uh, Northern Virginia involved a, uh, new building with a parking garage and the junior engineer that was working on it, uh, you know, was following the, an FPA standards, the DOD, and there was, was an issue with the stamp pipe.

I can't remember whether it was the location. Of the hose outlets or some code issue that was going on between the, uh, the fire marshal at the site and the junior engineers. Nate had a couple submissions and a couple review meetings and the, the issue just, just couldn't get resolved. And at one point, the, the fire marshal told the engineer, he goes, well, you're an engineer.

You, you just don't understand, you know, what we need and, and what's going on out there in the fire service. So, uh, our supervisor asked me to go up for one of the meetings. He goes, you know, you've been in the fire service, you know, the language you can talk to talk. Uh, so I went up to the review meeting, uh, met with the fire.

Marshal, gave the same information that the junior engineer had given, you know, the same proposals. But I went into the meeting. I, I introduced myself, you know, as, as the lead engineer. And I said, you know, I've got you. 30 some odd years, fire service used to be a fire chief. I said, so if, if you've got an issue, I said, you know, I, I understand where you're coming from.

He goes, oh, you're one of us. You speak our language. And he said, well, what do you propose to resolve this? And I gave the same proposal that the junior engineer did. And he goes, he goes, that's great. Let's do that. It was just the fact that, you know, he saw me. You know, as his equal one of his brothers in the fire service that I must understand, you know, what he was, what he needed and what he was looking at.

And it was the, the same proposed solution, but now it was acceptable. Yeah. Because it wasn't coming from the, you know, the engineer that, that didn't know what the fire service needed. Yeah. Well, I mean, I can definitely understand that he is probably coming from a place of, you know, having real notable the points of frustration with things that engineers have done where they absolutely do not understand.

So I'm sure that he was coming from the right place, but, um, that's kind of funny that he had accepted the proposed solution, but yeah, I think. We walked outta the meeting, the junior engineer just threw his arms up in the air. He said, I just don't get it. I said, I said, yeah, it's, it's a fire service thing.

I said, it's, don't get upset. Well, yeah, I mean, uh, it's a, it's a good lesson to, you know, mm-hmm, think about, um, just those perspectives I've been caught up before and just not, um, keeping the functional, um, in mind and fighting for whatever it is. Clearance in. Fire riser room or something. Mm-hmm you just gotta kind of keep that perspective in mind.

So I appreciate that, um, anecdote, but yeah. So you mentioned stand pipe and the way that I was able to find you is, um, and I'll put a link in the show notes for the people who wanna go read it, but. You wrote a great article on stamp pipes. And it was one of the first articles I ever got to read, um, as a young engineer where like the process of the building codes, like kind of clicked for me.

Um, and so, you know, Is it coming outta school, even though you talk about the building code and NFPA documents, um, it just wasn't clear to me, you know, when, how do I know when this stamp pipe system is required and mm-hmm , um, I read your article and for some reason it just it's clicked with me. It was succinct.

You spelled it out very clearly. If you meet these criteria in the building, Then, and this is building code is adopted in your jurisdiction. Then this system is required and it was like a Eureka moment for me. So yeah, I really enjoyed that article from you. And I'd just, uh, like to hear, you know, um, about that article or any other articles that you've written and, and why you chose to write that article.

Yeah, that article, uh, that was in sprinkler age magazine and. When I was the AE firm I was with, uh, at that time, uh, we were members of the, uh, a S P E I think that's the organization. I hope I didn't get it wrong. Uh, that sprinkler age is, is their publication. And, uh, we were active in that group. And, uh, we were also familiar with the, uh, the, uh, Technical advisor at that time.

And, uh, he called us up once and said, Hey, you know, we're, we're looking for an article. Would you, anyone in your group be you interested in writing an article? And he said, you know, we're doing sprinklers and, and, and stamp pipes will be the focus of the issue and, and that month's publications. And so we had a group meeting that supervisor said anyone interested, and I still sure I'll, I'll write something up.

And I, I guess, That got it started. And I just started researching and, uh, went into it and, uh, developed that article. My first thought was, well, if, if I'm gonna go through and talk to it, I guess, you know, the first thing we always look at at a project, you know, as far as systems is what's required, you know, that's, that's the first thing the architect always asks the engineers, you know, do I have to put in a sprinkler system, do I need a stamp pipe system?

So that's why I wanted to start off the article. Not necessarily how it goes in, but why it goes in, you know, what, what's the code requirement, you know, at what point do you look at the code and say, okay, you know, I meet these parameters, so now I need a stand pipe system, you know, okay. I need a stand pipe system.

What type of stand pipe system do I need? You know, what parameters do I need to look out now? And that that's how that article developed. And when I was initially writing it, uh, we. Talking with the publication. They said, you know, give us something, you know, anything from like 12 to 1500 words. And I think that one ended up being almost 2,800 words cuz once I started writing, I just, just kept going.

They were like, oh, that's a little bit longer, but we can work with it. So, and I, since then I've written there's one more article on stamp pipes. We actually took that article and we had had a high rise. Project, uh, here locally in Norfolk, Virginia. And, uh, we did a lessons learned article. So we, we took that article and said, okay, you.

Here's how you figure out if you need a stamp pipe, what type of stamp pipe, you know, where the hose valve goes, uh, that sort of stuff, how you interact with the other systems. So we took like a point by point information from that article and applied it to the, the Highrise project on how we met those requirements and, and how we integrated into our design.

And then also I think a year or two ago wrote a. Article related to stand pipes, but it was on fire department. Connections, uh, actually looked into it and said, you know, looking into this, there's more requirements for fire department connections than, than people think they are. As far as locations, number of inlets, uh, that sort of stuff, uh, who gets to approve the fire department location.

I'm I'm still going. For that on two or three projects right now is who gets to approve that. So that was also another offshoot of that article. And, and that was published I think, a year or so ago. And I'm currently working on one, uh, on, uh, doing a, uh, hydraulic calculation first, a typical stamp pipe system.

I had mentioned that in my original article, got into a, a little bit on that, but not into the specifics on how you actually do one, cuz I've had many projects. where we'll require it in our specifications, you know? So, you know, you need to do a hydraulic cap in accordance with an FPA 14 and the contractor will come back.

And a lot of times he'll say, I don't know how to do that. I've never done one. And so I, I thought an article on that would be, uh, some good information too. So I'm currently working on that one. We have to let me know, and now it comes out cuz uh, that sounds like a good resource. I, I think it is a little bit more of.

A niche topic is, you know, um, people either, you know, with manual, uh, stamp pipes, you know, are not thinking so much about those calculations for, for better, or for probably mostly worse that they're not well versed in the calculations. And, you know, uh, so I think that's great information for anybody who wants to learn about the subject.

There's a lot more resources for. Their calculations, then there are first stand pipes. So I think that's a good topic, but yeah, that's awesome. I really enjoyed the article. And so, um, I'd be definitely interested to hear about any more writing from you, but, oh, I was just gonna ask, since you mentioned, um, uh, your involvement in professional societies, I just wanted to pick your brain more on what kind of.

Professional societies that you've been involved in. And, um, yeah. The what value you see in being involved in those kind of communities? Uh, well, I guess fire protection engineers, the typical top two, uh, S F P N FPA. Uh, then, uh, also I'm in the ICC international code council. Uh, one of the, uh, consulting firms I worked for.

They did a lot of, uh, third party building plans, reviews for, uh, Washington DC. Uh, so they encouraged staff to, uh, get their ICC certification and buildings, plans, examiner. Uh, so I studied a little bit for that. Got that certification, uh, maintained that certification over the years. Uh, so involved as a member of the ICC and, and maintaining that and, you know, doing the continuing education credits for ICC, uh, like I said, N FPA, S F P E you know, keep involved with them, uh, N FPA, mostly, uh, you know, cuz the technical standards that everybody uses, uh, S F P uh, using them mostly for.

CE credits doing their webinars. Um, and then ICC, like I said, using them to maintain my certification. And, uh, they also offer, uh, classes as far as building plans, uh, examiners training and stuff like that to maintain my, uh, my certification with the CE credits for that. Very nice. Very nice. So I like to round out the interviews would just.

Uh, professional development conversation topics, and mm-hmm, , you know, since you've had such a variety of career and, and mentoring and, um, experience in the industry, I just wanted to, um, get your insight on, um, what kind of advice you would have for. Um, young engineers getting into the field and, you know, uh, how would you recommend them to get integrated and kind of, um, yeah, just, uh, or any broad piece of advice for, um, people getting into the industry?

Uh, one thing I would recommend, I didn't do it when I was at Maryland, cuz I was just trying to get out so, uh, I would do internships, uh, when I was at Maryland, like I said, I had gone to another college for two years. I ended up at Maryland for four years. So my, my father was pushing me. He's like, you know, this is a six year college now time to get out.

So I didn't wanna take a semester off, uh, to do the internship. Uh, but I recommended doing an internship, uh, that way you get a good idea of, you know, the type of work that's out there. Uh, know we've got a lot of my current company now we've got interns and a lot of 'em just end up coming right on board.

Uh, but I would recommend do that. Get out there and. Try working for a semester and see what's out there. See what different jobs are there. I've, you know, I've worked at nuclear industry, I've worked for the AE firms. I've worked for all the major consulting firms and they're all a little bit different the way they operate and, uh, how they work.

So I would get out there and try one. Yeah. That's a great piece of advice. I think there's no better way to figure out if you like work in this certain industry or certain. Um, job function and getting out there and doing it, especially, um, getting paid and getting a great reliant on your resume. So, yeah, it's a great piece of advice.

Yeah. And then if, if you know, any graduates, talk to them, see what, you know, specific fields they're in, you know, the, the things that are good, the things that are bad about. You know what they're doing. I mean, there's, there's advantages to working for AE firms. There's advantages to working for the consulting firms, you know, and, and how your jobs are viewed.

You know, when you work for the AE firm, you're, you're part of the big team. You're one of the engineers, you know, you work for the consulting firms, the AE firms hire them and you're sometimes. A little bit more of the expert. So they don't necessarily question what you're doing as much as when you work within the AE firm.

So it's, it's definitely different perspectives of, of how you operate within the teams and, and how you're view depending, uh, which organization you're working for. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I just recently made a, a career switch to working for an engineering firm instead of a full service firm. And yeah, see a bit of that change.

I hadn't thought about it. Like. Of your role and what that means to the team? Um, as far as just like, uh, yeah. How much scrutiny from your team? I mean, not that they'll never be any, but it, that definitely changes mm-hmm and then there's also, you know, working for the AJS, you know, I've, I've got friends that work.

You know, fire departments as fire marshals, as fire protection engineers. So there's also that side of it. Very true. Very true. Yeah, that, that was actually my dream job once. But, uh, the timing in the location didn't work out. It was a offer from a, uh, fire department out west, uh, as a fire protection engineer, uh, with the fire department.

And you actually remember the fire department and you actually drew on-call duty like once or twice a week and you would get a. Car, you know, red lights and sirens and everything to respond to major incidents and, you know, you're expected to respond and then offer, you know, technical advice to the suppression officers on the scene, you know, and I thought at that time was my dream job with my family and time and in location, it just didn't work out.

But that, that would've combined my, my two loves of firefighting and fire protection engineering. Yeah. That's uh, that's interesting. That's. And I haven't heard about a position like that. That sounds fascinating. Um, but yeah. So what kind of, uh, you, you mentioned some great professional societies, but I, I wanted to, uh, to end with, um, what kind of resources you would recommend to, um, professionals, um, Like, uh, generally when I ask this question, I'm thinking about, you know, like, um, professional societies, technical blogs, or trade magazines, or just anything that you would recommend, like, um, I know that, uh, like some of the material used to study for the, the PE exam is pretty solid, but mm-hmm um, yeah.

Just, what do you think is, um, a good resource? Where do you get your information or keep up to date on the industry, that sort of thing? Uh, mostly now, especially being remote, uh, with the SFPs, it's the webinars that they offer. Mm-hmm matter of fact, I think I have another one at noon on, uh, like. Elevators and, uh, personnel evacuation elevators, uh, had one last week.

Uh, then an engineer I used to work with. One of my E firms is, is now with the fire department, uh, as the fire protection engineer, like I mentioned before, and he had one on, uh, protection, cannabis, growth facilities. Mm-hmm so, so definitely that's that's the one way I keep up right now is the S F P E uh, the N F P a I.

With the projects and, and jobs I've worked on, I've never been able to attend large number of NSPA conventions. Uh, I guess that's my one regret is I wasn't active in, in keeping up with the conventions and the interactions there, but, and the personal connections, cuz that's where I get a lot of my information too, with, with people I've worked with over the years is, you know, I'll get in this situation.

I know they've, they've worked on that type thing and I'll just give them a call and say, Hey, what'd you do here? Uh, so I'd recommend if you could, if your company supports it to, to attend the NFPA conventions, just to keep those, those interactions and those connections going, uh, same with the S F P E uh, unfortunately.

Except for ones that are in conjunction with the NFPA I've, I've never attended a national international, uh, S F P E meeting. Uh, but I would recommend people trying to do that and, and keep up with that. And then, um, I, like I said, the ICC, if, if you're into the life safety and the codes would be, uh, joining ICC, uh, getting the certifications, if it, if it benefits you and your company and, and they do a lot of training, I, I attended one week, uh, seminar a couple years ago to, to get my.

Continuing education, uh, whole week on a building plans reviews again, you know, just to keep up on the information and that, uh, you know, the I B C and all the associated coaches coach change every three years. So just trying to keep me up with that and, uh, To go into those meetings once a year, they, or every three years, they, they put out the significant changes.

So I always try to take that training, uh, you know, significant changes to the IBC, the I C you know, those are typically eight hour classes, uh, getting in on them and, and making sure you're up with, with what's going on with that, cuz different codes are always getting adopted and trying to keep up with whatever jurisdiction you're in.

What version of the, the I B C or the, if C you know what addition they're using, how they've modified it, you know, trying to, trying to keep up with. Yeah, that's great advice. Yeah. Um, keeping in touch with, uh, how the industries is, is changing and the code cycles and, you know, maintaining rapport and connections through, uh, conferences and just, you know, professional involvement.

That's great. Mm-hmm that's great tips. Well, Rick, I just wanted to thank you so much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed speaking with you and yeah. Thanks again. Oh, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Awesome. Well, let me see if I can stop this thing. thanks for listening. Everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious. Business the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a code zone standards.

Interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Hello All! On this episode we are revisiting high-piled storage. On the 34th solocast episode I get into storage sprinklers and information about how NFPA 13 has changed from the 2016 - 2019 edition for how it addresses storage. 

NFPA 2016 - 2019 Translator

https://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/AboutTheCodes/13/NFPA_13_2016_2019_Roadmap.pdf

Transcription

Hello. Welcome to the solo cast of fire code tech in these episodes. It's just gonna be me, your host, Gus Gagliardi. There's gonna be a range of topics, but I'm gonna talk about specific technologies, installation, standards, codes, and how they work as well as some other interesting topics that don't neatly fit inside of the context of a normal interview.

Hello, all welcome to episode 30. On this episode, we're talking about high piled storage. Once again. Yes. This is a follow up episode to our fifth Sylo cast, which talks about high piled storage. In this episode, we're going to go more in detail on what NFPA 13 says. About high powered storage. In this episode, we're going to be talking specifically about storage, sprinklers and their applications, and some other factors around NFPA 13 and the recent additions and changes from 2016 to 2019 of this standard for sprinkler installation.

Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on social media. Oh, and please, please give us a five star review on apple podcast. That would be big. Let's get into the show. So if you want to get some details on when high powered storage is applicable and some features of high powered storage, like, um, low piled and miscellaneous storage, go back and check out episode number five on the solo cast series and had, I have a lot of that detail there, but I was working through some storage hazard classification and, um, commodity.

Inspection for a new facility that I'm working on. And I thought that this would be a good time to visit, uh, calculations and the standards around high cloud storage. So the reason why I want to talk about N FPA 13, 2016 and 2019 is because there's a substantial change in the layout of the standard. And that is the standard for the installation of sprinkler systems.

So in the 2016 and earlier edition of NFPA 13, we have storage addressed starting in chapter 13, titled protection of miscellaneous and low piled storage. And then through about chapter 20 special designs of storage protection, just like we spoke about in episode five, the solo cast, we want to first make sure that we do indeed have a high piled storage scenario.

So some common thresholds are 12 feet for class one through four commodities and a bit lower for. Group a plastics and high hazard materials, such as tires and, uh, flavorable liquids and combustible liquids. So if you have an owner who is looking to have storage, and that could be rack storage, bin box storage, piled storage, um, the configurations vary.

Great. It's worth mentioning that if you have special insurance providers like factory mutual, you may hit storage thresholds, uh, very quickly. And so you might have a case where you would not usually provide higher density, sprinkler protection for storage applications inside of let's say an office building.

But if you have to follow FM global data sheets, then you may be required to have higher density and lower protection area coverage sprinklers in the 2019 version of NFPA 13, the chapters that start to address storage. Start with chapter 20 general requirements for storage. Subsequent chapters are broken down by sprinkler type.

Instead of by commodity classification, I'll include a link N FPA provides a 2016 to 2019 roadmap. That is very helpful. I've used it in the past in order to find a specific section in N F P 13, 2019, that I knew where it was in the earlier edition of the standard. The storage chapters get a very significant rework in the fact that if you take a look at chapter 13, uh, many of these sections, um, get deleted from the 2016 version of the standard.

Moving to the 2019 version of the standard. There are four main types of sprinkler protection strategies that you can use for storage, fire suppress. Three of these types, you can accommodate storage protection at ceiling level only protection. So you can get away with increasing density and providing fire protection features in order to avoid in rack sprinklers, which is typically the owner's preference for a variety of reason.

So the first and very common type of sprinkler approach for storage sprinklers are control mode, density, area sprinklers, or often abbreviated as cm D a cm D is defined in chapter three under the section number 3.3 0.20 5.4 0.1 as. A type of spray sprinkler intended to provide fire control in storage applications.

Using the design density area criteria described in the standard. So cm D a have for the type of sprinklers that allow ceiling only protection in many situations, some of the most lax obstruction criteria, which when we get into the other types will become apparent why this is a benefit, if you can accommodate the storage configurations.

So as we move on to CMSA and ESFR sprinklers, We will continually get more strict obstruction ruling. And then also we will have, um, higher water supply requirements, but the allowed storage height. And hazard severity of the storage configuration will also increase as well. So, um, this is a sort of trade off.

If you have a very hazardous storage configuration or set of commodities, um, you may be in a situation to opt for CMSA or ESFR sprinklers. CMSA is control mode, specific application. Um, which is defined in the chapter three definitions, section 3, 3, 2 0 5 4 2 as a type of spray sprinkler that is capable of producing characteristic, large water droplets.

And that is for its capability to provide fire control of specific high challenge fire hazards. So you can see that this is specifically targeted to a large volume of water discharged and high challenge storage applications. The last type of storage application specific sprinkler is early suppression, fast response sprinklers.

And this is defined just a couple more down in this chapter. 3, 3, 3, 2 0 5, 4, 5 as. A type of fast response sprinkler that has a thermal element with an RTI of 50 meter seconds to the one half power or less, and is listed for its capability to provide fire suppression of specific high challenge fire hazards.

So you can see in this definition that they specifically call out a RTI of 50. Why is that important? Here's another really good definition, further up under sprinkler definitions. That has a really good point to why RTI is important. And what RTI is in this section is 3, 3, 2 0 5 0.2. So this is general sprinkler characteristics.

It says the following characteristics of a sprinkler that defined its ability to control or extinguish a fire. Number one, thermal sensitivity. A measure of the rapidity with which the thermal element operates as it's installed in a specific sprinkler or sprinkler assembly. One measure of thermal sensitivity is the response time index or RTI as measured under the standard test conditions.

Subpoint a sprinklers defined as fast response. Have a thermal element with an RTI of 50 meters per second. To this one half power or less sprinklers defined as standard response. Have a thermal element with an RTI of 80 meters per second to the one half power or more. Number two, temperature rating.

Number three K factor. Number four installation, orientation, number five, water distribution, characteristics, parenthesis I E application rate wall wedding, number six, special service conditions. So this is just a, a really well rounded definition that gives you an idea why an RTI of 50 in the, as F R sprinkler definition is important.

it is a equivalent of the quick response sprinkler rating. And it is a sprinkler that is designed for high challenge storage applications. And like we spoke about before the obstruction characteristics are the most stringent for ESFR sprinklers. S of our sprinklers are one of the only types of sprinklers that will cause the sprinkler subcontractor to be able to.

Um, really drive coordination for the, you know, warehouse or storage facility that you're working with. Um, generally the, you know, lighting and sometimes even structural components will have to move to accommodate the sprinkler application and obstruction ruling for ES R sprinklers. The last type of storage sprinkler application is in rack sprinklers.

In rack. Sprinkler is defined in chapter three as intermediate level sprinkler slash rack storage sprinkler. And it says a sprinkler equipped with integral shields to protect its operating elements from the discharge of sprinklers installed at higher elevations in rack. Sprinkler are usually the least desired option for a storage application because they limit the configuration and have a high.

Material cost upfront and sustained maintenance cost. So that's low flexibility, high materials, cost upfront and high sustained maintenance. There are storage, configurations and situations in which they just simply cannot be avoided. And in that case, you are going to need to use often sprinkler guards and definitely water shields in order to protect these sprinklers from mechanical damage.

The phenomenon known as cold soldering, which is a sprinkler preventing another sprinkler from activating due to water discharge. Still plenty of meat on the bone left for storage. Still have not gotten into some of the flow chart action for how to address these hazards and storage configurations. So please stay tuned for more episodes on storage in the future.

Thanks for listening every. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional.

If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

Welcome to episode 51 of Fire Code Tech. On this episode we are speaking with Ernesto Janica on professional development, electrical engineering, IEEE, open source programs for community outreach and much more. Tune in on this episode to hear tips for how you can learn the fundamentals of fire alarm systems. 

Transcription

Hello, all welcome to the show. I'm Gus Gagliardi, and this is fire code tech on fire code tech. We interview fire protection professionals from all different careers and backgrounds in order to provide insight and a resource for those in the field. My goal is to help you become a more informed fire protection.

Professional fire code tech has interviews with engineers and researchers, fire marshals, and insurance professionals, and highlights topics like codes and standards, engineering systems, professional development, and trending topics in the industry. So if you're someone who wants to know more about fire protection or the fascinating stories of those who are in the field, you're in the right place.

Welcome to episode 51, a fire code tech. In this episode, we have Ernesto Hanukkah. Ernesto is an electrical engineer. And on this episode, we get into some unique topics that I have not had the chance to cover before, like open source for fire and life safety and electrical engineering. And I E, which is one of the biggest professional societies in the world.

I really enjoy talking with Ernesto. He has some great takes on learning for young professionals and professional development recorded this episode earlier in the pandemic and just got the chance to release it, but a really great episode with Ernesto. If you want to hear how to go from a technician to a registered professional electrical engineer and who has a great specialty in fire alarm and electrical engineering.

And this is a great episode, really enjoyed it. Don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode and follow us on social media. Let's get into the show. Hello, Ernesto. Welcome to the podcast. Good morning, Josh. How are you? Good. Good. So I wanted to get started with your background and how you got into the fire protection industry.

Would you tell me a little bit about that? Sure. I, I think this was

electrical engineer

on site

shoes at rice on the farm. Uh, project and, you know, I got to solve some of the issues, uh, the company that was performing that works. So kinda my potential, I guess, brought me to the industry, but it wasn't my, from a family of engineers. Um, so fire protection was not in my, uh, spectrum, but I'm glad that it happened.

Uh, and the best things in life happened like that. So, um, I have good friends and, and mentors in the industry and, and that got me to, uh, fire protection industry. Very neat. Yeah. It seems like, uh, yeah, you've, you are in the fire protection industry, but you've, you know, kept true to your electrical engineering roots and, you know, uh, stayed involved with, uh, you know, fire alarm heavily.

And that seems to be where your, uh, emphasis is. So it's neat to see that. Yes, the Al portion, the electrical portion of protection I also have done

and the interability, you know, systems, so mainly electrical and then a lot of, a lot of science, appli science involved. Um, and that's part of what I like, you know, it's a combination of engineering, math, science, um, and a little bit of luck, I guess. You know, we, we, we all projects very challenging where the solutions are not in the books.

So we have to creative and develop solutions for our customers or for society general. Definitely. Yeah. I think, uh, we can all, uh, benefit from a little luck. I can resonate with that for sure, too. and so, yeah, I definitely got into, uh, The fire protection industry, uh, with a little look. So, um, yeah, I, I understand what you're saying.

Hey, it's relatively a new career, a new field. Um, it's one of the core engineering fields where people were growing up, oh, you're gonna be a mechanical, you're gonna be electrical. You're gonna be civil engineer, building breaches and stuff. Um, so protection is kinda one of the newer, the newer ones. So, but we would see, I think now we have more, you know, multiple generations of, uh, protection engineers.

So on the industry, we continue to grow hopefully, and I've seen very young generations motivated this field. So that's a great, that's a great sensation when you see people into this industry, um, just like we did it before and we keep, you know,

Current engineers or all timers,

especially efforts, its it's a very challenging and promising career. So, um, I encourage everyone that I know to go for fire protection, engineer engineering. Um, so, um, it's a very, very nice field to, to be in actually definitely. Yeah. I have the same, uh, sentiment as you about just how promising the field is and how many opportunities there are for people to have meaningful work and to solve problems and to, you know, be a part of.

Uh, a profession that is just, you know, helping protect people and has an impact on life safety and just, you know, quality of life for people. So it's, uh, it's very meaningful. Yeah. Also the cultural aspects. Sometimes we did like many projects in museums, for example, and you get to enjoy deportation of those type of properties and artifacts that they have a huge, there is, there is no quantifiable value for, for those, uh, paintings or the structure there, or so it is also a beautiful field where you can go and enjoy and work, uh, for protecting not only people, businesses, but for cooking elements that if they can destroy in, um, then there is no replacement for them.

So. That's also one of the aspect that's very beautiful when you can protect, uh, museum or art. Uh, that is stuff, you know, there's not many people working on those, but there's a few, few machines in every city. So, uh, hopefully some people will get a, to work them. And you enjoy also those, those type of, uh, projects.

Yeah. I think, you know, that's a great point about museums and protecting, uh, historical and cultural artifacts. You know, I've been trying to do a lot of reading on fire protection lately and just, you know, thinking about historic fires, you know, thinking about, um, most recently Notre Dame and, you know, thinking about that situation and.

You know, uh, thinking about the implications, um, that that will have on fire protection in the future and how we look at historic structures and, uh, you know, cultural and, uh, you know, just buildings that have such value like that. Uh, so I think it's a very interesting point you make. Yeah, definitely.

Those also made major fire in Brazil where the main museum was down to the ground and every was destroyed. So, uh, we would never get those devices or, you know, S uh, that it's a shame, you know, been different, but you never know. It's just a challenge that we have to tackle moving. Yeah, that's great. So I wanted to circle back a little bit about, and talk a little bit about your, um, just kind of the, you know, your early career.

Um, wondered if you would speak a little bit about your educations and maybe some of the first roles that you had in fire protection. My trade, I was in my undergrad. I deed overseas and then I immigrated to the us. So I had both backgrounds in the, and overseas I master degree protection. I also a master degree management.

So, and education, I like optimization. I like taking those courses and even as an electrical project or as a protection. Related classes. Um, those are the critical for me, at least they were those involved in math analysis. Now also lab help you to

type of, of elements that you want to design. Um, when, uh, I first started on this, I, I did start, I didn't start as an engineer, uh, I guess that they didn't, uh, maybe believe or trust my credentials from overseas, maybe. Uh, so I was hired as a technician. I was helping someone else and driving a truck, uh, with a, a tool belt on my belt all the time.

Uh, every day, day and night doing service and everything the years, uh, changing my two belt and my skills to better serve this C. So from my screw drivers and multimeters, I have the tools set here in my house to be with you. I'm very proud. I'm very, did like that. So I have that technic skill of panels troubleshooting, um, seeing the issues with synchronization or phases in project.

So I did a start like that

helper, then manager consult, so on and so on. So I did not start applying to a job in the internet. There was not such much thing as the internet back then went or the job search back then went so. No resume for me for many years. And I did stay for in that company for several years, maybe eight, eight years.

So very grateful for the people that mentor me. There many technicians me to basics, and there was a lot internal training, uh, for programming panels and the sequence of operations, how to embed the, uh, codes of regulations into the programming part of, uh, the equipment and how that works. Don't recall you nowadays, it's just one that you in the matrix, but I know back then when we were doing programming, uh, with the basic logics, the program interfacing with the devices, going into the field, installing those devices.

So troubleshooting them as well. So a lot of work and I did work. At the same time when I went to university of Maryland for my, my school, my grad degree. So it was very challenging, only a few hours for sleeping and then going back to work and few hours of sleeping and then going the so on. And so for years, so probably double the time, but I got my 4.0, I got a patent application that you friends in that, in that

very grateful.

Wow. That's an incredible, incredible story. I think that it's very meaningful that you had the opportunity to, you know, see fire alarm installation, um, in the eyes of the, you know, the technician, you know, I'm sure that has a huge impact on you now, as you, you know, talk about engineering and, you know, looking at engineering standards and you know, your role now.

Um, so yeah, that's really inspiring and, and very neat. Uh, another thing you mentioned that I wanted to hear a little bit more about is you're talking about programming the panel and, you know, you're actually, you know, doing programming, I, uh, program a little bit in my spare time. I was just, uh, for my own curiosity, wondering, you know, what kind of language does, uh, fire alarm panel user?

Is it, uh, yeah. Could you tell me a little bit about that? Well, the most, the most, uh, most companies use proprietary programming, logic, logic. Why don't you understand what the logic is? It could be a C plus plus or a, or whatever logic is even, even, um, so they all follow logics. So once you understand the logic behind, and then, then you able to program the main challenge is when you, you go to existing site, reprogram something

there people can really and

algorithms into. So you gotta get familiar with, with people that are more complex or the ones that are simpler. So mainly if you, if you can program, uh, basic algorithms or basic databases as well, um, then, then you're to go, doesn't

basic basic logic. And, but they all use proprietary software, I believe, unless now we have, you know, something that is open source, but, uh, uh, back in my, uh, every, every company was a little bit different, but again, it's just you and logics. That's very interesting. Yeah. That makes sense that they all kind of follow the same, uh, logical operators.

And, you know, I have experience with the fire alarm input output matrix, and I could understand how that could be construed as, uh, logic. You know, it is logic it's um, yeah, it's similar. You have to actually translate from the matrix to, uh, to the programmer. So, um, that's basically what the do regarding programming.

Um, also get company has to you from the different levels of training. So you start with panels, then you go for, you know, and then you if

a year, so it takes you, you know, five projects to know a little bit on these things, you know, everything, but get sufficient, solve many problems. So it takes a. Again, it's great to work with these guys. I receive calls from, from my, my fellows as technicians they do on call service. So they call me in the middle of the night, they have this emergency, what can I do, what they trust my judgment and trust.

So we, we go back and forth, you know, even Haven worked with them for maybe 10 years. Now we keep calling each other and, uh, we each other, you know, we try to be friends and, you know, goes just the

friendship trust, you know, you working with these people for, for years or, you know, protecting, protecting people or chemical plants or stuff like that. You do have to trust them the professional skills, the personal level as well. I believe that's, that's how I work. That's awesome. That's really interesting.

Yeah. It's, you know, uh, I, I think any industry is about relations, but especially in fire protection where you're, you know, trying to help these people ensure life safety in a building. Um, there's an even, uh, bigger connection there. So that's neat that you still stay in contact with those people. Yes, I'm for that too.

They became my family actually. that's awesome. That's really cool. So another thing that you, uh, uh, touched on, um, when you were talking about your background is you're speaking a little bit about your patent for the fire alarm industry. I was curious about that. I, I think I read a little bit about it on your, um, LinkedIn or your bio somewhere, but yeah.

Would you tell me a little bit more about that? Well, yes. Uh, in these was, uh, performance based design application for. Um, we had a major project where we were protecting millions of a square feet, retail space use space. Um, the main was the

synchronization, which we fixed in the field and the other one. So we were not, we, we tried to installing the devices, right. We were not part the design team or anything, but I was, you know, doing my grad. So I did say, you know what, we could, this performance design, we could, these resources. So it's analysis there.

Uh, and they say, no, you're how you guys, the main senior consultants. How to put this into drawings, uh, but maybe that wasn't part of that project anyway, but that was, that was the, the challenge that we had, you know, millions of dollars invested, um, maybe more than 20 million actually at the time. So kinda like a big project.

Uh, so it was basically a math application of the code regulations. Uh, the main standard that regulates firearm systems is also based on other requirements. So we went back to those initial requirements, the listings, lab tests, and perform calculations and estimates. And we also had field devices to test and work having, you know, two or three Christmas times in, in these containers working in the.

Winter locations. Uh, so were like, you know what, let's, let's keep doing testing and see how can we improve these things? So we did that, uh, it came out that it before. So we submitted for patent and I did many presentations this topic once the company allowed me to do it, these walls to use work for, uh, so they, so they keep that on.

I think they're using it for their existing devices now. So if you combine that with, you know, maybe power saving, um, capabilities or patents, in other words, um, they're on a save millions of dollars. Uh, and in that specific project, for example, just give you an idea. You, we were able to go back to the owner and that this wasn't easy to do, but we went back to the, you know what?

We can 0.3, for example, So that kind of the scale of, of the savings that you could do in a major project. So some people were not happy, like how you gonna put money back to the owner, don't worry. And then we get hundreds of clients more so, you know, to you money. And then we have hundreds of clients saying, you know what, Hey, can you do this for me?

Can you do this for me? We also got a really good relationship with the designer of that project, which was the, just playing anymore. We, the great, great engineers, great people to work with. And they say like, whoa, we, it was a really good experience. We, we win situation for everywhere. Uh, yes, we, we, we use our project size or cost, but then we also gain so much, you know, So many friends, so many clients, so many, you know, interesting projects where we were able to, to apply these concepts.

So, uh, so that that's a little bit of, without going into the technical details or, or, or the legal aspects of it. Uh, I think that was great opened the door for, for me, especially as a person, an engineer, and also for our company to. Uh, to be out there, you know, and I kept this, these friendships, as I say, before they, before it was at technical level.

Now with this, uh, senior principal engineers, then you still valid today. So this also was more than 10 years ago. So that's great. Yeah, that's really interesting process. Uh, and it sounds like, you know, you got creative and, uh, an engineer's role is problem solving and it sounds like you were, you know, trying to build a better, you know, system, you know, even at the technician level.

So, you know, yeah. It's kind of strange the, uh, implications of, you know, people get a little bit, been outta shape about calling somebody, uh, an engineer, but I mean, you know, the functions of what you're doing, you know, um, helping to design the system at that level. Making it better. I mean, you were already there in, uh, in my opinion, but, uh, yeah, that's really fascinating.

Yeah. Challenge like a little, like

lot of, lot of trust that they put on me. And, uh, I remember my boss at that time, he was really good friend of mine. Uh, Mike, um, uh, I think he put a lot of trust to me and he shows and of friendship and working together and not together. We work different companies, uh, think that they, we do trust the judgment of the people when you you're able to say, okay, this is, this is something that we can do for you.

And then you say, OK. Yeah, I believe I do trust that they. Uh, solution it's looking for the better system or for the client's benefit or for the society benefit. So you start building these relationships with people that don't really care becomes easier. We did different like correctional facilities, environments, you, you were shoulder to shoulder with people that you trust and you know, society.

So that's,

but

issues, boundaries. When you work together with, with you, with your stakeholders, then, then you get these things to, to make these things happen. Yeah, I can see that. So I wanted to, uh, get a little bit of a picture of your role now with, uh, I E and, uh, Yeah. I'd like to hear more about, um, what you're doing now and yeah.

Your role. All right. Um, that's another

I, a membership for IE. We, for those know IE

engineers for those professionals in fields, but we have like nuclear radio

ums, the internet, uh, the wifi was developed here in my office. 25 years ago. The internet was really, you know, uh, 40 years, uh,

So a very passionate group of people. Uh, when I decided to leave the industry, the private sector engineering, uh, I did work for

develops. Unfortunately I came back to and offered this position where I do work for the standards association, which I like developing standards, work development, part of it. So we have about back I E the professional organization. We have over 4,000 members in countries let's put in prospective, maybe SF has about maybe.

Thousand members maybe. And we have, so we have lot of people, professionals, experts working in these fields. Um, we, we do have about 16 to standards and my job is to create new ways of, uh, presenting this information, getting the handbooks for the main standards, educational programs. Can we develop mobile apps, solving the equations within the standards, um, maybe databases to analyze, um, for developing the standards or for the public to use.

Um, so we, we have many of many, many products to, uh, to address those needs. So that's, that's, that's what I basically do, uh, trying to develop new ideas and new products, um, for these standards. Very cool. Yeah. I wasn't aware of. Um, I E is crazy as, as that sounds before, uh, I came across one of your articles on auditability and intelligibility and, uh, you know, I was working on a project and I was trying to understand better, you know, how to lay out voice devices.

Um, I was working at a, on a mass notification system at the time, but so yeah, after doing some research into you and your background, I found out about I E and man, that's really neat that there's such a large organization with so many professional members, and that sounds like, uh, a great thing. Um, I wanted to hear more.

Oh yeah. I just wanted to hear a little bit more about some of the. Types of standards that you guys produce, you know, uh, for, for people who don't know, um, what would these standards pertain to, or when would be a good time to go take a look at 'em and, uh, you know, look at some of the resources like that.

Well, it's, it's, it's a broader aspect though. We, as I said mentioned, we have 16 to 17 standards. So about 40% of them are from power, energy, meaning like nuclear power, um, maybe some aspects related to systems and storage systems, uh, both for like the, uh, vehicles or for our backup powering farm systems.

So we have the standard for almost everything. Uh, again, the internet, it's a big of the standards. Um, the IP addresses. It's also part of my, my group that we, we manage that for society in general. We, we, we are not a super big company. We, we, but we have a, you know, big number of volunteers doing all the work.

Um, so some the important standards are things, uh, power ethernet. That was probably one of my presentations related to firearm systems. So what I try to do sometimes is to, to bring those type of technologies into firearm system, for example, um, there is a lot of information in our databases in our, if you're a member, for example, we have a student members also that they, they, some of them are free or they like the charge is very minimal and you get access to our libraries.

Explore is the name of our main library and it has over 5 million documents. So for example, when I was doing my patent research, uh, I, I did with you more than 20 articles from, and thing happens today. Somebody asked me about any specific technology. The first thing that I do, it's got to explore and check what I need, uh, and read a few things there.

And then you get the top scientist around the world. This, this is people that are everywhere. Not only like, you know, government focus or one country focus or one, this is people from everywhere in the world, uh, looking these problems from different aspects. So when you get that sense of input, so that, that, that type of input that you get input from everywhere and different type of backgrounds, you get a better rounded.

You. Output, you know, you, you, you get a better sense of knowledge, I think. Um, so that's what we do basically. It's, you know, and I think at one point was producing about, of the technical content in the world. So, uh, we are, we are referencing patterns maybe three times more than any other institution. Um, so basically, cause we have many conferences a year, uh, many publications a year, depending on your industry, you know, for, for this specific aspect far, this maybe to society is the one that I to actually also, so maybe a little bit biased.

Uh, but it's one that is kinda related to what type of devices do we use in the field? Cause any device that we have. You know, input or outputs, you know, monitor devices or the relays and the, uh, IO devices, whatever you, you wanna use. Even the 20 relays that we used to have before, um, they could be improved.

And how do you, those technic devices that like electronics go one of those technic societies and you get, you get a lot of feedback. We're also working source

because we are not for profit organization. Uh, but we are looking into also how we develop multiple tools with open source software or, or devices, uh, that will help communities everywhere. So our main focus is advancing technology for human. So, if we can make it happen, we'll make it happen. And that's our main motivation is keep advancing, need to benefit of humanity.

That's really interesting. I've heard of open source a lot, uh, in the field of technology, or like I said, uh, Getting into programming. There's a lot of open source, but I've never heard of open source in the context of, um, electrical engineering or fire protection, um, engineering. So that's really interesting to hear you talk about that and, you know, trying to make resources more available for people.

Oh yes. We already have a team almost ready. We have people that have come from, from the private sector for startups, uh, with this set we're looking to with initiatives that we have. So yeah, but we can main focus. Uh, one of our main focus is one of, we have so many projects to do, but this is one of the important ones that we see in the future collaborating.

And let's put these tools. We also

projects in underserved communi. Uh, where we can send, uh, the devices. So these open source platforms, uh, and help resource system or alarm sensors, source, stuff like that. It's just, you know, using that type of technology for the benefit of humanity will require probably open source. And that's our goal, you know, it's just how make all available for standards them for them.

But after six months we make them available for free. So cause we want the community to know how to use the, you know, the platform for the tools or the requirements. So every manufacturer, every people that every company that is building devices. And able to be compatible with everyone else. So, uh, that, that, that's, that's one of the roles that we play in, in the field.

Uh, you know, we're grateful for that. And we, you know, we have a lot of people that support those ideas and, you know, we'll continue to, uh, as much as we can. That's really interesting. I like that, you know, uh, that's uh, kind of the whole reason why I got started with this podcast is to try to make information, um, about fire protection, just more accessible.

And so, yeah, that's really neat. Yeah.

In,

for panels, if that, if that software will be an open source platform for. That, that incentive won't come from anybody in the protection industry and bring it to I E association or to any other organization. Hey, how can we build this knowing thing? But then you get into IP, intellectual and more challenging, but if you wanna develop something that is completely open source, uh, you know, please look for, for the opportunities out there for the societies that are, uh, trying to promote engineers, great tool, great.

All they, all, they all doing their, our limitations, your time and effort and money. Uh, but mainly time though, it's just like, um, I was talking to someone else before and, um, I think our main challenge would be to manage our. The projects that we have and how we focus, the specific topics that, that deserve more time, uh, because, you know, it seems that we won't have time for everything.

And especially the, with the coronavirus challenges, I think this is, this is important point of human, uh, history where we have to also focus on, you know, how can we improve these medical devices? For example, we have, uh, actually has, you know, many initiatives now, how can we develop, you know, respirators cheaper, or you can someone donates to, to do so that stuff you priority,

give those tools.

Is that there are some of those technologies that are for fire protection industry that could be helping other people in the medical fields. So, uh, there are many opportunities and once you get the grasp of what you can do, then you will, you'll never have enough time to do all. You always have idea new ideas, a new project.

That's the challenge, help some people and new generations to more that's we're

research, creating tools, solving new problems. That's what it's gonna happen. You you're gonna have new challenges and you need new. So. I like that. That's great. Uh, yeah, I definitely see what you're saying about, uh, once you start to peak under the hood, it, you know, trying to look at new and better waves to solve things, you know, it just kind of opens up Pandora's box and, you know, there's just, uh, never enough time for all the, you know, different problems you wanna solve or, you know, new methods you wanna try.

And so, yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying about that, but, um, uh, yeah, I wanted to, uh, transition a little bit, you know, I know that you have, uh, a specialty in fire alarm, so I wanted to pick your brain a little bit about some of the. Trickier areas in, in fire alarm or, yeah, I just was wondering if you had any advice for learning some of the more difficult areas in fire alarm design, like, uh, you know, I know that you have a heavy influence in mass, so I didn't know if you had any, um, tips or, you know, guidance for professionals trying to learn about calculations or just, uh, fire alarm design layout, or anything like that.

Okay. Um, yes, I would recommend ions to do, do it, just do it that way for, for a good time. You know, I mean, once you, when you, when you become familiar with that, with the standard projects, can't be solve with that set of recommendations or requirements, those that's code. Or designed to right where the code is gonna tell you this device have to be here at this distance far away from this ventilation system, X, Y.

So, uh, each device actually has a, a requirement, uh, a prescriptive way of doing it. You do it like that for, until you are really, really familiar with that. Um, then you, you, you explore into, uh, the performance based design. So anything that you think is a great area in the it's an opportunity. Um, look at the annex material in the handbooks, for example, in the I'm just referencing the main file signaling code.

If you go those and the handbook, the handbook.

Uh, and then the annex material, we have additional information about how the operate, right. Uh, that would be basic. Now there's also calculation for as well. So those aspects are there for recently. They're not in the code yet. They may come to the parts of the code. So they leave the annex and become part of the formal code with the standard.

The annex usually is not part of the code on the standard as regulation. So for those that know standards, but the is like add material there. Right? So look for those and see the, for the opportunities there. If you have these skills to do math at that level, or at a more advanced level, then you're gonna have great opportunities to develop your own things, to be successful at it.

So that, that would be my recommendation. Start with the, the regular standards work,

uh, ion facilities like courthouses or public or malls or hotels, then you're

stuff like that. We give you a really good background. Uh, once you have that, I think it's easier to go to the performance based, but I will not recommend a new person in the field to go directly to the performance based. Because those are, I think to, um, at this is my personal opinion. You know, I work for developing organizations, but I do not participate on the working groups.

This is only my personal opinion. It's not their recommendation. Um, I, I think those performance design elements are there to solve the unique environments. Uh, people hide or small control systems that are not, you know, in a square box, uh, that is when you're gonna need those type of

everything is to, so I think you have to put your time that's that's for sure. This is nothing that you're gonna practice 20 minutes a day for like three weeks. And you're good to go. Now it's gonna take a couple years or maybe more than that. So, um, just be patient and be thorough. The math. So especially math, you have to have background math and science.

Um, I dunno if I mentioned before, but I do write books for kids book for kids. So for me, it's language, you different native language. If you're good on math, you're gonna to explain your thoughts to any other person in the world, even if you're gonna speak the same language, like, you know, uh, but if you math is the universal language, I think so, uh, those are my recommendations.

At least that's great. That's really good recommendations. I like that. You know, get your fundamental solid, you know, use the annex material and the handbook material. Uh, I just got a couple, um, the 2019 handbook for. Fire alarm code and for, uh, sprinkler and FPA 13 and FPA 72. There's so much good information in those books.

Yeah. And, um, images that are not in the code show, like this is the way of the right way of

you see the examples of how you do it. Right. And how you don't do it. Right. So you get like, oh, this is what it means. And then when that clicks in your mind, then you know, it, you know, kinda it's like internalizing the knowledge and then it becomes like an, you know, transition to any project, but you're like, oh, okay.

That's what it means. Got. So, uh, but it's difficult. Sometimes the codes and the standards are really us from, from a legal perspective. So very black and white kinda thing. You know, the contrast are really there for a reason, but, um,

Uh, know what the subject matter experts thinks about. Every one of the regulations it's good stuff. Yeah. And, uh, I have a lot of interest in performance based design, but like you were saying, I don't, I don't know if I'm at that point in my career yet where I, uh, am comfortable with, uh, doing a lot of those, uh, calculations.

Um, and also they're not, yeah, you have to do everything though. Focus one or two things that you're really passionate about.

Industry's

um, uh, don't try to, to learn everything cause you won't be able to do it, right. Not at least from my perspective. Yeah. That's a good note. I like that. I like that. So. I wanted to, um, ask you about some professional development topics, because, um, from my perspective, it seems like you have a passion for educating others and yeah.

Just, uh, being a resource. Uh, I really resonate with that and I think that's great. But, um, yeah, I wanted to ask, um, what do you see as a meaningful trend in the industry right now? I know you've talked about, um, power over ethernet and, uh, internet of things, um, which are a couple, uh, big terms in the industry right now.

But yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Well, mainly for educational purposes, there, there's a lot of training out there already. I think the main players educational program developers go into the online programs because.

Coronavirus outbreak. Uh, there is not too many face to face events anymore, which we used to do a lot of them, many of do as well. So I think that's, that's a challenge that transit of that content and information, the skills, some of these, um, trainers, they do have the expertise in this fields. So it's the face to face training was developed to bring that to the out there.

And I'm

72 and many countries. So you, you wanna to bring this information to people that cannot travel more distances or this. To come, uh, to the us or other places to, to get this training. So that's another challenge right now. And you, most entities will transition to program. Um, let's see how much we do, uh, from the it perspective.

We maybe develop to 20 programs a year. Uh, we'll see, how many can we do, uh, with the, this, this year, maybe a little bit different cause everythings changing, but, uh, we'll adapt. We will continue to educational training. And also from my perspective engineer, can we, um, we, we do it through different organizations.

Maybe this one

colleagues.

I think that's great. Yeah. The there's really been an explosion of online learning opportunities and a lot of free opportunities, you know, with organizations like, uh, S F P and American fire alarm association, and N F P and NFSA and a F S so there's a lot of great, uh, opportunities right now that people are trying to, um, you know, still have outreach in normal, uh, content delivery.

So it's been a really interesting time, uh, to be professional with all these, uh, resources being, um, the flag being, you know, thrown up for people still wanted to converse and grow the industry. Yeah, I don't mention the individual SDOs, but yeah, every, every SDO is trying to do the best for their communities.

Um, you know, our members are, you know, eager to go back to India, China, anywhere like, you know, these people really needs to be proficient. These design systems,

um, to like put plan together or groups of classes together. Okay. This is the basic level for the technician. This is the next level for. The next level of professional, you know, and don't try to replicate every content, you know, that be like a waste of resources from my perspective that, you know, we need to be this limitations.

We also vulnerable. We are, um, with our resources, with our time, with our, with our people that, that we get in contact with. Um, so I think we have to be very smart to identify, okay, these are good, skip it like that. You know, make an agreement with that organization and teach those the basic requirements and go to the next one.

The next one, the next one, you may find a few different ways of teaching one class, but, uh, the basic concepts should be basic concepts everywhere. So I will try not to the wheel if we can, you know, the fundamentals, right. And then. For those performance design classes. And that could a little bit different in technology, but, uh, don't try to make different classes on the same topic.

Cause then, then, then it's just a waste of resources. I believe the also get overwhelmed with, of invitations to glasses and stuff like that. So we have those as well. Yeah. I think that's a great point. You make about, um, the global state of fire protection and, you know, just, uh, having resources that can reach all around the world.

That's something that I have a lot of interest in just because, you know, I. Understand, you know, you know, how codes and standards work in other countries. You know, I was reading about, uh, like, uh, Australia and Japan last night. And you know, how they're a little bit about how their model codes work. And it's interesting.

I, I really like the idea of, uh, you know, a fire protection class or some sort of resource that would be helpful to anyone, you know, despite the fact that their model codes and standards might not work in the same way that the us does or that, you know, uh, another country that follows the international building code.

But yeah, I don't know what your, uh, thoughts are about that. I wanted to ask you just about, you know, your global sense of fire protection and maybe some of those resource things too. Well, all, all the S.

Depending on the technology, depending on the challenges, depending we get a new chemical product or acid, you know, that need to be especially the, to be specially designed for those types challenges. So that's gonna matter. Um, so the, the standards are mainly guidelines depending on the type of infrastructure that you have or the building you have between countries regions.

Right? So see that

gonna happen no matter what, but if you get your basics fundamental, done properly, how you, you know, take the, or file chemical reactions or of light or the levels of ability and are. Easy to get acknowledged to, or, um, an agreement on from people anywhere in the world. And we have done an in China with audio and everything.

So, um, many contractors came from Australia to

database there as well. So, um, same regulations, applications, a little bit different. Um, so I, I think it's gonna, you know, the difference between and could happen, but once you have fundamentals then to, to local regulations, be my perspective, you will adapt to projects like in the same, the us, you have 50 states, uh, and every state have different, a little bit different regulations.

Maybe, you know, half of them are the same. But then once you adapt to the basic gimme what's difference. What, what here do. So the basic concept should be based on math, science, and technology, right? The other are more like

bilities. So, uh, that's where you're gonna see the difference. Maybe body calculations, same applies for everywhere, but your of calculations will defer based on the local regulation or the insurance that

calculations doesn't matter. They tell you 24 hours or 48 hours. It doesn't matter. 60 hours, you put a name, a number you do calculation based with the number and you're good. So that would not be the challenge for me, at least from my perspective, uh, you get the fundamentals ready and then get the local organization to see what's different.

Yeah. Uh, yeah. You're, you're exactly right. Um, I mean, fire science is fire science all around the world and fire chemistry is fire chemistry, no matter what language you read it in. And so I like what you said about, you know, math and science or universal languages and yeah. The fundamentals, you know, understanding.

You know, needing battery calculations or needing, uh, uh, pressure and flow requirements for a sprinkler system, um, is the same, no matter where you are, you know, uh, despite the jurisdictional differences. Um, so yeah, that's really good. I like your take on, um, the fundamentals and building resources for people to, you know, understand the basics of fire protection engineering.

So I wanted to, um, end with, uh, topic that has been on my mind a lot recently, uh, energy storage systems seems like, has been, um, a big topic of discussion in the industry, uh, with lithium ion batteries and thermal runaway and that sort of thing. But, uh, yeah, I just wanted to hear your thoughts about, um, Energy storage systems and how you see, um, the fire protection industry gonna change to address these new hazards and yeah.

What your thoughts are about that? Well, I, I think that's one of the areas that

expert an expert on the energy storage. So, uh, I have read a few things, but I'm not that deeply involved into it. Don't have feedback into it just because,

oh, that's okay. Yeah. I'm no. Subject matter expert on, uh, batteries or energy storage either. I just, uh, yeah, it's interesting to me to look at those type of problems because, you know, I'll be designing fire protection for occupancies with, uh, battery testing, um, spaces, or, you know, where they'll be storing racks of batteries or, you know, just these rooms and, you know, thinking about the different hazard categories of, um, nickel, cadmium batteries and lithium ion batteries.

And, you know, I've read some interesting articles recently about, you know, uh, fire protection on, uh, airplanes and you know, how, uh, Thermo runaway of lithium ion batteries and like, um, the cargo bay of airplanes is a really big problem. And yeah, so, I mean, that's kind of where I'm coming on, but I understand, uh, it's kind of a out of the blue topic.

But, yeah, I think I've just been thinking about it a lot recently. Yeah, no, at least for me, I didn't work in those fields or the wildfires, for example, very important in California and places to also have likes recently. So wildfires big topic like that. I was surprised also when I

people involved, um, protect guys involved, um, developers involved. So the technical aspects, I think they will be solved. Um, some point we need to back to, to my roots. Uh, consensus based documents, right? So we need the feedback from all these experts to be able to build something that it's it's it's it's OK.

Or, you know, at least the baseline for designing systems for the as well. Um, so, you know, it just need a lot of people to, to develop something like this. Maybe 50 people I expect to be working a specific topic. So if you, you want something or, or agreement like design guidelines or design systems, you name any, any type of industry you're gonna need the working groups and the SSEs and you need program more than, than 20 people to do it order to make it happen.

Well, I think there could be smaller groups or task task forces to develop a specific. Uh, databases, how they track the existing fires. The data's out there. If, if they have the data, the owners manufacturers have the data stores, for example, the S for all that is collect data. And that data has to be analyzing order to get, um, a good fundamental data set or analysis of that data to be able to build on it.

So, because, you know, back in the day didn't have that capability or that data as a, because they didn't exist, we didn't have sensors for everything, but they went right. So was no data sets. Now we getting, we're getting more data sets to be able to do the calculations and say, you know what? Safety distance, three, four feet stuff like that will improve technology.

And thewhere. Without a doubt. Yeah. Uh, you, you talking about data sets, uh, brings to mind, uh, I think, uh, FM just released a good paper on, um, energy storage system and yeah, they were talking about, uh, separation distance being one of the biggest factors for, you know, limiting fire spread to other modules of energy storage systems.

So yeah, I think you're right. Uh, yeah, we're see that more and more

analysis,

you know, before it was more about the good engineering practices, uh, what people thought it was good or safety enough. Uh, but now we're getting more into data analytics processing that data it's crucial for having. A better sense of what is, okay, what is a safety requirement? What is, you know, the proper voltage drop regulation, stuff like that is the more data we analyze, the better that, that, that, how be data is process.

So, you know, I think that's, that's only the aspect that some people will be moving into it. Not a lot of people get excited about the standards and processing data stuff, but one or two that work on this will be, be not on the, but do bring, do analytics on it's. We all need to put expertise, do little by little, get a C based out there for sure.

Yeah, no, I get ex I get a little excited about the data. I, I'm not, uh, I'm not real good about, uh, reading all those, uh, you know, I'll read the extract and the conclusion of those, some of those scientific journal journal articles, but, uh, it's pretty hard to get through a full, you know, 40 page document of talking about testing methods and all that.

So yeah. But anyways, Ernesto, thank you so much for, you know, go coming on the podcast and talking with me. I appreciate it. Um, I learned a lot, so thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a code and standards. Interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional. If you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.

On this episode we are speaking about manual fire alarm boxes. Codes standards, definitions, and installation details are all discussed in this solocast.

Transcription

Hello. Welcome to the solo cast of fire code tech in these episodes. It's just gonna be me, your host, Gus Gagliardi. There's gonna be a range of topics, but I'm gonna talk about specific technologies, installation, standards, codes, and how they work as well as some other interesting topics that don't neatly fit inside of the context of a normal interview.

Welcome to episode 33 of fire code. On this episode, we're talking about manual poll stations. Yes. Our first episode ever of the solo cast series was about duct detectors, which was a bit of a deviation from a lot of the other episodes that I've done in the solo cast series, where we look at a really broad topic like fire alarm systems or fire sprinkler systems, and then just kind of.

Broad overview, but I wanted to talk about manual pool stations in much the way that we talked about duck smoke detectors in the first solo cast episode. In this episode, we're going to be talking about codes and standards around manual pool stations. When these systems are required. As well as installation details of manual fire alarm boxes.

Before we get started with the show, don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode and follow us on social media. Also, if you could give us a five star review on apple podcast, that would be a big help. NFPA 72 defines what a manual fire alarm box is. So I wanted to frame our discussion with this definition to get us started off.

It's pretty broad. It states in the 2016 version of NFPA 72 section 3.3 point 12.3 manual fire alarm box says a manually operated device used to initiate a fire alarm signal. You can also commonly hear these devices referred to as pool stations. There are a couple different types of pool stations.

Usually there are. Single action or double action. Uh, if it's single action that is just a pull or just a push. And if it's double action, it's two steps. So it could be, uh, lift and pull or a push and pull. So there are a couple of different styles of devices. And depending on the codes and standards used, you may be required to use the double action manual pool station.

If you're working on UFC 3, 600 0 1 compliant jobs, you would be required to provide double action type manual pool stations and all, except for a couple very specific locations, uh, like hazardous areas, we, and dam locations, things of this nature. You can take a look at. Nine dash 18.7 0.4 and UFC 3, 600 0 1, uh, change six.

So that is for military projects for commercial projects in order to determine where these manual. Pool stations are required. You would look in the international building code for where these systems are referenced. There are a couple of different places you can look that might require manual pool stations, but specifically I would recommend first taking a look at the occupancies that are prevalent in your building.

And then going to chapter nine more specifically, section 9 0 7. Um, which is for fire alarm systems and take a look at the specific occupancies within your building and the thresholds for manual pool stations or manual fire boxes as, as they are called in the building code. Let's take a look at group a occupancies in 9 0 7, specifically 9 0 7 0.2 0.1 in the international building code.

So this section says a manual fire alarm system that activates the occupant notification system in accordance with section 9 0 7 0.5 shall be installed in group a occupancies where the occupant load due to assembly occupancy is 300 or more, or where group a occupant load is more than a hundred person.

Uh, above or below the lowest level of exit discharge. So I'm not gonna read this whole section, but I wanted to go over this first piece to show you that it not only requires a fire alarm system, but a manual fire alarm system. So that tells you that. This is not just the automatic components of a fire alarm system, but a manual means of initiation is required.

When this section is invoked. There's an exception to this section and it says manual fire alarm boxes are not required where the building is equipped throughout with an automatic sprinkler system installed in accordance with 9 0 3 0.3 0.1 0.1 and the occupant notification appliances will activate through.

The notification zones upon sprinkler water flow. This is an important caveat to the requirement in 9 0 7 0.2 0.1 for group a occupant. This means that if you have a sprinkler system with water flow devices that initiate notification upon water flow, you can exclude manual fire alarm boxes. It really depends on the occupancy that you are looking at, and then you need to read very closely.

Um, if these manual fire alarm systems are required, and if you take a look at occupancies like EI and R, there are more detailed requirements for manual fire, alarm boxes, uh, that go maybe above and beyond a business or a. Different less hazardous occupancy. Oftentimes there are provisions even where manual fire alarm boxes are excluded due to exceptions that one be provided in a constantly attended location or one be provided for the facility in order to provide manual fire alarm initiation for the facility manual fire alarm box is mentioned 25 times in section 9 0 7.

So. Do go back and read the specific provisions for manual pool stations or manual fire alarm boxes. When you're designing these for your facilities, let's talk about installation or location features in considerations for manual pool stations or manual fire alarm boxes, as they're referred to in the building code.

9 0 7 0.4 0.2 titled manual fire alarm boxes states where a manual fire alarm system is required by another section of this code, it shall be activated by the fire alarm boxes installed in accordance with sections 9 0 7 0.4 0.2 0.1 through 9 0 7 0.4 0.2 0.6. Location manual fire alarm boxes shall be located not more than five feet from the entrance to each exit in buildings, not protected by automatic sprinkler systems.

Additional manual fire alarm boxes shall be located so that the distance travel to the nearest box does not exceed 200 feet. So, this is a very important consideration for the location of manual fire alarm boxes. You want to provide these near the exit and optimally on the. If it is a swing type door with a knob or a handle, you want to put it on the handle side so that it is in the natural reaching position of the individual who is exiting the building.

Mounting height is critical. That's why we're gonna take a look at 9 0 7 0.4 0.2 0.2 in the international building code, which states the height of manual fire alarm boxes shall be not less than 42 inches and not more than 48 inches measured vertically from the floor level to the activating handle or level of the box mounting height and the location in regard to the door.

Extremely critical when locating manual pool stations, um, beware that some states like California have additional ADA requirements that might, uh, make 48 inches too high for a manual pool station. So, um, there are additional requirements for manual pool stations, depending on your jurisdiction and, um, ADA compliance as well.

Another consideration for fire alarm manual pool stations is that there are occupancies in which you need to not make manual fire alarm boxes accessible to the general public, like a bank or a institutional occupancy, like a prison in which the, uh, Nuisance activation of a manual pool station might prevent a safety incident of greater concern.

These are malicious false alarms, and this provision is detailed in section 9 0 7 0.4 0.2 0.5. Protective covers. Another, you know, comment about the location of manual poll stations is that you want to provide them for your points of egress. If you just have a one off mechanical room that you have in a portion of your facility and.

It is not, uh, it exits straight to the exterior from the mechanical room. You probably will not be located in a manual pool station in this portion of the facility. Really it's unless it's a, uh, government job, um, then there's a decent chance you would be, but. Very similar to fire extinguishers. You want these manual fire alarm, pool stations, conspicuously located and unobstructed.

So you don't want signage or things in the way that is, uh, a problem that is very prevalent at facilities will have these obstructed or obscured. So definitely something to think about when, um, locating these devices. Chapter 17 in NFPA 72. Is where you will find requirements for manual pool stations.

And that is chapter 17 is initiating devices. So there are a lot of mirrored requirements from the building code, um, in an FPA 72. So, um, as far as location, five feet from the door, um, 200 feet travel distance, and some other features are a mirror from the building code, but some additional information.

That's gonna do it for this episode of the solo cast series of fire code tech, but thank you all for listening and we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening everybody. Be sure to share the episode with a friend, if you enjoyed it, don't forget that fire protection and life safety is serious business.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are by no means a professional consultation or a codes and standards interpretation. Be sure to contact a licensed professional, if you are getting involved with fire protection and or life safety. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time.