Fire Code Tech

Welcome to Fire Code Tech solocast episode 11! This week's podcast breaks down the intro to fire science. We go over a bunch of fire phenomena basics and break into some of the behavior's of fire. 

Faraday's Candle Lecture Part 1

Flashover Youtube

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 11 of fire code tech, the solo cast. In this episode, we are doing the introduction to fire science. Yes. This is an homage to fire on the day after the 4th of July, July 5th. And I thought, what better way to touch on some of the recent events, uh, fire statistics, uh, fire phenomenon, fire behavior, types of fire.

Um, and you know, and is something that is on people's mind this time of year. So I thought, why not touch on this subject a little bit more and explore one of the, the tenants of fire protection engineering and. Anybody who performs fire and life safety risk analysis, which is understanding the physics and implications of fire.

I'd like to start with the definition of fire. Fire is described as by the Oxford dictionary as combustion or burning in which substances, combine chemically with oxygen from the air, and typically give out bright. Heat and smoke. So there's a couple telling, uh, pieces of this definition. It says generally combined with oxygen, um, substances that generally combined with oxygen.

So there are other oxidizers then oxygen, but oxygen, his probably the most common. And so, um, uh oxidizer is. Physical hazard of chemicals. So it's, um, pure ox. Oxygen is an oxidizer. There are also solid oxidizers jet propulsion, often uses solid oxidizer. And so the fuel needs a, a way to oxidize and fire itself is in oxidation reduction reaction.

It's an exothermic reaction. So for those who may not know a exothermic reaction is a chemical reaction that gives off heat as a byproduct of the chemical reaction. When giving a preliminary talk about the phenomenon of fire, it's, uh, very typical to speak about the fire Tetra Hedron and in this Tetra Hedron you can find.

Oxygen heat and an uninhibited chemical reaction. These are the components that are needed to sustain combustion or create a fire. and the components of this fire, Tetra, Hedron give an insight into how to, uh, eliminate or suppress a fire. So when we look at fire suppressants, um, we may the way in which, or the function of the.

Tetra Hedron in which we are, uh, limiting or reducing. So if we take a look at water and how water is, uh, a very good firefighting, um, substance, let's evaluate it in the light of the fire. Tetra Hedron. water is a very effective cooling agent. So it takes impact to the heat portion of the fire. Tetra Hedron in that it has a very high, uh, latent heat evaporation.

And so it can, um, absorb, uh, a large volume of energy. Um, in its phase change from liquid to a gassiest phase, water has a very high expansion ratio of over, uh, one to, uh, 1600 times. Um, one gallon of water converts to approximately, um, 200 plus cubic feet of. Another big pro of water is that it's very readily available and, uh, cheap and not harmful to the inhabitants of a building, but that's a little bit off the subject.

There are four main types of fire, the main types being a diffuse flame, like a flame, like a Bunsen burner or a jet engine, a smoldering fire. You can think of coal, any fire that might be deep seated in, uh, maybe, uh, charred wood or, uh, maybe like hay. And then there is spontaneous combustion. One of the common.

References to spontaneous combustion might be Linee oil soaked rags for deck staining or, uh, oil soaked rags from a restaurant. The process of fire is a gassiest phenomenon. There is a certain breaking down of, uh, solids and liquids or, uh, transformation into the gassiest phase. And this decomposition is commonly referred to as pyrolysis fire science is a combination of fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and a mixture of other physical sciences that are sort of the composition of.

The physics, chemistry and, um, engineering sciences around, um, the motion of the particles involved with fire. One of the most famous introductory conversations about and lectures about fire science is conducted by Michael Fairday or should I say was conducted by Michael Fairday and it still offers great insight into the behavior of fire.

And that is his, uh, candle lecture that he would give every Christmas. Michael Fairday would use the diffuse flame of a candle to illustrate different components of a flame and a fire. There are a bunch of great reenactments of Michael Faraday's talk on his candle lecture. And so I'll throw some links down in the comments.

If you want to go check that out, there are a couple main types of heat transfer. There is convection, which is. Heat transfer through the motion of fluids. There is conduction, which is the heat transfer between two solids. And then there is radiation, which is the energy emitted by matter, in the form of electromagnetic waves.

Let's talk about flashpoint. Flashpoint is the lowest temperature at which vapors will. Given an ignition source. So we talked about this before, when we evaluated hazardous materials, but typically flashpoint is in reference to a liquid and the ized gases off of a liquid. And when they will, uh, ignite. So this is an important term for.

Fire science because of the gassiest phenomena of fire. And so when we look at the material, uh, physical science of different, um, substances flashpoint is a common for evaluating hazard and risk. Another good definition. In discussing fire science's auto ignition temperature, which is described as the lowest temperature at which a mixture of fuel and an oxidizer can propagate a flame with no other heating, uh, substance.

This is the description of like, if you had a material in an oven at what temperature would it, um, automatically ignite. That's another temperature to describe the physical chemistry of the ignition of a substance temperatures for fire can range from about 400 degrees to about 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit or for our metric friends, 200 degrees Celsius to about, uh, 5,000 degrees Celsius.

another good topic for understanding fire is that there needs to be a proper fuel to air ratio in order. Burning to occur or, uh, a flame to propagate or, uh, an explosion to propagate. So a mixture can be too rich or too lean. Uh, if a mixture is too rich, the flame cannot start just as well as if there is not enough fuel, then the mixture cannot.

So there, depending on the fuel, there is a range of flammability and depending on the fuel, there could be also, uh, a range of explode ability. Fire is a process that yields carbonation particles and carbon diox. The main source of deaths from fires generally are from inhalation. I think by over 70%, um, it's usually not the heat.

It's the, uh, poisonous ingestion of, and, uh, asphyxiation due to. Inhalation of carbon issue particles, common poisonous combustion gases are carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen cyanide. Carbon monoxide is the leading killer in these narcotic combustion gases. When the body inhales carbon monoxide, it makes car boxy hemoglobin in the.

which prevents the cells from oxygenating flashover is a term that describes the fire's progression into a full room event where the smoke layer has reached a significant temperature to engulf the entire contents of a room. There are some really interesting videos of flashover on YouTube. Uh, maybe I'll post one in there if you wanna check it out.

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.

Welcome to episode 31 of Fire Code Tech! On this episode we are speaking with John Zalepka about everything passive fire protection. John is the host of The Burn podcast, and we get into the impetus for starting the show and the great content that he is involved with. Tune in to this episode if you are interested in professional development tips, marketing / business development advice and much more.

https://www.stifirestop.com/news/the-burn-podcast

https://www.stifirestop.com/videos

https://www.stifirestop.com/firestop-training

Would you tell us a little about your origin?

What is Specified Technology Incorporated?

What are your thoughts on single contractor designation for firestopping?

What kind of firestopping products are available?

Would you speak about the roles that you held and what you do now?

Would you speak about The Burn Podcast?

What was the impetus for starting the podcast and would you speak more on the origin?

What are some tips and tricks that you would give for marketing?

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 30, one of fire code tech. On this episode, we have John EPCA in episode 30, one of fire code tech. We are talking about everything. Passive fire protection. John is the host of the new, the burn podcast from STI. And we get into the reasons why he's got into this podcast game tuned into this episode of fire code tech.

Cuz we talk about some absolutely fabulous tips and tricks for professional development. How to grow as a professional and how to market yourself as somebody in the workforce. If you love fire protection, professional development, and how to get ahead in fire and life safety, you're gonna love this episode.

If you want to hear more about John, check out the show notes, you can check out a link to the burn podcast and a lot of the other. Links that we talk about in the show, don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode of fire code tech and follow us on social media. LinkedIn's probably the platform where we post the most consistently.

Also, if you could do me a huge favor and give us a five star review on apple podcast that helps out our analytics and helps us stay in your feed. Let's get into the show. Well, welcome to the podcast, John. Thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate the time, Gus. Thanks for having. Well, awesome. Well, I love to get started with, um, a little bit about your background and, and how you kind of found your way into the industry.

More specifically kind of, uh, fire stopping and passive fire protection. Would you tell me a little bit about that, John? Sure. I mean, well, how does anyone really find themselves in their career? Really? I mean, it wasn't like. Running around the neighborhood saying, Hey, I can't wait for the passive fire protection industry to be born so I can have a career goal.

I mean, you know, it's interesting to think about, but as a whole fire stopping is relatively new to the construction industry and it's still somewhat in its infancy. If you ask me really so. Sure. I guess in a way, my career kind of parallels that, you know, I started my first business when I was in college and I eventually sold off most of the intellectual property to target corporation in 2000.

And. And after a semi retirement for a summer to get my golf game in, in line, I started working as a marketing consultant to stay busy. And then in 2013, a very dear friend of mine, David jello, who is, uh, the Northeast regional manager at STI. Now, uh, he and I were sitting around just kind of talking business and I was a few years removed from the sale of, of my business.

And I, like I said, I'd been doing some consulting work. Until that time. And then I was ready to, I guess, to get a real job. So I thought I was gonna go and work for a big agency. You know, I'd always been in the branding and marketing and advertising world. So I was gonna be calling on some of the largest brands in the world in New York city.

And Dave was like, Hey, I didn't know you were looking for a job. And I kind of said, I really wasn't. And he said, give me your resume. Seven plus years later. Here I am. Wow. Yeah. That's so funny. I love your point about like, oh, you know, how does anyone find a career in, you know, I have, uh, um, sisters in-law that are in high school and early college.

And I remember what I was like, kind of in college or getting outta college. And most people are just kind of stumbling through it. I resonate with that. That's pretty funny. And also, yeah, I mean, what a great industry to, to, to fall into and, you know, uh, with the so much promise. So that's cool. I love hearing about that.

Yeah. So, yeah. Would you, so mostly you've, uh, uh, been at, uh, the company you're with now at, uh, STI, uh, would you tell the listeners about, uh, kind of what that company is for, for those who don't. Sure. Well, um, STI stands for a specified technologies, Inc for anyone that doesn't know, uh, we're a industry leader in developing innovative fire protective systems, essentially that stopped the spread of fire smoke and hot gases.

Right? So we talk about passive fire protection. So for over 30 years, uh, since 1990, uh, we started and, you know, we kind of work hand in hand with the construction industry. We try to simplify the solutions, cuz sometimes it can get kind of messy out there with fire stopping problems. Uh, we see 'em all the time.

I, I started as a, a territory manager here, uh, back in 2013, just working with, uh, contractors, essentially. Uh, Teaching them how to install proper fire stop systems. I mean, the funniest story was when I first started, I had some great teachers. I mentioned David jello, but mark nun who has since passed away.

But he was a, he was a former contractor who came to work atti the same time as I did. And the first day out in the field, he, he brought me a hard hat and a, and it was, it was brand new and he kind of took a look at me and said, nah, it doesn't look right. He started kicking my hard hat down the street and threw my vest in some mud.

And, you know, he threw me in a stairwell with a drywall contractor to kind of spend some time with the folks that actually install our products. And, you know, I couldn't believe that, you know, a single trade didn't install, fire stopping. I mean, can you imagine if every time you ran a sprinkler pipe through a wall that the drywall contractor was responsible to make sure that worked.

Kind of like, it was very eye opening right in the beginning, but, um, fascinating at the same time to learn how the different trade. Use our products. Wow. That's a great story. Yeah. I've always heard the, the new people on the construction site talking about kicking their, their hard hat around in the mud.

So that, that you don't look so shiny on your first day that did . He took, he took a look at me. He was like, no, that's not gonna work. So, uh, that's exactly what we did. You gotta target on your back, John, we gotta fix that. Absolutely. That's great. Yeah, that's a great point on, uh, you know, uh, how it's not just one trade looking at fire.

Um, but, uh, you know, I should probably is kind of, uh, outta sequence in how I thought it would go, but in, uh, where I work now, we, um, love to see if we can one, um, dedicated person doing the fire stop, but it seems like most of the time it is. Like, uh, you know, each trade kind of doing it, but we try to ride our specs to where there's one, uh, contractor kind of doing the fire stop.

Would you, uh, do you have any thoughts on that or like how often you're, you're seeing that in the industry or, or if you are still kind of in a capacity to, to speak on that? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you know, we always recommend that, you know, and oftentimes architects and engineers will write it into the specification.

That one trade is responsible for all of the fire stopping, whether that's actually enforced by the time it gets to the job site, um, that remains to be seen. And that is contingent a lot upon the general contractor, the local authority, having jurisdiction, the ownership, a lot of people have a say, or don't have a say in, who's gonna do the fire stopping.

And, and so. When it falls down to the trades, you know, hopefully they're qualified enough to do that. And that's why we spend a lot of time training the different subcontractors and trade specific applications so that, you know, if, and when it does fall down to them, uh, they're prepared to, to be able to pick up the pieces.

But you know, there are specialty fire, stop contractors. Uh, the F CIA is out there, so they have a, a great list. Of folks who are, you know, prepared to do all of the different types of applications. Um, so sometimes we'll see, you know, midway through a project, the general contractor say, okay, that's enough.

I've seen enough. So let's get someone in here that, uh, knows all of the systems and can kind of clean it up. So, you know, but upfront, if you can, you know, pre-construction meetings, if the subs are gonna do it, if you can get everyone coordinated, There shouldn't be a problem, but you know, if you can have a specialty contractor do it, that that's always recommended.

Yeah. It's interesting. It seems like the bigger projects always have it, but, um, some of the smaller guys, it's a little bit more of, uh, um, at the discretion of the, the individual contractor, but, uh, interesting. Yeah. I like talking about that and. I don't know, I'd like to dive into, to passive fire protection more and, uh, stick on this point a little bit.

Um, yeah, I don't know. Uh, I'm a code nerd. So my head always goes to like, uh, how do we know when we need passive fire protection or, you know, you guys also deal with like, uh, um, smoke tight, uh, penetrations as well, or that sort of. Yeah, that's right. So essentially, when do you need it is anytime an opening is created in a wall or floor, uh, for fire stopping a rated wall or floor, and then the same deal.

When you have your, your smoke partitions there, you're gonna need to put some type of smoke and an acoustical sealant in there to, you know, stop the spread of, of smoke through those walls as well. So E essentially, anytime a hole or an opening is created. So if you're talking about a mechanical electrical plumbing, sprinkler, co.

Throw all knocking holes in there to run their, their service lines that make a building inhabitable. Uh, you have contractors that create joints, uh, drywall contractors, masons, uh, that make control joints that, you know, you have two rated assemblies that come together that need to be fire stopped with the material that is a Laster that can kind of move with the joint because that's what it's intended to do to begin.

And then you have your edge of slab. You see these beautiful high-rise buildings with a lot of glass on the outside, and they're, they're, they're basically hanging off of the building they're curtain walls. So, uh, there's gaps around the edge of the building that need to be dealt with as well. So essentially anytime there's a gap or an opening in a ready assembly, you have to have some type of a tested and listed system, um, to be able to get that rating.

Yeah, I like that. Thanks for that exposition, John, I just, uh, I kind of like have found myself in this space where the reason why I got into this kind of podcast game. Is because that I was kind of interested in like this teaching part of it, cuz I'm, you know, very early on in the industry and still trying to figure out, you know, how, uh, when is this required?

How do we, how do we know if we need this? So, um, I like to belabor the point, um, even though probably anybody who's listened to a fire protection podcast might already know this. But, um, yeah, I love that. Uh, you were talking about edge of slab assemblies, and that's a term that I hadn't heard. Um, we're working on a Highrise project right now and we are working with Hilty this week.

My, uh, architect was like, oh, do we need a listed, uh, assembly here? Oh, was that a bad word? Did I just say a four letter word? That's the H word. That's the H word. Now they're one of our major competitors along with 3m and STI. I mean, we're basically the only three full line fire stop manufacturers. STI is the only, um, manufacturer that's 100% committed to fire stopping.

We don't really have a plan B. So, uh, we, we put all our R and D into, you know, getting tested, enlisted systems, but yes, to answer your question, you need some type of a system around the edge of slab to, to make sure that you extend the fire rating of the floor through that non-rated curtain wall. I mean, if you think about curtain walls, right?

Uh, they're made up of things that burn you. Aluminum glass is gonna shatter. So, uh, these are not rated assemblies, but the floor is, so that floor has to continue out to that, that non-rated carbon wall. Yeah. And so somebody was talking to me about this edge of slab, uh, interface, if you will. And they were saying, oh, you know, uh, this kind of like, uh, gap is where in, uh, near the ethos was kind of how the, the gr fell business happened.

I don't know if you. Were, uh, aware of that, uh, the grin tower fires and kind of any, any of the, the proceedings around that, but I don't know if you had any thoughts or, or knowledge about that. Yeah. I mean, you know, usually catastrophes make people's eyes open and, you know, codes and standards throughout the world start to, you know, change and adjust to, you know, the different connections of curtain walls and how you're gonna deal with.

Those connections and those gaps that are created. So, you know, I don't know too much about the specifics of it, but, you know, I do know that every time something like this happens, you know, different codes and standards are updated. Um, at STI, I know that we have a strategic initiative team that deals with current walls that actually works with, you know, not only the engineers and the architects, but also the manufacturers to make sure that, you know, when the panels are, are made in, in the factories.

Things such as fire protection are considered early on. So that by the time they get out in the field, you don't have to put extra, um, support there to make sure that the fire stop system stays in place. But, um, you know, a lot of upfront planning can, can make sure that the building is, you know, not only safe, but save you.

Probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in installation of those panels and the proper systems once they get on site. Yeah. I mean, that's something great to talk about here is, you know, if you don't plan for some of, of these systems in your construction and you find out you need a edge of slab con you know, you have an edge of slab condition and you need a, a rated, um, Uh, system there you're, it's gonna be a huge deal.

I mean, the architect I was talking to was, you know, having to re coordinate with structural and, you know, kind of incorporate these, uh, details for the rated assembly and their wall section. And it's no small task to incorporate. Um, one of these, these systems, if you, if you have a situation to which you need.

And you didn't provide it. So I think that's a, that's a great point on, on how it can save you money by understanding these, uh, requirements and, and, and, uh, putting them into place when they are, um, are present. Yeah. Sorry. I mean, you know, there are things that manufacturers can do to help contractors and installers in the field, once things happen and they're called engineering judgements.

Uh, they're not the preferred way to do things, especially. When it comes to those edges lab conditions. And especially when you consider the fact that certain building codes don't allow for engineering judgements in certain jurisdictions. Um, so there are, are, you know, a lot of upfront planning can save you a lot of headache downstream, for sure.

That's great. That's great. So, um, yeah. So what are, what, what are some of these like assemblies or that the products for these assemblies look like for somebody who's a little bit more of a, a layman, like there's, I mean, there's a wide variety, but yeah, I'd love it. If you would touch on a couple of the different ways that you could do this.

Well, I guess you could break it down to, through penetrations and joints. So essentially anything going through a wall, like I said, your mechanical, your, your plumbing trades, your electrical trade. Uh, needs usually some type of an ENT sealant. This is something that's gonna expand with heat. When the fire hits it, it's going to fill any voids that are left after the fire starts to attack either, you know, the plastic jacketing on cable or even the drywall itself when it starts to deteriorate these insent products will expand.

And they're basically they're passive again. And they're VO fillers. Once they start to activate, and then you have your joints, uh, which again, you know, The edge of slab, that curtain wall is gonna move from wind sway or whatever else you're gonna have your, your different joints, your head, a wall, or your wall to wall.

These controlled joints are gonna move with, you know, uh, load or, you know, just, just movement itself in the basement into masonry walls. So you need something more of an E Laster. So we have sprays and CAS or sealants, uh, to deal with those joints. So that's gonna allow movement, uh, as that happens. So, you know, Basic terms when you're going through penetrations, you're looking for Alast American.

When you're dealing with your joints, you're looking for something that's, uh, um, I'm sorry. Insent for your through penetrations and then for your joints, you want something that's Alast. Awesome. Yeah, I think it's, uh, it's kind of wild, cuz there's so many different ways I've seen those like, uh, those like pillow looking things as well for like the, those big, those big penetrations or big kind of void fillers, but uh, yeah, it's kind of wild.

Uh, the, I think most people probably think of the cock or whatever the fire cock or, you know, that's kind of a, uh, can be a nonsense term at times it's used so. Flippantly, but yeah, so, um, normally our product section in our training, um, program takes about four hours. So, um, if you have some time, we could kind of go into all the different products, but now there are, there are plenty of products for, for different applications.

Um, but in its simplest form, you know, through penetrations inthe, Messent joins the lesser. Cool. Yeah. And so. Uh, I, I think we touched on it briefly, but, um, yeah, one, you said that you were, uh, what are the roles you held initially was to, to help with these solutions, but yeah. Would you kind of like speak a little bit about the, the roles you held and, and kind of your position now at, uh, STI?

Sure. Again, like I said, I started in 2013 as a territory manager, so I. Out in the field, you know, working with all of the different trades, the subcontractors, uh, the general contractors doing lunch and learns at architects, um, working with ownership to, you know, see what they care about. So, you know, I ran that whole gamut just to, you know, Get accustomed to who does what in this project.

Cause there are, you know, there's just so many different people that have responsibilities for, for fire stopping on a, on a project. So once I started to, you know, piece it all together, I, you know, I started to mess with a lot of the, the presentations that we were making and I eventually got asked to become the training and development manager.

So what that has become. You know, an expansion of our accredited training. So we had maybe a handful of AIA, which is the American Institute of architects. Um, they have, you know, their accredited training programs and we had, we had a handful of them. Now we have 20. So, uh, over the pandemic, we really shifted our focus to, you know, having webinars.

And I've been able to work with a lot of great thought leaders, not only within our company, but within the industry. Create about 30 different webinars. We've trained over 10,000 people and we have everything from, you know, your most basic fire stop 1 0 1 to some of that, like you said, you love the codes and standards.

We even had a webinar recently on, on codes and standards. So, uh, we have a lot of great trainings now that we've been able to develop. And, and that's my current role now is training in development manager. Cool. Yeah. I've been seeing those badges online. I wanted to ask you about that at some point. It, it seems like a fabulous idea to give somebody not just a, uh, uh, you know, a way to learn more to, but, but a way to brandish their, their knowledge and their, their search, if you will.

I think that's excellent. Yeah. Did you speak about those, uh, those fancy badges I've been seeing on LinkedIn? nah, I appreciate you bringing that up actually. And, um, happy that you did. Uh, we partnered with a company called Credly and it's a digital credentialing, uh, company, essentially. It's, it's basically taking the old school certificate and making it a digital version.

I mean, technology's pretty much changed everything from, you know, the way we shop the cook to manage our health. So the way we learn, right, we're doing a lot more online modules for, for training and things like that. So it's it's this is this. Digital badging is gonna change the way that we can showcase our skills and our experience in, in fire stopping, or, you know, a lot of some big brands are out there doing this digital badging as well.

So essentially what it is is it creates some metadata. So we put all of the different keywords for the trainings, and then they link that over to some context and some verification of those courses. So it it's, it's a great way to provide not only what you learned. But actually to verify it with the trainer, which is us, um, to put that online so that it's almost like an online resume and there's even different ways that, you know, people are using it to network and manage their own per professional development.

So, uh, we've essentially enhanced our earns benefits with these digital badges. So appreciate you bringing that up though. So they're out there. You're seeing them. That's good. Yeah. No, I think that's great. I'm a huge, uh, uh, Uh, promoter of professional development and just kind of always looking for a way to make yourself more competitive in the industry.

So I love talking about professional, uh, certifications and, and qualifications. So yeah, I think it's so smart because people see those and they're like, man, that looks cool. You know, I'd like to post too about, you know, something that I've done good. You know, people don't get that opportunity as often as you might think.

And so I've seen. Uh, like ICC does some, the similar badges as well. And I think people really enjoy that way to like, uh, give them a chance to post about something good they're doing. So I think it's smart deal. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that again. And you know, it works both ways, right? I mean, it, it helps us from a branding point of view.

People see STI out there and. It also lets the earners know or their networks know that there is this fire stop training. And we, we have so many courses now, as I mentioned, we did all of these webinars and we recorded them. So they are available, you know, to listen back on our fire, stop university on our website.

I'll plug that right now. Www dot STI fire, stop.com. Um, and our training page is great. So you can see all of the different courses on there that we have available. And they're all free essentially. Um, we only charge for our premium course, which is a two day, uh, usually in, um, in our corporate headquarters at Somerville New Jersey, but we've been doing it as a virtual model's called fit level two.

Um, it's a small nominal fee, basically covers the cost of the training materials and things like that. So we have a, a train to trainer program. With that as well. So teaching others how to teach is something that I'm pretty passionate about as well. And it's just a, a great time to be part of this, this industry.

Yeah. I think, uh, it's, uh, such a good time to be a part of the industry fire and life safety in general, and because there's so much opportunity and it sounds like you guys have been really taken a hold of this. Digital eLearning, uh, TIAL wave that's coming down the pipeline. So I think it's awesome. I think that's all good stuff and I'll be sure to throw some, uh, links down in the show notes for people, uh, in case they didn't catch that, uh, that link for, uh, where they can find some more information about those, those courses, if they're so inclined, but, uh, that's awesome.

So I wanted to, uh, talk a little bit about this new, uh, podcast you got going, the burn with STI. Would you mind telling me a little bit about how you got started and what you're doing? Uh, I guess it's probably like the career path, right? You never know how these things are gonna start, but it's, uh, it's been great fun.

Uh, I like trying to figure things out. Uh, this has been interesting, but thankfully I haven't had to figure everything out. We have a great team that's working behind the scenes. Jason Tanisha, Christina, Matt. Uh, we even have a guy Scott Seinberg that works outside of the company. With a company called Scott's on air.

So he's been producing a lot of the show managing the RSS feeds and all of that stuff. So I haven't had to figure that out. So it's really allowed me to kind of concentrate on, you know, guest prep and also my day job, but , you know, at the end of the day. Sure. That's awesome. Yeah, it's, uh, it's a lot to, to figure out.

So that's awesome that you. A team around you kind of help in this. Uh, so for sure. So basically the podcast is just about like, uh, your perspective or what are some of the topics that you like to, to get into with, um, on, on the, on the show? Yeah, so it's essentially, it's, it's built around life safety and code compliance in the built environment.

So. We, we call it the burn beyond fire stop. So some of the goals for the show essentially are maybe getting beyond fire stop. Um, I really want to be able to provide some insight and become a resource in the life safety space. And you know, so we've been talking to codes and standards people, uh, we've been talking to, well, I guess I'll just name 'em right.

So, uh, we had drew he's been great. He was with an inspect point, which is a fire and life safety inspection. He's also the executive director for the New York fire sprinklers contractor association. And he's also a podcast host, uh, the fire protection podcast, Laney who's at Luber, she's in the marketing department there, and she drives innovative strategy for blaze master and freeze master, which is an antifreeze with had shown the crane.

He was with, uh, a fire. He was a firefighter for the C. Uh, division of fire for many years, and now he works at UL underwriters laboratories in the building life, safety, security and technologies division. And, uh, it's just been great getting to know these people. Oh, and my first guess I, how could I forget Ruben?

Uh, Ruben is with, uh, one of our divisions, STI Marine. He actually does a, a little thing on LinkedIn every Friday. Uh, so you gotta check that out. He he's awesome. Ruben monk. Uh, it's just been great. Getting to know the guests, you know, in the prep, you know, I go on the LinkedIn profile, so I get to learn a little bit about them.

And then I get to dive a little bit deeper in there and, you know, try to get, you know, even beyond whatever it is in their industry. So again, we call it beyond fire stop. So even if it's a fire stop person, which, uh, our next two guests, uh, bill McCue, he's the executive director for F CIA and pat TACHE.

He's with global fire protection. These people are both in the fire stop game. So we try to take the podcast, at least beyond fire stop for the guests there. But, you know, I guess goals for the show, like to get a little bit more beyond the fire stop and again, life safety and code compliance. I think that's a large, large area and even, you know, things that I'm not considering right now.

So, uh, it's kind of where we're headed. Gotcha. Yeah. Very interesting. So how did you guys, uh, think about, you know, that you wanted to produce a podcast as a company? I know it seems like the, the people who always understand that it's a good idea are always the marketing professionals. I see across the board.

If you look at huge comp or big companies, like. N FPA and S F P E. It seems like the, the people at the helm of a lot of podcasts are people who understand this, uh, this kind of environment and, and try to, uh, to tap into it. Yeah. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about your experience with getting it started and kind of like the, the impetus for it, or, uh, some more back.

Sure. I mean, it's, you know, they say when's the best time of the plant a tree 20 years ago. When's the next time today? I think they say the same thing with the podcast, right? When's the best time to start at five years ago. When's the next best time today. So I, I think looking at it in that it's just another medium.

It's just another place to put your brand was. Kind of the impetus to, to think about, Hey, how do we do this? And then when you take a look at it and you realize, Hey, everyone's got a blog there's I don't even know what the numbers are. A hundred million blogs, and there's only like 2 million podcasts. So you, you can kind of stand out in your space, even if you're just standing out in your space.

Right. So it just being there sometimes. You know, it'll develop. So, I mean, I, I talk about goals for the show. They were pretty broad I don't know if you, if you break that down later, you're gonna realize that it's not really, so I don't know exactly where it's gonna go. It, it's interesting. It's it's fluid.

I tell people. So, um, it's just kind of fun doing it and being there. And I think, like you said, from a marketing stand. I'm in the marketing department now. So I think maybe I said it one day or maybe someone else said it and it was just like, oh yeah, that'd be a great idea of who's gonna host it. And they're like, oh, John I'll do it.

so that's kind of just where it came from. And you know, I'm involved with Toastmasters, so I practice public speaking. So I guess that's why. The fingers kind of got pointed at me like, oh, he'll do it. So, and I'll do it. I'm like Mikey, back in the day, I'll eat anything. that's good. Yeah. I think it's okay to, you know, be fluid in your, you know, kind of what your goals are or where, what you're looking to do for it.

Uh, my brother has a podcast and so I, I talk with him all the time. Kind of refining what you're trying to have as a message or trying to find that voice. Uh, here I listen to a lot of stuff about comedy. So, um, I hear them all the time talking about, you know, the, the reps and sets they have to do before they kind of find the, their direction and their unique voice.

And it's, I think it's a similar kind of regard in, in podcasting. That's cool. I like hearing about it. I'm a huge podcast junkie. So that's why I'm, you know, poking and probing at the, uh, the sentiment behind it all. Yeah, no, I mean, and you bring up a great point with the, the comedians, if you study them. I mean, those, those are the best speakers.

I mean, that's communication mastery. If you ask me, if you can really master. Stop and pause and wait for that laugh and get that laugh. It's uh, it's, it's really impressive to watch really good comedians, you know, hone their craft. So, um, just studying those people, help with the podcast as. Yeah. So I wanted to kind of, uh, touch a little bit more on, uh, on like marketing or, you know, uh, or branding or, you know, kind of get your sentiment since we're kind of talking about that in conjunction with the podcast, you know, for somebody who's trying to navigate, you know, Finding their own brand or, or maybe, you know, to phrase this for the professionals who will be listening to this, you know, who have to self brandand and have to, you know, be cognizant of how they're portraying themselves on, on LinkedIn and, and, uh, everything you need to do to navigate, uh, being a professional in 2021.

You know, do you have any advice for people who were kind of, um, working on that piece? Sure. Um, I love acronyms. So I came up with one for a lot of things. It works map a P right? So it's your message, your audience, and then the people that you're, you're trying to deliver that message too. Uh, Jeff Bezos had a great quote.

Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the. So I think understanding that, you know, a lot of times marketing people will say, Hey, look at me, look how great I am, but I think it it's also what, what message you want people to carry around with them after? So from a personal standpoint, I, you know, I tell people, try to figure out who you are right now and is that different than what you wanna be.

So if you can determine what you want to be, that's your message. So you say, okay, This is my message. This is what I'm all about. And then you have to identify that a, that audience. So, you know, who are you giving that message to? When I was out in the field, my message to the general contractor was way different than it was to the subcontractor.

And it was different to the architect. Right? So your message and then your audience, and then the people that you're talking to. Uh, so you have to research your industry and follow those experts who talked about the comedians. That's great for delivery and things like that, but who are the people that are.

Standing out in the space, you know, and like you mentioned LinkedIn, uh, network online. Um, this way you can connect with those different people, cuz at the end of the day, you know, you don't do business with companies, really. You do business with people, uh, so your message, your audience and, and your people.

And, and that's kind of the same way when you're, when you're branding your, your company, you really wanna, you know, get that message across and to the intended audience. And you know, sometimes that piece. A product or placement, you know, you can, you know, swap out that P it's. It's not that simple. Yeah.

That's great stuff. Yeah. I think it's, uh, it's a good, uh, point to talk about knowing your audience. And I see, uh, the people who I see, you know, speak most effectively or brand most effectively understand what's value to who they're speaking to. So I think that's a huge component. Being an effective communicator and just, um, being relevant in the digital age.

But I appreciate your, your insight on that, John. Sure. And so, yeah, you know, kind of circling back on the podcast, is there anyone who you've thought of as kind of like a, like a white whale guest you can think of, um, you, you might not, and, and that's okay. But I thought I'd just like to ask about it cuz.

Just for my interest and you know, there's so many good people out there. I've found that the more you start looking for this sort of thing, the more like you just like a string that you start pulling and then it just keeps coming. So I didn't know if you had any, uh, thoughts on that. I mean, I don't have any white, well, guests, there's not like a hit list.

Obviously there's people I'd like to speak to and no one said no yet, so that's, that's a good thing. but I guess maybe a white whale guest would be someone that would reach out to me. And maybe doesn't cancel at the last minute. sorry again about that. but, uh, no, I mean, it's, it's really just identifying the different.

Areas of life safety and code compliance and just finding some, some interesting people to reach out to. Um, but again, if anyone is listening and they'd like to be on the show, please reach out to me, perhaps you and my white whale guest. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I just was, uh, my, one of my white, well, guests, I just got to speak to you recently was, uh, was Joe Meyer, I think, uh, before I had started the podcast, I knew that I wanted to have Joe Meyer on the, on the show just because.

He kind of does exactly what I do, but had one of the first kind of, uh, really, um, digital, personal brands in fire protection that I knew of, um, that wasn't just like somebody from the old guard that had, you know, um, the, all the years of experience in the, and you know, all the alphabet suit behind their name to give them the clout that they needed.

And so, yeah, that was one. It's kind of what I was thinking of, but, uh, but you know, that's what it was for me, but yeah, I appreciate that exposition. You're still so early on and, and things will change and evolve and as things pick up momentum, it kind of changes your perspective along the way. So that's cool.

That's right. We have a, we have another meeting about this tomorrow. So if you ask me this question on Thursday, I'd probably have a way different answer. So maybe I'll call you back. We'll edit it in. Hey man. Yeah, we'll edit it in. I don't care. um, cool. Well, I always like to, uh, kind of plug people for, um, a couple professional development topics at the end, because I, you know, when I speak to people who are interesting and, and have good ideas about what's happening, um, how I like to get their take on what they see going.

So I wanted to start out with, um, what kind of trends do you see in your role now in, uh, you know, it could be pertaining to passive fire stop or, you know, what you're seeing in that space, or it could just be in, in business. I liked your Jeff Bezos quote. Sure. I mean, so from the fire protection standpoint, we're always innovating.

I mean, like I said, the fact that 100% of our business is dedicated to fire stop. Uh, we have some really smart people handling the systems and the products end of things. So I'll speak from what I know about, which is training and development, right? So I see, especially for the, you know, the AEC community more remote and or hybrid.

We saw it from last year during the pandemic, all the continuing education and the training was 100% virtual and we did the whole pivot thing. I hate that word, but we did it. Uh, we pivoted to virtual and we did a lot of webinars and a lot of this continuing education, tying it back to, you know, accreditation for these folks that were gonna.

The ability to, you know, keep their, their industry standard because they couldn't go to these conferences and trade shows that were shut down. So I think the lunch and learn as we know, it might be dead or it's going to evolve in some way. I also think that perhaps we're gonna see more, uh, remote inspections or at least portions of those inspection.

I know from a fire stopping point of view in the 2012 I C um, there's now special inspections are required for certain buildings and more and more jurisdictions are going to start to enforce this. And, you know, we have some great digital tools, uh, called fire stop locator that, you know, allows you to, you know, do your work and document it so that, you know, I think we're gonna see more digital tools as well for, you know, inspection.

And also, like I said, learning for. Yeah, those are all great. John, I love that about the death of the lunch and learn, you know, I think it's, uh, but hopefully it's also the death of me overeating at lunch after all the lunch and learn food is still hanging out. But, uh, it's been so interesting finding the, uh, the space around e-learning kind of exploding.

I mean, you look. All the associations, um, kind of in business, around, um, fire and life safety and, and digitally what they're offering compared to last January, you know, or the January of 2020. And it's just kind of crazy how much growth we've seen in that space. Uh, I just, uh, seems like everybody in the game is kind of bolstering their ability to deliver online.

Uh, it's like it's poured, they've poured gas on this, uh, Ability to bring digital content to people. I think it's so smart and something that's not going anywhere. You know, I think it's, we've seen a lot of efficiencies in how you can get to people and, you know, conserve their time and conserve your time.

You know, my whole piece, I'm not gung ho on, uh, working remote. I would've told you that I was, um, before we all got sent home. Uh, you know, there are some efficiencies gained with not having to go sit in a meeting or sit in a lunch and learn. And, you know, you can get people's time from across the country, but not also have to swallow, uh, a big portion of their day.

So it makes the barrier to entry lower. So I love that as a point about, um, how you can. You know, a trend of what's going on. Yeah. I mean, listen, there's, there's nothing that's gonna replace the human element, but there are those efficiencies for, for your everyday things that I think are not gonna go away after this.

But, um, you know, that human element, that social interaction, I, we definitely still need it in certain settings for sure. But, um, yes, efficiencies. Are definitely not going away. And so, uh, to follow up on that, you know, you talked about a couple of, of good, um, e-learning resources to STI, but just wanted to, you know, plug you for, if you, uh, what other kind of resources would you recommend to people who wanna learn more about, um, maybe it could be pacifier protection or, or even the marketing stuff.

I've loved hearing about that from me. Sure. I mean, you know, again, you're gonna wanna look for manufacturers that specialize in, in what they do. Uh, you mentioned our, our trainings. We have our fire stop university. There are about 20 different courses that you can take everything from the curtain wall that we talked about earlier to interior finish, uh, to just your 1 0 1, if you're an installer out there.

So, um, if you don't wanna just settle for someone because of name recogni. Because maybe they make your favorite drill or your sticky note. Um, but when it comes to fire stops, we've been, we've been doing it since 1990. It's all we do. There's no plan B. So we have a lot of great resources on our website for marketing as well.

Um, and especially for the, you know, the design community, we have some, some great CAD drawings. The BIM resources are on there. We have guide specifications, other design tools as. So it's just chop full. Of information, uh, our engineers, our, our dynamite, I think we have over 250 combined years. I don't even know where you get that number from.

I get you add 'em all up, but I mean, they're the best in the industry. So they are a tremendous resource they're they're available Monday through Friday, seven to seven, they have a live chat right on our website. It's all free. So they even do Saturday emergencies. They're on call for, for contractors and architects.

Just so many different resources and it's all on our website. So check that out again. Should I say it www dot STI fires, stop.com. Put it in the show notes. I'm sure. But a lot of resources, so don't just settle for anyone. Gotcha. That's great. Yeah. I was just thinking of, uh, that's a, that's a great plug for the STI resources and I'm gonna object those out too, because I've been trying to buff up.

Passive fire protection. I was telling you in the pre-interview that. I think it's, uh, so important and really where the future of where fire and life safety's going. But yeah, you know, I realized that I didn't bug you about earlier when you were speaking about it as, uh, remote inspections and, and kind of that digital system that you're speaking about to log your pacifier protection systems.

Uh, that kind, that sounds pretty interesting. Uh, what, what is that system you were speaking about? So it's called fire stop locator. And essentially what it does is it allows you to, um, map, you know, you basically take your life safety drawings and you can map every single penetration or joint system. And it will allow you to document the, the actual UL system that you used.

You can show a before and after photo. Uh, so this way, if you are in a, let's say a healthcare facility where you're gonna. Joint commission every three years coming around, um, rather than popping all of those different ceiling tiles to see the penetrations, this would allow you to, you know, hand an iPad or a phone or a desktop computer, and you'd be able to see the work that was done, who it was done by.

Um, it's all barcoded. So there's little QR codes that, uh, will go back to, you know, the, the application to kind of show you so you can just quickly scan it and you can see what was done or. Look through the whole system. It's a it's Dana mate. It's an awesome. That's cool. Yeah, I think that, that, uh, remote inspection piece or that, um, kind of the, the virtual or digital twin of facilities is a big thing in the industry and trying to bake in more information about a facility into the digital model or, uh, make the documentation more robust is a wonderful thing.

So that's cool. I like hearing about that. . Um, yeah, so I just wanted to, uh, you know, end with, uh, what, uh, what piece of advice would you have for somebody who, you know, sees, sees John and says, man, you know, how do I, how do I, uh, win in the fire and life safety industry? Well, I would say. To become a specialist.

You know, I, I oftentimes I'll use the analogy. Would you rather be a general practitioner or would you rather be a brain surgeon? I mean, you know, who makes more money? Right. And they probably work less of the time, but now, but being a specialist within the industry, uh, people will seek you out. Then if you can be that, um, fire stopping specialist within your.

Within your company, if you're a contractor or if you are, or if you're a distributor of someone who sells our products, if you can be that, that resource, then people will seek you out. They'll come to know you like you and trust you. And that means that they're gonna buy whatever it is that you're selling, because they know that you're, you have their best interest in heart and you are a student of the game and you're gonna learn so that they don't have to learn, you know, the hard way kind of thing.

Yeah, that's great. I love that note because I feel. Uh, fire protection and fire and life safety is, uh, all specialists. And then if you get even more niche within the industry, like you can really kind of see this amplifier effect for your career. I mean, the opportunity within the, the fire and life safety industry is just immense.

And I've found that at any time you can find a extra sticky place or something that's even more difficult than the baseline of what we're doing. You know, you've found a place where you can add even more value and there's even more, you know, compensation available. So, uh, I think that's a great point. I love that.

And always pick up the phone. I mean, when I was new to the industry, if I didn't know the answer, I didn't send you to voicemail. I picked up the phone and I, I told you I was gonna find out. So people would rather hear that you're working on it than silence. So, uh, that would be my other piece of advice to someone new, to the.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. It can be difficult sometimes. Uh, we were working on bringing in interns for the summer and, uh, just having to be like, all right, you need to check in with these people because you know, they might not have that muscle to, to reach out when they're, when they're flailing and not have it under control.

So I think that's a great point to not be afraid to anybody who is a professional realizes that, you know, you're not gonna know everything, or you might have to circle back and get answers or. You might need to, you know, get some help. And so I think that's a great piece of advice and, and a learned skill.

So that's great for sure. And, and join Toastmaster. It it's, uh, if you don't know what Toastmaster is, it's a public speaking group, people of all ages and backgrounds come together to practice their public speaking skills and the language leadership listening. Uh, it's a great organization. So I highly recommend it.

If you wanna communicate better, get your message across. It's definitely the way to. That's awesome. Yeah, that's a good, uh, that's a good recommendation. I've heard, uh, a couple people refer to Toastmaster, so that's interesting. But, um, anyways, John, anything I, I didn't ask about that you wanted to talk about, or, uh, any other last thoughts as we're getting close to the end of the podcast?

No GU, uh, I, I think we hit it all. I do appreciate you having me on the show and giving me, uh, a platform for the burn. So check out that podcast, check out our website for all those great resources. And, uh, again, like I said, just appreciate the time. No, thank you, John. It was, it was a lot of fun and yeah, I'll drop a bunch of links in the show notes and yeah.

Thank you. Alright. 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.

Welcome to episode 10 of the Fire Code Tech solocast! In this episode, we share five tips for passing the Fundamentals of Engineering, Professional Engineering, or any other professional certification exam you might be interested in. With the fire protection professional engineering exam coming up in October, this episode is for those who are looking to refine their testing and studying skills. If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to check out five more tips on the Patreon-only episode at 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 wall. Welcome to episode 10 of the solo cast of fire code tech. On this episode, we have the F E and PE exam prep tips. So on this episode, I wanted to give some tips and tricks for passing the fundamentals of engineering exam and the professional engineering exam. So people are gearing up to study for the professional engineering exam.

And I wanted to give five tips in the free episode of the solo cast for how to pass the F E and the PE really both of these, all of these, uh, topics are interchangeable. For these exams, you're learning how to pass a test and how to study. And so it really, there are, uh, very similar things that you are learning how to do and practice.

Before we get started. If you could please be so kind to go, give me a five star rating on apple podcast. I would greatly appreciate it. Um, make sure you subscribe to all the episodes, so you never miss 'em and yeah. Thank you so much for listening. Um, I'm glad you guys are tuning in. I've been seeing a steady increase in listeners, so I'm really excited about it.

Also. Don't forget to follow us on social media. We probably post most consistently on linked. All right, let's get into the show. So my first tip for anyone taking the PE the Fe, or really any test for professional certification is to be very well versed on what the test material is based on. So the PE and the F Fe have syllabi.

So they will tell you the percentages, um, and weights of the different testing subjects. As a piece of background, I passed my Fe in 2018 and my PE in 2019 in October, the last paper exam. So I pulled these stats off the Fe website, but this is just some of the information that you need to become acquainted with when you're looking into, you know, looking at taking some professional exams.

So it says the Fe includes 110 question and the exam appointment is six hours. It goes on to say that there is a non-disclosure agreement that it will take it back. Approximately two minutes, a tutorial that's approximately approximately eight minutes an exam, which has about five hours and 20 minutes a scheduled break, which is about 25 minutes.

This is a high level overview. And you know, your exam experience might not take as much time. Is this, uh, I finished. Uh, really, you go at your own pace. You take your break at your own pace. Uh, you'll take the test at one of these Pearson view test centers, approved test centers. So you'll be in a room with people taking in different exams for, um, different professional certifications.

So I pulled the. syllabi for the Fe for other disciplines, fundamentals of engineering, um, exam for other disciplines, computer based testing. This is the one I took, the one I passed, but I just wanted do since our first topic is to be familiar with the material that test is based on. I just wanted to go over an example of what the Sy Bible say for what the test is based on.

So it says eight to 12 questions on mathematics. Six to nine questions on probability and statistics. Five day questions on chemistry, four to six questions on instrument, instrumentation and controls. Five to eight questions on engineering, ethics, and societal impacts. Six to nine questions on safety health in the environment.

Six to nine questions on engineering engineering, economics, nine to 14 questions on statics nine to 14 questions on dynamics. Nine to 14 questions on strengths and material. Strength of materials, six to nine questions on materials, 12 to 18 questions on fluid mechanics, six to nine questions on basic electrical engineering.

and nine to 14 questions on thermodynamics and heat transfer. So why I'm showing you this is because I want to, um, just basically show you that you can get a, an idea of what are the topics with the most questions, and then rank them in order from the highest percentage of your grade to pass and then study accordingly.

Don't spend all your time focusing. A subject that might only have six questions or less, um, or, you know, like a four or five question is not gonna be the bulk of your material. So study accordingly. Well, you know, why I want to talk about this is because, um, I believe in professional certification, um, there's a lot of good reasons to have professional certifi.

You know, in my career, I've seen a, a benefit to compensation and, um, you know, just having, uh, more respect at the company that I worked for as I've made progress, um, with certification over time, it's, it's been a huge, uh, tailwind for my career. And so I, I'm a huge proponent of people going and getting certified there's well documented statistics for people who get the PE and fire protection engineering and how that leads to about.

Uh, 10 to 20%, um, compensation bump, um, across the industry. So S F P E takes a survey of the engineers who are working now and at different levels of their career and releases a report on that, that you can pay for. I don't think it's too expensive to pick up, but it, it would be helpful if you were thinking about.

Making a job switch or wanting to make a case to your boss for increased compensation. But I just wanted to touch on that since it illustrates a concrete data that shows that people who are certified, um, are compensated more. And, uh, I think that in itself is a pretty good reason to go after some of these professional certifications, um, as well as letting everybody in the industry.

Um, that you are competent that you have the base level of qualifications in order to. Basically play ball in the architecture and construction industry in the United States. At least my second piece of advice is to, um, take a prep course. If you can spare the expense. I know that the F Fe prep courses and the FPE prep courses are expensive, but if you think of it as investing in yourself, And if you think of it as, um, getting the most out of your time for your studying, your time is valuable.

So if you can pass the test your first time, instead of taking the test, uh, three times, um, having to pay the fees each time having to study two, three months each time, if you think about it as a, an your investment of time and your investment of. In that regard, your, your time is worth a lot of money and that's career opportunity that you are not taking full advantage of by not grabbing these certifications as early as you can.

I took prep courses for the Fe and the PE. And, um, here's what I found helpful about 'em I, I really liked, um, that they would go over like an industry expert who does this on a yearly basis and gets, you know, a lot of times paid to do this will help you with common pitfalls, best practices. Um, they'll demonstrate the easy question.

So. Um, I always tell people that prep courses help you understand like common graph and chart questions and they might help you get some of the, you know, not technically difficult questions, but, um, they might help you with the fundamentals of a particular chart or graph or, um, portion of the subject that you're working on.

A lot of prep courses also will guarantee that if you don't pass the first time that you can come back and take the prep course again. So, you know, if you really do need some help, some extra help, and you have, you're struggling with the test material, then you will be able to, um, go through all your lectures and inform.

uh, second or, yeah, hopefully not a third, but a second time. Tip number three, take practice, time tests. This really, you know, uh, tip three and tip four are BA around. The same thing. That is my number one recommendation for people, um, tip for is do as many practice problems as you possibly can. The test is based on answering questions in both of these tests, the F Fe and, uh, fire protection engineering exam, and really any certification exam is.

Uh, how can you pass the test? And, and the test is made of questions. So no, no matter how much notes you take over the subject, you know, if you're not doing problems and you're not doing problems in the way that you will need to do problems for the exam. You're not spending your time, um, the most effective way possible in my opinion.

So I think that the number one way to increase your chances of doing well on exams is to do as many prep problems as possible. Um, as wide a variety, you know, a lot of times there'll be variants in how difficult some of the practice problems are. and so you need to do as many practice problems as you can.

I did for the fire protection PE exam, I, I did hundreds and hundreds of practice problems. I did every Myre fire practice problem you can think of. I did all his weekly sessions. I, you know, did the practice problems outta the book, the more practice problems you do, the more confident you're gonna be in your ability to do the test.

Tip three is take, um, time tests. So maybe I'll switch these in the show notes. Time testing is important because you know, if you're used to just doing the problems in a vacuum and not keeping in mind that on average, you have a, whatever it is two to two to six minutes to get these problems done.

There's usually it's less time usually planning on two to three minutes to get these questions done and move on. And generally. You wanna solve 'em faster than that. And then if you can't solve 'em you wanna circle back to 'em why practice tests is also important is. You know, one of the things to practice when you're timing yourself and doing these problems in similar sample sizes and sets that you will have on the exam is to practice the endurance of taking one of these tests.

So it's. It's mentally, you know, it's mentally and sometimes physically draining to, you know, sit for, uh, three hours, four hours, uh, and to buckle down and do these problems. So you need to practice this muscle so that when you get into the test time, you're not just absolutely floored by having to. Do this many problems and, and you're not unfamiliar with the process of doing a triage of sorts on the problems you can solve, the problems you can't solve and you going in for and spending.

The most time on the problems that you know, how to solve. And then circling back to the questions that are more difficult, that if you have time for, at the end, that you can, you know, double down and really try to see if you can answer them correctly. My last tip would be to plan to study. You know, don't try you.

Can't cram really for, uh, a fire protection engineering prep, or, I mean, fire protection, engineering exam, professional engineer exam. It's not gonna work. Uh, you know, I wasn't the best studier in college, but when I started having to really buckle down and, you know, for my professional development, take some of these tests outside of school, I kind of figured it out.

You have to be disciplined in your approach to these tests? You know, I would do it on my lunch break. I would just say, Hey, I'm gonna spend whatever, 20 minutes, 30 minutes on my lunch break every day, and I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna do a couple problems or read a section of the review manual or prep book.

Um, you know, prep course work. And would would just, if you have that scheduled times, and then on the weekend, I would have time as well, maybe as much as I could fit in, you know, with the schedule, but always I would wake up, spend an hour to two hours just early in the morning when I'm fresh, before you get consumed with your day and having these, uh, this discipline to study.

And this plan to study is huge for, you're not gonna, you're not gonna pass it on accident, or there's a very small chance that you're just gonna, you know, stumble through one of these exams. You know, maybe if you are a genius or something, but it, uh, it was never like that for me, I always had to be disciplined and I think that.

Even if you could stumble into a pass it's poor practice because, um, eventually there will be something in life that's so difficult that you will need to rely on the discipline to carry you through. And that's a lesson I had to learn the hard way through CRA and for tests at the last minute, um, during college.

But, so that concludes my first five tips. The PE exam and the Fe exam, and really for any professional certification course or certification. And so I hope you enjoyed the episode and if you want to hear more, don't forget. You can check out patreon.com/fire code tech. I'll have five more. Tips and tricks for studying for professional certification exams.

Um, I'm releasing the solo cast. Every time I release a solo cast, I release a bonus episode. Most of the time on the topic. Sometimes I'll have to switch topics, but, uh, I'm releasing. At least two bonus episodes a month on the Patreon. And I expect to start bringing more bonus content there. So if you like what you're hearing on fire code tech.

Uh, go check out the Patreon. 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 30 of Fire Code Tech, where we’re talking everything BIM! Our guest Jose Oliveira is the founder of DiRoots, a custom software solution. Jose breaks down the differences in software solutions and free Revit plugins available and provides great insight about trends in the Architecture Engineering and Construction industry.

https://diroots.com/

https://diroots.com/e-learning/dynamo-courses/

https://diroots.com/tutorials/

How did you start your career?

What different roles have you served in during your career?

What is your role now at DiRoots and what is DiRoots?

Would you speak about the free plugins DiRoots gives away?

What are some custom software solutions your company provides?

What was the impetus for the dynamo/Revit instructional videos?

Do you see any real competitors to Autodesk in AEC?

Do you have any tips for networking or staying engaged on social media as an entrepreneur?

What trends do you see in the industry?

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, and welcome to episode 30 of fire code. On this episode, we have Jose on Lavata on episode 30 of fire code tech. We're diving deep into BIM custom software solutions and everything Revit in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. If you have any interest in computer programming or where the architecture, engineering, and construction industry bridges the gap between cutting edge technology and custom software.

So. Then this episode is gonna fascinate you. I found Jose online through looking for information on how to learn, how to apply programming to, uh, Revit and fire and life safety design. He has some great online courses and resources. I'll be sure to post those in the show notes really enjoyed this episode, cuz Jose has great information for, um, professionals to keep developing.

And keep learning and, and he's a great resource for, um, free tools and, and good material for Revit and BIM. I hope you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to subscribe. Give us a review on iTunes. Five stars, please. And also remember to follow us on social media. So you remember that we post every week about the episodes of when they're coming out to give you a good reminder to tune in.

Let's dive into the show. Well, Jose, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's such a pleasure to get to speak with you. Hello guys. Thank you very much first for the invite and opportunity to talk to you and share some of my experience and the roots experience. Of course. So thank you very much for the these great opportunity and great pleasure.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I like to get started with telling people a little bit about how you got into your career in this case. It's, it's not specifically fire protection, but yeah. I want to hear about, uh, my first time let's say yeah, exactly. I, I, I, I can tell you, I can't tell you guys east, I, I have to tell you this was not probably the most Orthodox way to, to, to do, you know, I.

Even the reason I came to the UK was, uh, for a different purpose. I came to the UK and portugese by the way. Um, and I came to the UK 15 years ago almost. And, uh, my dream was financial market. That's the reason you brought me to the UK. You know, London is one of the biggest centers of financial market. In Europe and in the world.

But unfortunately I, um, after I had my, my, my, uh, my dream job, like I lost it as well with a credit crunch in nine. So I had to restart again. So I wasn't trying training position to become a financial trader and then suddenly I have, I had nothing. So I. Fortunately found job , you know, most let's say unusual way.

I, I met my, my first boss in the industry in restaurant. I was a waiter. Uh, and yeah, that's the way I met. And then my journey, I started in this.

Trainee coordinator, you know, model, uh, technician, whatever you wanna, you wanna say. And, uh, and since then, I, I Don you know, much more as you probably understand, and I probably saw my, my profile and yeah, but that's the way I start not the normal way. So let's here without knowing to be Frank with you, but I'm loving it.

And it is a great industry. So a lot of opportunities. That's what matters yet. Wow. No, that's incredible that you had such a unconventional start to your, uh, career in the industry. It seems like a lot of, uh, interesting people I talk to don't really find it through the traditional pathways. They kind of have a roundabout way to getting to their career, even though they end up being so excellent at it.

So I wanted to speak a little bit more about, uh, you know, a couple of the different roles that you've held in the, you know, in the industry, since you, you know, started out as a draftsman, like you said, but yeah. You know, what kind of, uh, different, uh, consultancies or, or companies or roles did you fill before you found yourself at your role now?

Yeah. Yeah, of course, of course. Cuz um, I can say for example, I was a bit lucky, uh, with my, um, my first in, in, in, in this industry, in the AC industry as well. I, um, I start with one of the first companies in Europe that believe in and um, my. Biggest was definitely saw potential in one of these Aus universities in Vegas managed him.

And then you, for course, C now part of SW I did work as well with McDonald, which is quite also strong in the us. And after that, I went to, I. Also small break in terms of UK, I went to the middle east. I spent some time in QIT and also in, um, in, in Doha mainly, uh, I was working initially for, um, AWA and then I moved to work consultant.

So, um, And after, after worked with Autodesk, I finally came back to the UK as a UK being director for WP. And after WSP, then I start the, my that's probably aware of the roots, which really is different company, but of course in the same industry, but with a different purpose. So that was my kind of role so that I companies I did work, I definitely, from a technician to, to.

Technical consultant to a UK director. And I came to a point as well. In fact that I would say, what is my next step unless when I start to de see, I think it came all along and, you know, the nice sequence, a great experience, which made me today probably a bit more stronger than, you know, if I had start my own journey a few years back.

So that's that's I would say nice career. I. I'm very proud to be focused though. yeah, you should be proud. Yeah. That's really fascinating that you kind of, uh, started at the bottom and kind of worked your way up to the top with some really big names in the industry. Uh, mom McDonald, WSP, Autodesk. I mean, these are some, uh, Not insignificant companies and not insignificant roles that you had leading up to your career now at D roots.

So for those who don't know, would you speak about, you know, kind of, uh, your role now at DROS and, and what you guys, what your mission is? What kind of, uh, yeah, just a little bit of overview on the company for those who don't. Of course, of course, with the great pleasure as you know, uh, well, the roots is a company focused on the, on the software side.

Uh, we are mainly, uh, focused on creating tools that can help to help, you know, business or people, whatever, uh, to, uh, to help them, you know, Produce more and less time. So we looking for productivity tools, we looking into automation, we looking into efficiency and we looking also avoid these human errors.

So that's what we do with solutions bot solutions base in specific workflows for companies, or more than that as well. I think we. We also have, uh, eight plugins in case you're not aware we have eight travel plugins, which they are free. And so many, many people get surprised sometimes while they're free.

And cause they're quite good, not just the free and okay. But they're definitely good. And, but we have these eight plugins, which they kind of help any kind of ruse. Cause we looking for our three games to be kinda. Wider wider solutions covers like data management, field freeing, uh, I don't know, reordering Ren numbering.

We have also the pro sheets, which is our PDF branch to PDF, sorry, batching tool, which is also very, very popular, even the most popular tool that we have. So we got lot of nice tools, you know, which they, and I. Yeah. So I think that, yeah, I'd love to talk more about those, uh, plugins, because I think it's counterintuitive, you know, you, you give these plugins away, but I mean, that's how I found you, uh, through, you know, looking for, uh, trying to find better automation or just, you know, I was learning how to code at the time.

I was just learning some basic, um, web coding, HTML, CSS, Java script. And I was looking for how to, you know, where is. Automation and the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. And that's how I first came upon your plugins. I think in like, uh, okay. At least a year ago, or maybe a year and a half ago I was looking at and I sent, uh, the BIM lead or on our, uh, At our, at our company.

And he was taking a look at the plugins. And then man, yeah, I saw recently it seems like people have been absolutely loving your, uh, batch sheet creation tool. It's been getting a lot of notoriety on, on LinkedIn. Yeah. So I'd love to talk more about the, the plugins and your, and your thoughts on, uh, Why you, why you think it's, uh, a great idea to give those away for free?

Uh, well, uh, I did work for small companies as well, and in, even in the past and one of the things I, uh, I struggled many, many times was to convince people, you know, my, my superiors by senior management to invest in tools that will help. Not me met, met the team or even me at that time as well. So, uh, and I, I know some of the tools they work quite expensive.

That's the, that's not the challenge. And they, you know, our industry is a bit old school and I don't think we can deny that they are numbers to show, to prove that in many, many ways, in many, many manners as well. So. But we focus on these tools and that what, when I create roots to myself,

if.

This stands for disruptive and roots for roots. So we are disruptive roots. We definitely came to market with different, honestly, if you are, I'm not gonna that I tell you, but I also, I Don my own research, you know, sometime go about the impact of industry. So, uh, which I think, you know, is coming the biggest disruption of.

Of all times and we will probably, we will see of course, but definitely that was also the vision. So creating these tools is definitely, you know, some people see as a marketing, as a strategy to be was never primary market strategy, but account United the, the benefits as well had to be honest untrust about that.

So, but that can be our tools. For example, we got the process we took, we got a sheet link even recently now. Because we, this week we release a new version of sheet link. We invest so much time on that, you know, just a new version. That was our first plugin that we released three years, more or less in

link tool. Which allow people to import and export data from rev models to spreadsheets, you know, for Microsoft Excel files or Google drive or Google, sorry. And also Google drive supports drive. We got family reviser, which was our second plugin. That is a very simple plugin with us. Also very powerful allows the users to Rena the families in inside rabbit and also something that you is not.

It's very popular work. Also allow people to, to manage the work, which is very, very well, which tool.

By the way he's been considered by many, many re users. And I'm not saying that because , it's just with the feedback, the most powerful tool for filtering, you know, object in inside the rabbit element. Inside's very powerful is have a lot of, so it definitely a tool people should look into that, but that would say that the two for more advanced users, we got the number one at the moment, which is projects is a.

Patch printing tool that we have allows users, users to create views or drawing sheets or title blocks and, or even 3d views, whatever type views they can export to PDF DWD, GN. I dunno, IFCs and even image. For example, he allows very, useful's very powerful as well. Cause the user can Rena the file the way he wants against select parameters.

So that was probably one of the few, few things that people really like. She then also. Plug in related to creating drawings, allows people to, you know, to, you know, to create, you know, I won't say follow it can be thousands of use, but, uh, high number of drawing sheets inside rabbit in an automatic way. Of course, this is based on the PDF template.

Uh, we got panel manager that is also exploding in terms of usage and regard. Lot of people starting to use that is, um, is also a great tool to manipulate traffic parameters. Definitely some people claim to be one of the best, if not the best. Well, one of the best, but some of the best tool in the market for that, we got a very simple tool, which is probably our simple tool, which Ising is about and tables then allow people to bring.

Into Excel files into rev as a drafting to use or schedule views, but without, you know, embedded data in the, in the components, that's the, a tools that we have at the moment. I also can hard to, to, to the conversation we work on the nine now. Uh, but even, you know, models working the new tool, we also working, improving like Chichen.

We, we coming, we have a new version coming up soon. Which we have improved the, you know, the performance heavily and a lot of few new features as well. We also working F revise at that time as well to make improvements again, as I told you, we release recently sheet link, honestly, I, I really recommend try sheet link.

It will be surprise is so nice. And one of the things that people comment on our products as, as well is that our plugins tend to be very user friendly and, you know, a great user experience, which probably. Maybe, because we are also people that coming from the field, we understand the, the, you know, the, the, the tools and we understand the needs and we try to make it simple.

So that's a little bit introduction. Sorry if that was too long. no, no, that was perfect. I love that. Uh, no, I think that's a great, uh, perspective point about. You speaking about how you, you know, you've worked as a drafter in the industry and, you know, you've worked all the way up the rungs of the ladder, so, you know, uh, what people need to see.

And so I'm sure that colors the way that you make these plugins and applications. And so I think that's great. I think that's awesome. No, uh, I, uh, I'm really interested in this topic of, you know, it seems quite obvious to me that the, like the, that the sheet link and the sheet creation is, uh, is a huge area to bring value to the table.

It, it almost feels like, uh, I don't know it's my company has a, like a custom kind of, uh, Revit print function. And it's like, it's the innate one. And, and Revit is so clunky and it seems like a obvious omission of, and it takes, uh, these tasks that you're talking about, the sheet creation or the renumbering.

These are things that with a project of any significant size can, you know? Yeah. They don't, it doesn't that the sheet numbering. add inherent value to the documents, but it's something that takes, can take hours and hours and hours with phasing or with, you know, renumbering because of, uh, permitting or any number of things that could happen in a project.

So it's an area to bring tremendous value in, in, in with automation. So I think it's, it's a fascinating topic to hear you talk about. You know, you've really kind of tackled it and not just tackled it, but tackled it with finesse with a mind for user experience and, and trying to make it not just, uh, functional, but, uh, you know, easy to use.

That's one of the key ones I can, I canand that, that we always try. I do know as well and, and understand some of the tools we have special Chichen. Our can be more complex, but the complexity comes with the functionality they brought as well to the market, because they're not simple tools. You can find a lot of simple tos, very, very simple.

And, but they're very, they also do one task and a very easy task. Some of the task be doing they quite heavily in our, in terms of, in, in many aspects to be Frank with you, and even look as an example, guess, you know, the sheeting that we released last week, the latest version we had of improve. Like as an example, it took us like probably like three miles of development just to come back with

plus lot of testing and lot of, even two, it's a lot of work. And lot of, even not just one person I can tell you. Not just one person behind. It's a lot of few people behind from inside the even formal site. Cause we got these, uh, small beaters users, which six people that use our tools. They like our staff and they, they wanna help us as well.

So yeah, it's definitely a nice one. And I forgot, I mentioned about the nine to which we had working at the moment. We have one person working in that, uh, uh, these stage, we are looking to create a small tool to allow people to. Easily import some small objects from point clouds and bring it into a family rev family environment.

So they can, you know, recreate these in a more quick way. So we are doing some another tool, which is very in demand we ask as well. I know if you follows as well, but we, we never, never, sometimes we don't do things alone. And when I say alone, I say, We, we, we listen, you know, what the people have to say to us, our users, we really love the feedback and really appreciate that even I have to, to admit.

And I think it's normal, not just from, from our side, any software company, they are the users, our tools. Greater because that's, that's the feedback and more than just the feedback, you know, reported towards the, in the right way. So we can replicate, we can fix them because that's, that's sometimes, you know, a big challenge.

And I have to tell you being a free tool comes with extra challenge. You know, when you think you have more users to use, definitely. But. I tell you the channels are being free. if, for example, sometimes we got reports people as an example, the book and we, us how can't reply. So I'm pretty sure if they that see and see the.

But part of that, we have very good, a lot of good people as well, that either ways they, they know what we're doing and they believe in our journey. So the supporters, and if they, the bug report share files, if they have to. So it's been, yeah, but sometimes these, I tell, yeah, for that's downside of being free, learned, there always pros and cons.

There's always pros and cons to, you know, even trying to do it. The. You know the best way that you can, but that's interesting that you're talking about, uh, point clouds. I've seen a, a movement in the industry for, uh, uh, 3d scanning and, and point clouds and really starting to for existing occupancies, especially, um, moving towards, uh, um, trying to have more digital input from, um, surveying facilities.

So. Uh, yeah, it sounded like it was a more on a small scale. You were saying your tool to, to generate a family from a 3d point cloud. But the, I find that interesting because yeah, um, I've seen we've we've the company I work for has had a couple jobs that use, uh, laser scanning or, or image mapping of facilities.

So, um, that's something I find interest. Yeah, it is a industry to be Frank is growing. He's growing a lot at the moment. More people are doing laser scans, you know, before, even after they build. So yeah, it's a lot of work is been done in that field as. definitely. So I wanted to talk a little bit about, we talked about your plugins a little bit, but I'd love to hear you speak a little bit more about some of the, you know, the kind of custom solutions that you do at, at D root, some sort of like outside of the box, uh, solutions that you might have.

I don't know if you have, might have a example of like a time when you provided a, uh, Um, a custom solution. Um, and you obviously, you don't have to use names or anything. Yeah. But just for my. Curiosity about, um, just to kind the kind of things that DROS does to help, to help people, uh, win in the architecture construction industry.

Mm-hmm sure. Uh, in terms of the custom, for example, even I have to, I have to, to say that, you know, one of the biggest markets that we have for the solutions is the market. And, um, that's, that's, that's the true, and I, I don't know why, but one of the things I'm learning as well. Um, I'm still trying to understand why for examples are to when Europe, I don't see the same.

If you, if few findings anyway, moving forward to terms the, of,

of the best,

in some case studies, we second case study right now. And, uh, that one for example, is one of my favorite tools as well that we create so far. It was for a Brazilian company. Um, And, uh, this, these two allows the user, uh, do you know the block work that we do, you know, Manually on site, you know, put one, like the brick brick work, you know, the block works comes, you know, you know what I meant, you know, all those breaks.

Yeah. So what we did for example, and that is very, is quite public. A few posts on that is all the placement of the brick works. We. Fuel these, you know, walls. We have like a genetic wall in rabbit and we convert genetic wall into bricks, but with a lot of rules based in the client and quite after meeting, you know, looks like great too.

But more than that was quite complex, but from mathematical perspective, cause you know, all the constraints and all the rules that we have set up made us quite complex too. But even plus he just does the block work and now. Plus he placed the lentil as well above the doors and windows. So he is a quite nice tool.

And, um, that was one of them we did. And we delivered, uh, you know, very, you know, even, I think the last version, the final version was this week. Um, so, and for example, in terms of expectations or even what the client is get, this is amazing. This that's, why was one, one of. Favorite tools as well. We kind of how to mate the process in 7.5%.

So a work that it'll take to this client to do, let's say, you know, 40 hours of work where reduced to two hours that were half hours of work, which is an amazing achievement and, and these kind of tools that we like to do, we even do it now. One. Is not complete, which for example, which also, I, I don't have an NDA on this one, which are I exporting some geometries.

I would not tell details until, you know, we, we got this out, but we exporting some geometry. That other people would have to rebuild because we couldn't export that. So, and that will be again, you know, working from scratch and because you know, all the models, architectural, especially, and structural essential lot, but because all these Ries inside, you know, like spaces and rooms, they are quite important and changing all the time along.

With the exchanges on the project. So we getting the tools mobile, we're looking for 90% because we exporting geometry so they can use geometry in the third party software. Another one we did for example, which is also public. We did a tool for Portugal, uh, uh, for our client in Portugal, which we published a case study where the client also claims to have more than 90% of savings.

So what we did all these detailing for re we don't automatically the process. We, we annotate them. So which feelings that takes a part of time and more than that, it is times to shake and over, you know, makes people overspending time, which they. They could spend these time with something else. And that's why people looking to now to automation, just not the way just to spend less time, is finding more free time to do other things, which they should do.

That's that's a key, that's two examples, but I can, I can say that we, or even three, I mentioned the projects, you know, there were more. Much more. Uh, and I hopefully in the future, I will be able to share, you know, much more what we do and I know some will never hours to do that's okay. Yeah. But I say I, to tell you, I mean, insisting with our clients, please, that our hours to people to see what you doing's quite nice, you know, some of them that's cool.

Yeah. I remember now the brick one that, and I had seen a cool tutorial on that. The, the video that took the wall and basically generated the, the brick layout. And that was really interesting. You were telling about the, the lentil, it put in the lentil and had a complex mathematical equation to it as well.

Oh yeah, that was there, like but, uh, yeah, that's awesome to, you know, take a task that is extremely labor intensive. To have a 95% or, you know, higher time savings rating 7.5. Sorry, man. No, you're fine. Go ahead and correct me. That's a, that's a good thing to, uh, you know, denote man, what a, what an astounding feat for something, a task that you know, that, that now that.

The company can take that time and focus on, uh, you know, things that add, uh, value, more value to their bottom line or wherever they wanna spend that time in. So that's incredible story definitely have something, you know, I think it's a different also perspective I'm I'm getting now from, from the experience I'm having with these clients and why, you know, what I'm feeling.

I think people that start these automation journey. They get, they get addicted they get addicted because they wanna do more. And they, they start to see, oh, whoa, I've been doing this for spending so much time doing this, but I can just, you know, with the, in a single click and maybe a few minutes or few seconds, it depends on the past, but you know, the machine is processing.

It can do it for me, you know? I'm. Yeah. Honestly, one thing I see guys is a lot of people, they come with the first project, the first idea, and then. They come again, they come again, they come again. It's a very nice and becomes wow. Means all of things as well. But, but that's, that's one of the things I'm, I'm I'm noticing.

I didn't know that it's one of the things I'm learning with these experiences. This is addicting . Yeah, no, I agree. That's how that's what happened to me, you know, I got started with, uh, Not knowing anything about coding and then knowing a little bit about coding and seeing, you know, the multiplier effect that, uh, being able to automate this, the, you know, there's that Python wanna go automate the boring stuff.

Um, that, but it's so good. And you know, also I wanted to talk about that. I thought it was a great note. You were saying earlier about the, the us kind of, uh, heaven, more of. Desire for the custom solutions or some of those custom tech things. I thought that was really interesting. I'd you wonder sometimes if, uh, there's, I think it's your culture, you know, that cause you know, your culture is different from, from Europe and uh, well, I, the one I criticiz, anyone's not about criticizing, but I don't know.

We look into more. Details here. Maybe sometime they don't need to spend so much time in the medic is all about, you know, there is, there is if we invest, what is my return? Yeah. And, and that part medic became one of like a country in the world. You see? My point is because attitude, you know, that you have that and definitely becoming.

Bigger. And, uh, we good because even we have , we, we never in this and we have the center, we, but we've been working even now with these last week, we got two products confirmed for the us. yeah, that's remarkable. I think it's a, I think it's a, you know, not a, a right or wrong thing. I think it's a cultural thing, like you're saying, and, and just like, uh, the tech is just something that's, uh, really embraced.

Uh, in, uh, in America in a lot of different, it seems like in every, uh, you know, different person I talk to in, in, uh, in the us for their work and probably globally has a, there's a new tech implication to, to what we do. And so that was one of the reasons why I'm like, More as well, because it's another thing I noticed and we seeing why the cloud are coming to works is for example, when we, we look us power investments, more technology, from my understanding, even if you go for market, lot of tools

for, for the American needs you see for your market needs. And why is we, what we notice as well is. Companies. I realize that, you know, when they buy these 2050 licenses, you know, and they have to pay to subscribe, they they're the subscription models and creating their own tools, which create tools, which they are really work for, what they want.

You know, there's not commercial needs to, but at the one or two or, but it's one I, we seen, you know, Some of these. No, no, no. We don't wanna pay more, uh, you know, the X, Y, Z. Uh, but I want to know, create my own tool because what we pay we can create and even can gain better KPIs in know, better returns.

Cause at the end, maybe the initial cost might be, might be even line that higher. But at the end long in the short run, you know, whenever you have to pay the subscription already pay that anyway. And that's what probably, you know, I think is what, one of the reasons as well is because the, the. Your that market, your marketing was more spending more money in these type of tools.

And. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably as well. I have to admit that yeah. Yeah. The marketing. And then I, like you said, that pricing model of that subscription model for, for technology I think is, is becoming so common. I'm starting to see it. Yeah. Even other industries are seeing the, oh, oh my gosh. Tech is making, you know, such, such a big money, uh, using this, this model of creating a service that, you know, has.

Just the ability to come back and, you know, I'll keep creating value. And if it's something that people like, you know, and that they can't put down, then it's, uh, you know, perpetual machine. Um, but that's, that's definitely interesting. I like, I like hearing about that. It's interesting to hear you speak since you have, uh, global perspective, more global than, than my perspective on, uh, the, those kind of trends.

So mm-hmm, , that's cool. But, um, I wanted to ask you about. I think I've been through at least a couple of 'em, but I wanted to ask you about your instructional, uh, videos and, and kind of how you got, you started doing these and, and, you know, again, like you're taking a chance again, to, to give away, um, content for people and, and help people out.

You know, why did you, why did you decide to do this or kind of what inspired. Uh, I really, I quickly mentioned in the beginning about, you know, my, my vision about what is coming next with this industry for zero, I see the world changing, you know, the world change the technology change things. And that was one of the reasons, like I told you as well in the past, you know, in some situation I wanna buy it too, but it was so expensive.

Or even, you know, maybe the boss now I'm not gonna explain. Whatever's like, so. I know that are a lot of people like, oh, it used to be like, like me, you know, they are people like it. They wanna buy, they wanna have access these tools. I wanna give something way. I. When I start, the roof was not just about, you know, the money was definitely, you know, to provide something to the market also because we are whole school.

We need to change the mentality. Even we have to, you know, to support more companies like, like us. Uh, even I tell you, for example, another point, you know, we have also of course, Dimensions doesn't anything in fact, you know, help us buy. So one or one or two tools, you know, and that's it no more than that.

Uh, but definitely's important. And why we did that is because we, we are making people happy at the end and that's one of the things I can't, I can even explain to you, but what we do is really appreciate. In numbers, for example, I dunno exactly the number I would tell, but sure. Our download numbers are over.

We, you active users, which is a number.

And, uh, we doing, we are becoming like, for example, a second even, we know in many, many companies in business

campaign, you know, rabbit. But the idea, like I said, I don't think there was a big idea. There was just definitely a vision. And I don't think in the, in the future, the companies that they all prices or whatever, they have to give something away. We, we all need to contribute. That is our contribution. Small contribution to the market.

I know is not a lot. I dunno as well. It helps a lot of people and makes a lot of people happy. And that community that, you know, they're using our tools is becoming big at everything, which is the most you knowing part, you know, we start with probably one user me and now we over thousand. So, which is excellent.

And I know this is growing that a growing numbers. In fact, I can tell, we have an average, like three users, new users per. Is, and it's. Yes, exactly. It's amazing. Definitely's a nice, it's a nice, uh, nice feeling personally for me as you understand, but, um, but definitely, you know, more understand is people, you know, they like our tools.

They appreciate, they really respect what we do and yeah. Even they support us, which is nice. So, but I don't know when you wait to tell these, so. That was the remember de roots. Me disruptive roots. We here to disrupt. If you ask the, the big dreams, I don't know, tell you, I can't tell you exactly where, where, what they're, but we have, we have a, I think we have a, a kind of role to play and we have big ambitions, but let's see, let's have fun.

Because of it. Remember, and one thing that you probably don't know yet is, you know, the roots is, is a self-funded business. So we have no investors. And honestly, we know looking forward to that, we like our free journey and we know with the investors, nothing will change. And it's probably even saying that, that we don't have any investors.

And we, I think what we. Managed to do so far to achieve so far so nice that, um, make us, you know, all of us, very, very proud. And even the team, the team that behind me is fantastic. I can't , I can't deny these support I have for them. So yeah, I think we had a great path, do something nice. Let's see. Well where we will take us, but I, I tell you guys, I have bigger, you know, bigger dreams in terms of what we're gonna do, but let's, you know, start with rabbit plug.

For now . Yeah, that's great. Never. Yeah, but what we want as well, just also to support people, you know, help people out, we just get a small part of solutions for what is possible to do. And that's where I think there was the gap. And that's why I think as well, I want fill that gap. And that's what we do at the moment, getting one of the gaps in the market, which by the way, there are a lot of new companies coming up as well in our world.

Our field, which from my understanding and some feedback I receive also inspired by our journey, which is nice to know. Nice to see. But yeah, I tell you as well, which is not hard market, but growing is a market and the future is going be the way forward. I wanna open the conversation that, but I believe customization, you know, for many, many business gonna be the only way you have.

And, but that's what even Eski is doing with force. You know, when they need force, they knew where the market is going. We see a lot of criticisms toes in many, many ways about, in my opinion is in, for thinking is the one more advanced force force solution is, is a platform for developers. Everyone can build in, in force connect with different APIs is a great, is going to be a great tool, which means is he can replace you.

If you kind of achieve the right way, or even if you depends on the scope as well as a business that you do. Of course, if you do a lot of complex things, you know, one tool is never enough, but definitely is a big market coming up for customization and it's growing. And another thing I haven't mentioned because I'm walking about customization and trends.

One of the things we seen as well is a lot of people that really invest heavily, they are moving forward, uh, ongoing out plugins. They're taking, you know, The most advance the most complex, uh, the ones that cost more to maintain and, you know, know all the issues that comes with dynamo. Uh, they are, you know, converting these, you know, big scripts into S which they, because they want performance.

They want, you know, other than the feature to, you know, buy from dynamic cannot provide. And you can find, grab it plugin. So if you invest, definitely that's, that's the way forward. So it's a lot of good things, the market, and you see, we can the right moment, the market is there for us and, uh, yeah, we're looking forward the next step.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Like you said, I think dynamo is the gateway into the automation. You know, if you can get people. Integrated and started with dynamo. And then, you know, that's, that's the first step on the journey of, you know, uh, understanding the power of automation and, and you know, what the Autodesk, um, kind of suite can do, uh, have an interest just from like, uh, somebody who's in the industry and, and wonders about.

Autodesk, but do you see any real competitors to Autodesk in what we do? It doesn't seem in my estimation, like there's any, uh, company or software that can really hold a candle to, um, that the giant they are competitors and. But they don't, they, they don't control the market as outers in the AC. You know, we, we got Bentley, Bentley's been there for a while.

We got graphic stopped as well, but they never covered all the fields. And then we got another guys from bricks yet the big cat. Which is growing as well lot in Europe. Uh, I don't, I don't think you probably heard a lot from them, uh, in, in the us figuring quite a lot big cut. Um, and the, yeah, it's quite nice too.

Quite nice too, but definitely, you know, they invest a lot, was a big revolution to the market. And at that time when, you know, I. Leave me the first years we got a lot of criticized for using rabbit. I'm just going back on time. Now, remember a situation, seeing comments from, you know, some someone reviewer drawing and say, yeah, do that thing now doing rabbit.

You didn't like the rabbit style. Yeah. But effort is a market change. I don't think at the moment, the. You know, they can compete with art to test, but you know, these, they are competing. They're trying to put the same level and, um, To be Frank . So I dunno, but I don't think they are at the moment they try, they try.

Definitely. But they can, I think at these stage, yeah. It's interesting to see how that'll develop. So, uh, I wanted to ask about, um, you know, it seems like your prolific, um, in your ability to. Kind of, uh, have good posts for LinkedIn and, and social media. But I wanted to ask you about, you know, as an entrepreneur and somebody who runs their own company, you know, how what's do you have any tips to help maintain, um, business relationships or just, you know, stay involved with the community?

Yeah. I'd love to hear about that from. As entrepreneur, Alice came to the market as well with, with, with a vision of being open and transparent being honest. That's that's the key point. Even when I, I, uh, we recruit people, I still. And one of the things I do as an example, I, uh, I used to hate to go to interviews where people, they have a list of questions and they shout you on the questions.

For example, when I start interview, normally I introduce, you know, introduce roots when I, the first 10 or is about, is me talking in. I even like the call interviews, like a discussion discussing opportunity. So that's one of the things I will definitely tell to people, you know, probably need to change the way that we used to the things, not just, you know, from the business, but how we recruit, because at the end, if you recruit people, you need to look good people.

And that's one of the things you need to find as well. Try to find that good people. I don't have to define definites are. And you definitely can, you know, you, you can never recruit just the good people you'll find as well. Some, you know, not so good, let's say. And, but definitely, you know, investing your people, you know, Even though, even explain to them, you know, your vision, tell me how we're going to achieve.

That's one of the things I did try to do as well when I bring people on board. I'm sorry for talking the way, you know, in talking to people who guess, cause I'm no one without my team. And if we are where we are today, the roots, and I know we still have a lot to, to walk. Go through is because of the team with the team we're going to make it just what the first team, you know, focus in your team.

You know, there are moments of course complex and the happy moments and sad moments or, you know, moments or even moments anyway. So they, they will be everything but needs to strong, but definitely good people gonna leave you and they wanna be part of this journey. They will commit their time because. As, um, self funded startup is not easy.

You know, we, when you don't have money for the investors, you know, you have to put everything. What you have into a business is hard, but in terms of, of the rest, uh, recommendations, definitely you. You know, one of the things I learned as well from my experience as an entrepreneur is you must believe if you don't believe who's gonna believe.

So you need to be the first one to believe. I even say to, to my guys as well, you know, you must believe, um, what else? I'm just thinking about the few things I could say. There are a lot of things, honestly, up easily in a conversation I'm just trying to figure out, um, in terms of a more social, we definitely use linking and.

Problem is people notice and people know we were one of the first ones using leak as a platform, you know, uh, uh, to reach more people. And we doing quite well. Why? I don't know how many details of our attitude, you know, our products, what we are and people recognize that is probably our, the key of success, uh, to us.

In terms of business. And definitely, for example, I act with me now, roots is not UK business anymore, or we never been because since we start, most of our clients are outside the UK. I even, I would say I don't have percentage, but. I am a problem to say that 80% comes outside of Europe or close to that.

Wow. So, um, we are a global company and that, uh, you know, rich help us that reach help us. We manage to get that through the social, LinkedIn, not so than on Twitter. I dunno why another one. I never try to understand, but definitely the hardest one to get, but definitely that's what we do. The exposure that you drive, we get from, from, from the social, by sharing the good stuff we do.

And we probably data a bit sometimes once that of promotion, if you need like a custom come to us and we help you. But definitely it's about to our products. We focusing our products and we, I don't think we are aggressive in terms of, uh, and I think sometimes as well, I see some. Lot of people too aggressive in nowadays.

And even the change on our market, in our social networks, if you wanna go that route as well. Cause you know, um, there's, a lot of people are starting to getting paid to talk about things which hate to be front with you. And so, because we they're not genuinely anymore, but we try to be genuinely, you know, sharing our products.

Being honest, you know, sharing about the products. And I dunno, at his four years on a journey as well. He's I dunno, he's a lot, a lot, a lot of work is being spent. Um, yeah, but just be close to your, your, your. At the end, I will say, be close to your, to your community, to your supporters, to your users. I try to understand them.

Not every time you're going to make them happy. I know that. And I can tell you that, but you can definitely help many times close them. Cause they're, they're the ones that help you to grow your business and to make where you are. And we, we are where we are also because of our users that they like us.

And we. We listen. I think that's why they, they like us as well. We, we want, we care for them. Yeah. I think that's a great point, you know, uh, I love your, uh, your sentiment about, you know, being close to your team, sharing your vision with your team, and also, you know, being close to the people who. Consume your products and consume your content.

You know, it's a, it's a real humbleness that is nice to see that you're not some, uh, that you're not a ego maniac. And just like, this is the content we make and you have to like it. You're saying no. Tell me, tell me what you like. You know, what's good about this. What's bad about this. You're you're staying in touch.

And keeping your edge with the, the market and, and, and what you see happening. So I think that's why people are, you know, supportive of what you're doing is cuz mm-hmm, , you're taking a look at the big pain points and the sticky situations in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. And you're saying.

Hey, this is where we can add value. Look at the value we, we are showing. And, you know, you're kind of, uh, um, taking some of these AR some of these spots I feel like are just, it kind of baffles me how nobody has taken these by the res before, like the, like the she creation we talked about, but also like the, you know, I guess Autodesk does provide some of this, uh, training and, and, you know, there's other places to provide this training, but.

Like you said it's, it's cost prohibitive. I mean, a young professional, somebody who's getting into the industry that just, you know, maybe spent money on a college degree or doesn't have money to invest in their career like that, you know, they, they don't have the money to go out and buy. 500, a thousand dollars worth of training.

And, you know, the company might not have the ability to pay for that either. So, I mean, uh, you know, they're always gonna be a fan of you for, um, putting these, uh, solutions out that they can get their hands on and actually start to, you know, be a better professional. I haven't mentioned, but we got also a free, free course.

We have two, in fact, you know, the basics and the advance, and lot people love it. I have to tell you that. So we just, I haven't mentioned, but you know, we also have that animal free training, uh, in our website, in on YouTube. So is that, you know, for those, and even we provide free the case for the VA look for the basic.

So we don't try to see, we are nice, nice team, you know, year too. Most of it's were fun. yeah, no, I I've taken your, at least a couple of those videos of your, uh, dynamo course, because you know, I, I don't have, uh, very much programming background, but enough to get my hands on some visual basics in dynamo.

And so I've definitely been through those videos. I'll throw some of the. Links down to those videos and the show notes for this episode to the, the YouTube page and, and the DROS website. But yeah, I've, I really have enjoyed those. And that's the most comprehensive YouTube video for like an introduction to dynamo that I've seen.

So, yeah, I haven't found any that competes with you. I know. I know. And I didn't wanna say that. I'm glad that you see, he said that many people came to us and said, that is the best dynamic course I ever came across. I, and even some, I try all only with the dynamic course. I really managed to understand rabbit because what we did with our course, we explain the logic.

We not the show of guys. Okay. We going to do that. And that is not a point. You need to understand the logic. My friend, if you know, one of the things I gave as an advisor as well. You know, we need to understand the logic of things. You don't understand the logic of things of software work, never going be good.

Even with rabbit. You know, when I post first start with rabbit, I try to understand how rabbit works after understand rev rabbit works. I could help people. I could fix problems. I, you know, across, you know, when you using the tools, that's probably one of the best tips I can give. You know, I always look to logic and understand the logic of things.

And then after you get the logic, believe me, you are going to a, anything in life. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. It's it's, uh, one of those hard things for people to communicate sometimes to people who don't understand a subject are the very fundamental building blocks and some courses that you watch they'll be too high level, you know, not just speaking about dynamo specifically, but anywhere, you know, any subject, you could learn that, that people too often.

Away from the basics, or there's not such a gradual transition from, uh, you know, oh, this is the different type of, uh, data parameters too. Like, you know, the next step up of, uh, you know, the intermediate level. And so it's, uh, that's a good point about, um, understanding the fundamentals. but, um, yeah, I wanted to kind of, uh, we're getting close to the end of the interview, but I wanted to, I know we've talked about some really good, um, trends in different, uh, you know, things that you you're seeing in the AEC industry, but I wanted to ask, um, you know, Ask you again about any other things that you're seeing in, in automation in the future or that you're seeing right now in the industry.

I just, I just love this topic. So in terms of advance advancements, we can do in automation. There's a lot of things we can do. Definitely what I do say that I'm leave, you call a rule based process. Don't worry. We can, we can fix for you cause any, anything in this rule based can be, can be coded. Can. It can be make it, so these benefits in terms of great solutions, I'm looking forward as well to the least AI developments.

Come on and let's be honest as well. AI we see is not the one, the same AI, the okay. so we still far away from that level and we, we need to be, we have some trials with AI. We limitations for us, which for the cost is quite expensive to invest, but that we're looking for what is coming the next for? To automate, you know, kinda predict, you know, not automation.

AI is not what automation it's about prediction optimization. That what I'm looking for to that, I know there are few companies doing some kind of stuff that as well, but I think we don't need even to look into AI. That's the key point. You know, we can fix a lot of manual repetitive task that we do every day or almost every day.

And that's where the business, I think they should looking to their. Know, focus while they can help or what they can be improve because there's a lot of opportunities everywhere. And that's the fascinating part of the AC because we've been, you know, a bit old, old school mindset, you know, we never really invest see, we looking more into deliver than to, to probably to invest it.

Our business there's so many opportunities, but as a specific specific one, I don't, I don't wanna focus in one topic, one tool or. I see a lot of red things coming up in the market, but definitely more. I, every time I speak with people, I know they are needs and that's the needs. I think we need to look and more don't look, don't expect for the tool because that's all you want might never come up.

You might have to. Kind of initiate even nowadays, there are many ways to approach these automation. You don't need to go alone as one business. Why you don't one business together. Sharing, remember being it's all about sharing. If you productivity's about share sharing is a keyword, one of the keyword. So, uh, yeah, it's we.

I think joint forces in the industry so we can see great, great improvements. And that's what I will do. Probably changing, you know, the cultural mindset, um, uh, in many, many situations, if we change that things will happen. I think I dunno, but definitely great tools. I, I love lot. I see a lot of great tools.

Yeah. I don't wanna mention any name, but definitely there are a lot of good tools out there right now. Sure, sure. I think that's a great point. You know, it's, it's easy to look to the future and say I AI or machine learning, or you know, all these things, but if you take a look at our industry right now, we're not even leveraging the, the best tools that are out there with what we know about technology for the AEC industry, kind of like you've.

Mentioned that. So, you know, let's, let's focus on using the, the tools that society has right now for our industry. Before we start thinking, how do we put the, the cutting edge of AI or machine learning onto, onto what we're doing. So I think that's a good point, but. I just want, thank you so much, uh, Jose for coming on the podcast.

I've really enjoyed it. And yeah. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to, to speak to me. Uh, I appreciate no, it wasn't as said the beginning. It a great pleasure. Thank you very much for the invite as well, to share some of our experience and even some personal experience, but definitely it was, uh, yeah, it's my story anyway, so that's it.

awesome. 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 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 9 of the solocasts of Fire Code Tech! On this episode we are speaking about the humongous topic that is fire pumps. The first episode of a series on fire pumps this episode discusses some of the basic methodology behind the piece of equipment. Don’t forget if you want at least two more solocast episodes a month for the price of a cup of coffee go check out the Patreon at patreon.com/firecodetech.

What is a fire pump?

When do you need a fire pump?

What are the different drives of a fire pump?

What is the benefit of fire pumps in series?

What is the benefit of fire pumps in parallel?

What are the main components of the fire pump?

What are the codes and standards around fire pumps?

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 nine of the solo cast of fire code. On this episode, we have fire pumps. So I wanted to talk about fire pumps. Like I said, last week, I really wanted to dive into fire pumps last week, but I realized that I needed to establish first, why you would need a fire pump in this episode, I want to.

Dive deeper into, um, the ins and outs of fire pumps and why you would need them and the codes and standards surrounding the issue is always. And so I hope you will enjoy this episode if you would like to hear more from me about solo cast topics and some extra bonus interview episodes eventually. You can check out this topic and more at patriot.com/fire code tech, please, don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe.

So you never miss an episode. A fire pump is a part of a fire sprinkler system's water supply. In fact, the only reason why you would need a fire pump. Is, if you do not have a sufficient water supply for the design demand of the sprinkler system, in which you're trying to install, the only reason in which you would need a fire pump is if you have a deficient water supply, EG a city water supply that cannot sustain the design pressure and flow needed by your sprinkler.

And so what does this mean to a professional who's in the fire and life safety field. If there's a fire pump present in a facility, this means that in order to supply the, um, required flow and pressure needed in the design area for the sprinkler system, you need to have this pump to deliver that water.

And so we talked about in the last episode about how we need the. Um, you know, calculation methods to determine the pressure and flow required for the sprinkler system. And so when we've plotted our water supply curve, and we take a look at our design demand and our design demand exceeds what our water supply can give us in terms of pressure and flow, then we have established a situation in which we need a fire pump.

Maybe I just said the same thing four different times. I'm not too. But, uh, yeah, that's what a fire pump is. A fire pump is a piece of equipment that supplies, uh, flow and pressure in order to. Facilitate a sprinkler system to do its job. Um, in, in the simplest terms I can think of, um, I can't find a good definition in N F P 20 that says, quote unquote, what a fire pump is.

Um, it's composed of an engine, a driver, uh, a controller and. Yeah. So there's a couple different power sources you could use for a fire pump. There are electric fire pumps and there are diesel fire pumps, and there are also steam driven fire pumps. I've never seen these before. Apparently they exist. Why you would need to know this is one of the first tasks that you need to concern yourself with when you've realized that your facility needs a fire pump in preliminary design.

After some of the hydraulic calculations we talked about in our previous episode is that you need to establish if the facility has reliable power or not. And so what is reliable power? So first before we get into reliable power, let's talk about the controller a little bit more. And what that is a fire pump controller is defined as a group of devices that served to govern in some predetermined manner, the starting and stopping of a fire pump driver to, and to monitor the signal and status and condition of the fire pump unit.

and so think of this as the brains of the fire pump, there are a number of different ways you can start a PO fire pump. And the reason why you might want to consider the way you start a fire pump is, um, if you have, uh, I've not heard of facilities that. Uh, don't use a soft start fire pump, but if you have a fire pump that doesn't have a gradual start, you can have water hammer in your fire sprinkler system, which can be damaging mechanically damaging to your fire sprinkler system.

And so why it's important to know when you need a fire pump or not, is that there are sweeping implications for the fire and life safety design and for corresponding, uh, disciplines involved. That are impacted. So I'm working on a project right now. Uh, we have a preliminary flow test and we're, you know, in early stages of design and.

We're in early stages of design. And we need to know if we need to program in a fire pump space. So you need to either, uh, have a fire rated separation around this room and the room needs to be dedicated to the fire pump functions. You can't have miscellaneous mechanical plumbing and electrical equipment and your fire pump room.

It needs to be a dedicated. And you can imagine that this is not something that a building owner is thinking about. When they're thinking of developing a nice brand new facility is a, you know, whatever it is, 200 square foot room dedicated to only fire and life safety features. It can be a real bummer for them.

So, depending on the reliability of your powers, how do you determine if you need a diesel driven fire pump, an electric driven fire pump with backup emergency power, or if you can just have your fire pump driven off of electricity with no backup, because it's deemed reliable and you have to be careful with this because some jurisdictions don't recognize this, um, caveat.

A reliable power source to exclude a secondary means of, uh, power for your fire pump, depending on the demand for your facility, you might be in a situation in which you need to provide fire pumps in series or in parallel. If you're looking at a aircraft hanger, it's a common occurrence for you to need to provide, uh, fire pumps in parallel in order to provide the flow that is needed.

And so here's an interesting topic, uh, that I, when I discovered this was kind of like aha, or mind exploded moment pumps in series, add the additional pressure. So if I have, um, one pump with a hundred PSI rated at a hundred PSI and another pump rated a hundred PSI in series, then these two pressures would be additive.

And the second pump would, um, discharge about, you know, 200 PSI at a hundred percent capacity. And so. If you take a look at those same two pumps, um, say they're rated at 1500 GPM. They wouldn't produce any more flow in series than 1500 GPM. So to put that into context, the volume of water that they could move forward in series, it can be no greater than 1500 GP.

Um, at rated capacity, 200 PSI and 1500 GPN in parallel. Uh, it has the inverse effect. The flow is additive, but the pressure is not. And so if you have two 1500 GPM fire pumps at rated at a hundred PSI and parallel the flow available at the combined discharge header would be approximately 3000 gallons, but it would still be available at a hundred PS.

And so when I first figured this out, it was kind of a, like a mind blowing situation, um, that I didn't understand. And so I've very frequently seen due to the nature of my, uh, company's area of expertise and work fire pumps in parallel. Um, the extraordinary amount of flow needed to provide a high expansion foam system for an aircraft hanger, uh, provides that scenario in which you would need such, uh, excessive amounts of water.

I say excessive, but really, I mean, To great degree or severity like a, like a large, just volume of water. There's no other occupancy that I've ever encountered that can come close a situation in which you might find, um, that you need pumps and parallel would be, uh, if you have a. Campus fire line that has, uh, is provided with supply by a fire pump.

However you need to, you don't want to make your underground fire main, um, all rated for high pressure piping and high pressure fittings. And so you provide not only a fire pump for your campus fire main, but also inside of your building in order to get the pressure that you need. For the facility. This might be a situation in which you might need series fire pumps.

So they're not in the same building directly in series, but they are as a fire protection system in series, you can need a fire pump, but not need a fire protection water storage tank, a fire protection water storage tank is needed. When there you can't get enough water with your fire. Without cavitating the line.

So let's talk about how to select a fire. So the first step in selecting a fire pump is perform performing a hydraulic calculation after you've determined the need of your fire sprinkler system or any system, really your high expansion foam system, your standpipe system, after you've determined the pressure and flow needed.

Of your system and you have acquired the, uh, water supply capacity, um, from a flow test, most likely performed in accordance with 2 91. And you take a look at the Delta between, uh, the water supply capacity and the, uh, fire protection system demand. And then, so you need to make up this deficit. And so the fire pump is how you make up this deficit between what the water supply municipal or otherwise can provide and what your system needs.

And so you want to take the. The difference between these two lines, these two water supply lines, you know, the way I learned it in the way that I'm comfortable with, um, doing this in my professional career is making a diagram of the water supply capacity, the, you know, city water supply and the fire protection system demand and charting these out for the water supply.

Curve, you would put the static pressure observed on the flow test, the residual pressure reserved on the flow test and the residual flow observed on the flow test. And so these are, you know, two points on the water supply. Graph paper. And so you would draw a trend line and extrapolate this out. A lot of times there will give an approximation of that pressure at 20 PSI, since that is the code required, minimum that you're allowed to run out the municipal water supply capacity too.

You don't. That's a, that's a code driven factor when you are taking a look at the difference between these two points. I like to take a look at the hit that point of greatest interest, which is the system demand point with hose. So the most common application of a fire pump is a pressure deficit. You have the flow available, but not the available pressure at the point in of interest, AKA the system fire protection demand point.

And so what you would wanna do is to draw a vertical line and find the intersection of the water supply capacity and the, you know, fire protection system demand. And so you would. A, if you take the pressure required at the fire protection system demand and the pressure available at the water supply capacity at the flow intended for the fire protection water supply, which you would have as a Delta, is the pressure required to be accommodated by the fire.

I'll throw another shameless plug for MyFi in here and drop a link to his calculator for water supply analysis. So you can get an idea of what calculating the Delta between what your water supply can provide and what your fire protection system demand demands. And so you can get an idea of how to navigate the selection of a fire pump after you determine the pressure you need and the flow you.

You need to, uh, select a fire pump with these qualities. So a fire pump is comprised of a number of different parts and pieces. Some are required when you have different drives of fire pump. So an electric fire pumps components are not the same as a diesel fire pumps components. Maybe that is, uh, uh, blatantly obvious and a little bit, uh, pandering.

I just wanted to talk about some of the different parts and pieces of a fire pump system. Some of the parts and pieces that are crucial to fire pump design are butterfly valves or control valves, not specifically butterfly valves, so different points in, in the system where you can isolate. The water in order to do maintenance or facilitate different functions at the fire pump.

So suction and discharge control valves, and also, uh, extra control valves for the bypass. If you have a bypass. Um, a fire pump bypass is a, uh, piece of piping that, uh, basically supersedes the fire pump. And in the case that the fire pump is inoperable, you can still have water supply capacity from the city in order to supply a portion of your system.

The only reason why you would need a fire pump bypass is if there is a. Significant source of your Sy significant portion of your system that can be operated by the city water supply. So if you have a fire protection water storage tank, you don't need a fire pump bypass because there is not a sufficient supply from the fire protection water storage tank in order to.

The fire sprinkler system. In most cases, I would say I'm sure there are some obscure cases that I'm not thinking of, but generally this is the case. And so there are also check valves, check valves in that discharge portion of the fire pump. Also in the fire pump bypass, what a check valve does is to limit the flow of water, a check valve in the fire department connection as well.

Another piece of equipment germane to fire pumps is the test header, a way to test the fire pump. Uh, you wanna test the fire pump when you initially install the fire pump and at regular intervals, we're required by. And FPA 20 and NFPA 25. So another piece of component architecture of a fire. Is we talked about the controller, but also we could talk about the jockey pump.

The jockey pump also known as a pressure maintenance pump is a smaller pump in order to regulate the pressure differential in the system so that the fire pump does not activate. So the way that a fire pump activates is it has a sensing. Hooked up to the fire pump controller. And it, it gets a reading from the discharge side of the fire pump.

And there is a set pressure and, uh, that the fire pump controller has that's programmed into the controller, which the fire pump controller knows that if the pressure gets to this set point, then it operates. And so the jockey maintenance pump or the maintenance pump or pressure maintenance pump or jockey.

Nose to, uh, it's basically a much lower capacity, uh, little fire pump. That's just helps keep the pressure that fluctuates through regular leaks and, um, you know, pressure surges and the water system. It can. You know, change, the pressure can change. And so what the jockey pump does is it prevents the fire pump from kicking on and instead the jockey pump will operate in order to limit the amount of times that the fire pump needs to turn on.

So it'll save the bigger piece of equipment. So if we take a look at diesel fire pumps and. Components that they have, they're a little bit more complicated than electric fire pumps. And so the most simple fire pump is probably the electric fire pump without the transfer switch and the generator backup and the most.

complicated is probably the diesel fire pump. And so diesel fire pumps only come in horizontal split case. And we haven't talked about the different, um, types of fire pump. There's, uh, a myriad of different types of fire pumps that really, I see two most common, which are horizontal split case and vertical inline.

Um, there are other. Uh, use cases for fire pumps and model types like, um, vertical turbine or, um, Multiport pumps, but I don't have much experience in these, in these areas. Uh, most commonly I see horizontal split case. If I have a space that is limited in programmatic architectural space and has a relatively low demand, I would, you know, look into a vertical inline pump as an option.

And so some of the diesel components. That are different from an electric driven fire pump R you need a fuel source and, um, you need to monitor the fuel source and there are, there can be different requirements for, uh, when you have this fuel source in the fire pump room, it's a can make your fire pump room of a greater hazard.

Diesel fire pumps have exhaust and exhaust manifolds. You need to exhaust the. Engine exhaust from the diesel fire pump either through the roof or through the sidewalk. Diesel fire pumps also have the capability to have pressure relief valve. This pressure relief valve is due to over overturn or over clocking the diesel fire pump.

And in the event that this happens, it discharges to the exterior of the building or back into the fire protection water storage tank. That's all I got for this episode of the solo cast of fire code tech. Don't forget if you wanna find out more, go to patreon.com/fire code tech. Also, I forgot to mention that.

The the standard for installation of fire pumps and FBA 20. And the code section in I B C is chapter nine, section nine 13. 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.

On episode 8 of the solocasts of fire code tech we are breaking into hydraulic calculations. Working through the basics and exploring the fundamentals of how to determine pressure and flow required for sprinkler systems. Tune in as we explore these questions and more on this week’s episode. Don’t forget to check out the Patreon at patreon.com/firecodetech if you would like to check out more on the subject.

What are hydraulic calculations?

When do you need to have calculations?

What is the density area method?

What are the density area curves?

What are area adjustment factors?

What is fire department flow?

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 I.

Hello, welcome to episode eight of the solo cast of fire code tech. On this episode, we are talking about hydraulic calculations for sprinkler systems. I wanted to talk about fire pumps this week, but I realized that. I had to introduce the topics of hydraulic design and how to analyze a fire suppression system to see if you are designing for the appropriate amount of pressure and flow.

This is one of the most quintessential tasks for a fire protection engineer and something that's near and dear to my heart. So I wanted to go over the basics and address hydraulic calculations. When you need them, how to address the codes and standards around them. And also, uh, what are the basic steps for how to produce them?

We'll see how far we get in this episode. But my goal is to take you through the entirety of a, how to do a hydraulic calculation and the different varietals of hydraulic calculations. So. Yeah, let's get started. Don't forget if you like these solo cast episodes, you can go to patreon.com/fire code tech and get two of these episodes a month for the price of a cup of coffee.

Also, don't forget to subscribe and give us a good review on iTunes if you would do so I'd greatly appreciate it and follow us on social. So you don't miss when these great shows come out. So I wanted to start off with, um, what are hydraulic calculations? So hydraulics is the study of, of fluids and the dynamic motion of fluids.

And the reason why you would have hydraulic calculations is to justify, um, sprinkler piping, configuration, and, uh, sizing and the different. Size of sprinkler orifice slash head type. And so when you need these sys, when you need this topic is when you have already determined that you have. A need for a fire suppression system in new construction or in existing construction, where you are making a significant modification to a sprinkler system, which requires a, um, reanalysis of the pipe sizing.

And performance of the system is just a, a note for this topic. There's a couple different ways you can design a sprinkler system. There's the hydraulically designed systems, which are the most frequently produced kind in modern construction. And then there's the pipe schedule system, which is how many legacy fire sprinkler systems were designed before.

Um, hydraulic calculations were as common. And so, uh, the definition of a hydraulically designed system, and this is in chapter three of NFPA 13, and this particular definition is out of the 2019 version is a calculated sprinkler system in which pipe sizes are selected on a pressure loss basis to provide a prescribed water density in gallons per minute, per square.

Or a prescribed minimum discharge flow per sprinkler. And then it says distributed with a reasonable degree of uniformity over a specified area. And so what this says to me is that. There is a prescribed flow and pressure that is, um, required for the system. And the hydraulic calculations are provided in order to justify that the system will be able to discharge this amount of water at the requisite, uh, pressure and flow.

And so one of the predominant components that you need. An essential component of, uh, hydraulic calculation is a water supply. And so you would obtain a water supply through a flow test, or you would obtain data points about the information of what a water supply is by a flow test. Um, a flow test would be a great topic to do, uh, show over and I'm sure I'll get into that, but.

Salient points at this podcast. Let's say we have three data points from a flow test, a static pressure, uh, residual pressure and a residual flow. And so these can be obtained through N FPA 2 91. and then you can plot these out on hydraulic, uh, graph paper or paper with a 1.85, um, scale. And you can take a look at the distribution of pressures and flows of the water supply that's available.

And so why is this important? Um, understanding what is the available capacity of the water supply system that your fire suppression is, um, using as its source of water is important to know, because if you are above this curve that is made by plotting the, uh, static pressure, the residual pressure and the residual flow, then.

You were not able to use the sprinkler system in its design manner. You're gonna need either a fire pump or a fire protection water storage tank. . And so this is a little bit hard to explain because it's a very visual, a, a graph of hydraulic water supply is a very visual thing, but I just wanted to mention, um, that, and so a pipe schedule system is basically just.

Based on a set of sizes. And so the definition from chapter three is a sprinkler system in which the pipe sizing is selected from a schedule that is determined by the occupancy classification and in which a given number of sprinklers are allowed to be supplied from a specific size of pipe. So a great place to look if you're wondering about information on hydraulic calculations.

And I haven't said this yet, but all this information about how to calculate a fire sprinkler system is through the lens of, you know, codes and standards in the us. So international building code, um, and then followed by N FPA 13 and then so big chapters in NFPA 13 for. Uh, hydraulic calculations are the definitions chapter and also plans in calculations.

Um, uh, in the 2013 version that's chapter 23. And so. Place where you can see more information about pipe schedules and how many sprinklers equals what pipe size is in, um, 23, where they talk about for the specific hazard, how in the specific type of pipe, how many sprinklers can you get on each, um, size of line?

So it starts off at two sprinklers on one inch line. And then if you have more than two sprinklers, You have three sprinklers, you have to have on a line, you have to have that on. And this applies to lines or mains. Um, you have to have it on, on, uh, inch and a quarter. And so this table goes up and up and up.

And so, uh, another good point to talk about is hazard determination and. Uh, what does hazard determination look like? So, um, let's go over a couple definitions for the different hazard types and when you would need these, uh, there are a couple different types of. Of, uh, preliminary hydraulic analysis or hydraulic analysis.

And, um, one of the most common ones that I've seen is the density area method. And one of the first steps in calculating, uh, fire sprinkler system for the density area method is determining the hazard classification. and so we have light hazard, ordinary hazard one and two, and then extra hazard one and two.

And so as you can imagine, light hazard is the least hazardous, which requires the least amount of water and extra hazard. Two is the most hazardous and requires the most amount of water. And so this is, uh, density area is the most simple method of, um, hydraulic calculations. There's also, uh, more specific methods for, um, storage, sprinklers, like ESFR sprinklers or CMSA sprinklers that don't follow the standard conventional rules.

And so taking a look at at those that their, their specific that the core tenets of what it means to address the hydraulics of it, which is verifying the pressure and flow is adequate is the same, but the way that you select how many sprinklers you flow and, um, some of the other factors can change. So, so let's move forward with the discussion of a typical area density approach.

So. I'm much more used to the, uh, approach and how it's laid out in, uh, NFPA 13 in the earlier versions of NFPA 13, uh, as of 2019, they've totally reconfigured the standard. I'm not as comfortable with that, uh, methodology. Maybe I'll do a comparison in the future, but for. I'm still taking a look at it through the lens of, um, the 2013 edition.

So right now we're looking at chapter 11. Which talks about the design, uh, density and area, uh, method and, and how to, uh, model this approach. Um, the 2019 edition of the standard lays out the, uh, design process a little bit more linear in the way that the book approaches it. Yeah. Hazard determination is one of the first steps in the process.

And so. It says classification shall be as followed light hazard, ordinary hazard, extra hazard, special occupancy provisions. Uh, they give a caveat for storage applications and how those are not covered as a part of this, um, design approach. And so it gives a couple of options for how you would determine this, this occupancy hazard, fire control approach, and special design approaches of chapter 11 storage design approaches of chapter 12 through 20 special occupancy approaches of chapter 22.

So what this is telling you is it can use, you can use the standard density area approach of chapter. If you have storage designed, so that's high piled storage, or, um, appreciable amounts of storage in excess of a quantity that's allowed in NFPA 13, you would use chapter 12 through 20, or if you have a really special case occupancy, say you have, uh, sprinkler system for a Marine, um, scenario.

So you have a, a river boat with. Fire sprinkler system. Then you may wanna look in, uh, chapter 22, or if you have a really kind of unique design approach, then you wanna look in chapter 22. And so really at this point in the process, you wanna take a look at where your lead in for your sprinkler system is gonna come into the building and then you wanna, you know, analyze where you're most.

Most hazardous area of your building is this is gonna help you determine where your remote area is gonna be and help you, um, figure out where the most demanding pressure and flow area of your building is. And so. Um, there's different. There's, you know, of course, many scenarios in which you'll have to do multiple hydraulic calculations in order to justify your piping and, and sprinkler head configuration in multiple areas.

But, um, let's just, uh, for instance, say that you have a square building and you come into the Southwest corner of the building and the Northeast corner of the building is your most hazardous area. And it's an ordinary hazard. Area based on your hazard category, you need to determine the minimum amount of area you can calculate, uh, with your required density in order to determine the flow needed.

If you look at the charts on 11.2 0.3, water demand requirements, hydraulic calculation methods, you'll see a very interesting table. Um, figure 11.2 0.3 0.1 0.1 density area curves. This is where the term, the density area method comes from. And so you have, uh, a linear line sloping downwards, and they have one for light hazard.

They have one for ordinary and, uh, you know, one and two extra one and two. And so from here, you can get your first sense of. Some different factors for density. And when I say density, I mean, um, density of water per square foot. And so, um, there is a line that slips downward. And so I would take a look at ordinary one for the process.

Um, we're speaking of, and so there's an area of sprinkler operation and the beginning of the line starts at, you could take a look at 0.1 GPM. Um, over 4,000 square feet and then add the slide slopes all the way down to the second point is 0.15 GPM add 1500 square. And so basically there's an acceptable range of densities and areas allowed for ordinary hazard.

One that you can use to calculate your system demand flow. And so, so you choose your remote area and now we have to choose the density and the area of operation. So, um, you could select 4,000 square feet at 0.1 GPM. I've never in my whole history of my, um, design experience, seen somebody select, uh, towards the top of this line.

Um, they always select near the bottom of what's allowed, uh, 0.15 over 1500, which, uh, the reason why you would do this there's that you could. Essentially be more conservative or less conservative, or you could say more cost effective. Um, and so 0.1, five times, or let's just go with 0.1 times 4,000 is 400 gallons per minute.

And then 0.1, five times 1500 is 225 gallons per minute. So you're, you're flowing. Uh, you know, another, uh, 175 GPM for the same classification of hazard. Um, it just doesn't happen, um, because more flow equals, um, needing bigger pipe sizes, bigger sprinklers, and more cost along the way. So in the common convention, you're gonna, you're gonna pick the lowest point of the curve unless there are some, um, design guidelines in place that are going to, um, make it.

Essentially required to select somewhere else in that range. And so. If it's, so there's other, some area adjustment factors you might have to use. If you have a dry system, you might need to add a multiplication factor to increase the area. You have to take a look at by 0.3. If you have a roof that is severely sloped, you might have to add a, uh, a factor that increases the area in which you need to analyze the sprinkler system by, you know, I think it's, uh, from.

Point one to 0.2, I forget exactly how much. Um, and so that is a factor that could also change, um, the area in which you're looking at. And so, conversely, there are some reductions that you can apply if you have, uh, light or ordinary hazard occupancies with specific ceiling Heights, uh, flat ceiling Heights.

And so you can get a quick response re. Um, up to, it looks like 40%. Um, and you see this used, uh, very commonly, uh, cuz for an office space with the, uh, 10 foot or eight foot ceiling, you would be able to take this exception and it would be advantageous because you could. Um, lower the water required and dusty, um, piping and sprinklers could also be reduced in, um, you could be beneficially compensated for this reduction in flow.

And so after this, you, um, In regards to flow. So everything we talked about so far has been in regards to flow. We haven't yet started to talk about pressure and how to analyze pressure the system. So as a, as a quick recap, we've determined hazard, we've determined remote area, and we have taken a look at the, um, Area and density required.

And, uh, we've adjusted for allowance factors like, uh, dry pipe and, uh, you know, uh, and we've adjusted for ceiling slope and, and, uh, let's just say it's, uh, since it's ordinary hazard one, let's say it is just a, uh, small utility shed, um, with the minimal combustible loading in. Don't think we're gonna make it all the way through, uh, to pressure in this session.

So let's just say. Um, talk about the last factor which would for flow, which would be, um, hose allowance for, uh, extra fire department connections. And so, um, you have different hose, stream allowance and duration requirements for the, the differing hazards. And so, um, it ranges from a hundred to 500 gallons per minute.

And so two 50 for ordinary hazard. And so you would have to add this. So if you're doing preliminary hydraulics and you know that you have an ordinary hazard, uh, occupancy, and you want to get a sense of how much flow you're gonna have, you can, you know, take your 1500 square feet. Uh, you can put a safety factor on that.

If you would like, um, you'd say like times 1.3 and say 1800 square feet. Um, multiply that by a 0.15, um, GPM per square foot that would give you 270 GPM. And then you would add an additional 200 to 50 GPM for the host stream allowance. This would give you an approximation of what kind of flow you would be expecting for an ordinary hazard occupancy.

Um, just through experience and through repetitions I've seen, uh, flows for ordinary hazard can range through about like 500 to maybe the upper of what you might expect would be like. 800 or 900 GPM if you have ordinary two. And so this would be in line with what I've seen and what I would expect anyways.

Well, that wraps up, uh, flow for the most part. Doesn't cover all of that. All of what could be considered of course, but, um, we're coming up on a lengthy one here. And so we're gonna sign off. Thank you guys so much for listening and don't forget to subscribe and, uh, if you're interested, go check out the Patriot.

All right. Thanks guys. 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 29 of Fire Code Tech. On this episode we are interviewing Marco Vargas. Marco is a NICET III in water-based systems and the owner of his own fire suppression design firm. In this episode we talk about Marco’s fascinating career in design as well as some trending topics in the industry like BIM. Marco gives some great tips on how to make sure your fire suppression system fits.

https://www.dogfightfire.com/about

How did you find your way into fire protection?

What are some of the roles you held in your career?

Would you speak about constructability and what you look for to make a fire suppression system fit?

Would you speak about Dogfight Fire LLC?

What are your thoughts on BIM and where it is going?

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. Well, welcome to episode 29 of fire code tech. In this episode, we have Marco Vargas. Marco is a fire suppression designer and contractor who works in the construction industry. Marco gets into everything, fire suppression. He has his own firm and he's a nice set level three and water based systems layout.

In this episode, we talk about BIM constructability and Marco's fascinating career. I like talking to Marco because he has great takeaways for how to hustle and. How to be an entrepreneur. It was really entertaining for me to talk with Marco as somebody who has pulled himself up by his own merit and his own ability to achieve and really accomplish some cool things.

If you're a fire suppression enthusiast, or you just want to hear about some good takeaways from professional development about somebody who has done it and made it as a professional, then you're gonna love this episode. Don't forget to subscribe. So you never miss an episode and follow us on social media.

Oh. And if you want to give us a five star rating review on iTunes, I would greatly appreciate it. Let's get into the show. Well, Marco, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Welcome to fire code tech. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Awesome. So I always like to get started with having people tell a little bit about how they stumbled into fire and life safety.

Well, I say stumbled in sometimes it's not a stumble, but. Oftentimes it is, but in my, in my case, it, it kind of was a stumble. I, uh, started a little bit, uh, around 2008. Um, and I was gonna school at the time, uh, for Archit architectural engineering. But, um, I was also working full time and I, I was never one to, um, look into getting student loans or anything like that.

So I I've just always worked since I was a kid. And so I was working full time and I just kind of found myself being, you know, stuck in this sort of forever timeline until I finally got my degree and, and, uh, be able to start looking for, for jobs and all that. So, um, uh, when I was parking cars at the Hilton hotel and downtown Austin, one day, I was like, you know what?

I'm, um, I'm just gonna start sending out my resumes and put on there, you know, Current student at architectural school looking for, you know, whatever position is available. And I started sending out resumes and, uh, sure enough, I, I, uh, I, uh, got in interviewed and hired with, uh, fire sprinkler company in Austin.

And, uh, I had already, I already knew how to draw on AutoCAD, thanks to three years of high school drafting, where I kind of, uh, um, got around having to, to do PE or anything like that by just taking the extended drafting course, uh, which ultimately paid off cuz it's what I'm doing now. But, um, uh, so for three years in high school, I was just messing around on AutoCAD and, and the one computer that was in the room and that was enough to sort of, you know, line draw, copy.

Um, The basic commands. Um, I had already sort of learned a lot of the basic commands and by the time I, uh, I left high school and started taking college classes and all that, I, um, I was showing my, a lot of, I remember, you know, there was one instance where I showed a, my professor, what a quadrant point was, cuz he was telling us, you know, to, to get the end point of a line directly on a circle, you gotta zoom in, you know, and you gotta just keep zooming on in.

And, and it was just so like that that's so bad. Yeah. So my early and you know, my early experience with, with taking, you know, classes for, you know, uh, computer engineering, I felt like I was already ahead in a way and not to say that I already knew everything. Which when we're young, we tend to think that anyway, but I was aware that I didn't know everything, but I knew enough to, to how a lot of people say to make me dangerous.

So when I was just going through these classes, I just found myself more and more like bored because even outside of class, I was always messing on AutoCAD, like just drawing either, you know, logos or just, just stuff, just messing with it. I, I enjoyed it. And, um, so that's, that's kind of what led to my frustration, um, with waiting on, on finishing school and just sort of, um, pulling the trigger a little bit early and, and start sending out resumes, which, you know, I figured the best thing that I could do was say, you know what, I don't have a full education yet, but I'm working on it.

And, uh, you know, giving a shot, which thankfully, uh, one design manager did. And, um, and I kind of. Um, got the ball and, and how do they say it? Got the ball and ran with it running and ran with it. There you go. So that's awesome. Yeah. I really appreciate that you had some hustle and you were like, I'm not waiting around to finish school.

I'm running circles, run the teacher. And why would I wait? You know, I think that, uh, it's, it's sad. I, I see in college students or, you know, people involved in secondary education so often that they wanna wait until they're, you know, done with college to do what they want to do. And. That's really not the way to go about it.

Uh, at least not in engineering or, uh, you know, in the F really probably fire and life safety here in most fields, probably. And most fields I imagine, but especially in fire protection, even if you can get your foot in the door as an admin or something, even if you're, you know, even if you're just learning about the monthly billings or inspection reports or something, you know, there, the, the industry and, and the trade is so vast that if you get good knowledge working knowledge in one aspect, even if it is, you know, understanding of, uh, from like, um, an admin position all the way up to engineering, I mean, there's a spot in a, in a fire protection company for pretty much anyone from varying backgrounds.

Yeah, that's a great point. And I feel like fire suppression companies are always hiring. So, I mean, there's a good chance that even if it was only on a trial basis, you know, uh, you could get a stab at opportunity. Um, if you showed that you were, you know, eager enough, I think there'd be a decent chance.

Yeah. And it, and it's a lot of, a lot of the trades. Um, a lot of the people who are managers and, and a lot of the companies that I've worked for a lot of them aren't college graduates themselves. A lot of them started off as installers. A lot of them started off as inspectors and, um, it's, it's very humbling to see, you know, when, when somebody who is just hungry for it, um, they, I don't wanna say they fall in love with the trade, but it, it.

It kind of grabs you where you realize that there's been this sort of unsung hero of construction. That's just sort of been there. Nobody thinks about it really. Um, and, but there's just so many opportunities in it that once you learn of it and you're like, okay, I can get specialized in, you know, X, Y, or Z, like whatever you want to specialize in, there's a spot for you in it.

So it's very, um, I, I enjoy it because some of my early career, you know, after, after I, um, got hired in, in Austin, I worked for the, a company there for about, I think it was close to eight months before I, I moved to Portland. Um, just to, just to go up there and follow my girlfriend around at the time. And, um, Working up in, uh, a company up there, you know, it really kind of opened my eyes to all, all those possibilities as well.

You know, once, once I went up there, it was, uh, it was so easy to just kind of, I don't wanna say easy, but it was, you know, I didn't have much experience, but I was able to get a job at a sprinkler company and, and they, they gave me another, you know, they gave me a shot and, and, um, and I just, um, I just continued learning there.

And the big thing is just when you make a mistake, you gotta, you gotta really own up to it. And not, not ever try to put anything off cuz in construction, if you make a mistake and you don't tell anybody about it, you're gonna find out, you know, a month and $20,000 later that you either lied or, or missed something.

So. Yeah, that's a good point. It's there's not much room for hiding in, uh, fire suppression contracting. Yeah. It really is just, uh, a abundantly, uh, obvious if you make a mistake, you know, if you double order something or, you know, you didn't understand the structure over here, so it doesn't fit. Uh, you know, uh, they're gonna find out exactly.

There's no more, there's no more kicking the can down the road when, uh, they're shoving pipe into a ceiling cavity. So pretty much. Yeah. I, I definitely know what you're saying there, but that's awesome. I love that exposition about how, uh, fire suppression and, and, you know, designing is, has such a, a good advantage for people to find work.

And that's something I've found as well. A lot of people with, uh, Um, no college or, uh, little college or, you know, like associate level degrees had, um, come up to really prominent positions in the company. And it was, uh, more of a meritocracy instead of somewhere where you had to have a degree to, to play, to play ball.

And so I, I thought that I had that, um, uh, impression as well, if you will. Yeah. And that's that? Yeah, that's what I was, uh, getting at when I moved to up to Portland. And I worked at that sprinkler company there. I mean, I worked with, with the great group of, uh, both men and women, um, up there, but you know, a lot of them not really college educated, a lot of them, you know, I mean, the, the work that some of these, some of these installers would do is just, you know, amazing to see.

And the. Uh, president of that company, the, well, the owner and president of the company, uh, he was this older guy and he had grown up in the trade when they were still hanging, you know, uh, six inch schedule, 40 pipe and threading it with threaded fittings on there. Like he was old, old school and, um, a lot of, and you know, he wasn't college educated either, but, um, and I, and I'm not, you know, saying that to, to say that a college education isn't important, but just the admiration that I, that I was able to, that I gained for these people who, um, who are, were sort of playing it, you know, playing the song by, you know, on a, on a different sort of tune or something.

They, they were. They were just working and they were getting work done. They were getting good work done, and people were feeding their families and everything was, was good, you know? And it just, wasn't the mold that I was taught, you know, growing up or after high school, you go to four years of college and then you get a job and all that stuff.

It's like, no, these guys they've been hanging pipe. Some of them while they were still in high school. And now that guy is the manager of this office or something like that. So it's, it was just very a, um, I got a lot of admiration for the trade because it, it, it kind of didn't pull any punches from, from that point of view.

Yeah. That's awesome. What one episode I did early on, uh, chase brown, he grew up in the trade and he was talking about how, uh, he probably wasn't following labor laws. Uh, you know, cuz his dad had him, uh, threaten fittings when he was in high school or, you know, before middle school had a bucket of fittings and he, he had him putting 'em together, but.

Yeah, that's funny about growing up in the trade. I, I like hearing about that, but yeah. So I'd like to hear more about, you know, kind of some of the other roles that you had up until this point in your career. Would you speak a little bit more specifically about, you know, your trajectory after you had that first fire suppression rule?

Um, yes. So early on, I really, they, they really, uh, the training that I got was really emphasized on the stock listing portion of, of, uh, the process. So I, um, I learned a lot about fittings and, and maximum pipe lengths and, and everything that, and all the valves that you would have to order all the sprinklers discussion plates.

Everything that that went with it is, is what I, what they kind of started me on. Learning my takeouts learning, because one of the things that I was taught is, you know, it doesn't matter if, if you can draw it, you know, but if you can't, if you can't put it together at an install site, then there's no point, you know, at that point you're drawing is just useless.

So that was really important. Um, a really important thing that I, that I learned early on. And, uh, so a lot of that, um, really kind of bled into the, the other areas as I was learning design, really sort of applying the, the available sort of, um, devices that, that I had to work with and, and what worked and what didn't, because ultimately, you know, we're trying to get a plan out to somebody that somebody's gonna have to look at and install, you know, from a sheet of paper that, that you drew.

So. Really focused on, on a lot of the, uh, the real world sort of, uh, things that you, that you'll find on, on a job site and what we have to work with. So a lot of the, the early stuff I did was, uh, was in stock listing. And then, um, after that, I got moved up to system surveying and then, um, you know, drawing existing systems, uh, so going out to different job sites, uh, trying different things and, and, uh, on a recent sort of LinkedIn post, I kind of, uh, uh, broke down how I, how I do my surveying.

Now, a lot of it's just done, you know, video surveying and finding key points to, to reference on my plan and all that. But early on, you know, it was, it was pulling multiple dimensions for a single pipe and especially walking into older buildings where, where the systems were just, you know, just no typical pieces anywhere.

No real sort of pipe schedule to follow. It was, you know, I don't know if you've, if you've ever done a whole lot of like retrofit kind of work or, or tenant finish outs, but mm-hmm, , there's some mold systems out there that are, that are pretty rough looking and surveying them and putting an existing system plan from something that looks pretty rough can be challenging.

So that was, um, that was sort of a lot of fun to, to learn. And early on, you know, since it was early in my career, it was fun to get, to put on a hard hat and the whole PPE stuff and go out onto the job site and do the whole, you know, you kind of you're, you're in it now. You're, you're, you're in the world, you're, you're doing it at that point.

So that was, that was really cool to experience. Um, and then got moved on to doing, you know, system remodels, uh, tenant finish outs. Learning, you know, uh, just simple things. Hey, one head off one outlet, unless there's two separate offices, then we can get another head for that office type of things. Um, really, um, sort of starting to dig a lot more into N FPA 13, which, um, which is that mostly what, what I've been working with for what, um, or for automatic sprinkler systems.

But, uh, so a as I was learning stock listing and what components are actually involved in the installation of fire sprinkler systems, I, um, was also learning, you know, N F P 13, uh, on top of that since, you know, I had never even heard of it at that point. So, um, and just always, um, always kind of, I, I mean, I fell in love with it.

I, it was, it was something different. It was something that, that, uh, I. I just kind of how you said earlier, you know, it just kind of like slid right into, and I wasn't even expecting it, but it, it just kind of happened. And, um, so as, as I started learning all that, I kind of took the cuz I learned a lot in that short time of the first company that I worked for before I moved up to Portland and worked with a company up there.

But taking that small knowledge with me, uh, up there was enough to really kind of keep me sort of moving forward and not getting scared and, and quitting or anything like that. It, it was, there was always something new to be learned and it always seemed like the people that I was working with were also always learning something new all the time.

So it just, it just never felt like, um, it just never felt like I, I was. Done learning or the, or, or the, there was like a sort of end to, to the possibilities of, of where you could go. I mean, there's always the end of a project, but I mean, I still, haven't done a project that's been the same, you know, and I've been doing this now for over 10 years and I've done projects where, where they've said, yeah, we're putting, we're building the same building.

They use the same plants, they just changed the title block and all that. And it's still completely different than the last one that we did. So, and I always joke about typical buildings cuz they almost never turn out typical there anything, but they're anything the front door's in the same spot, but that that's about it.

Um, and the good thing about the shop where I worked at in, in, uh, in Portland was they were, um, they had their own fabrication shop. So I was now in, in a world where, you know, I could literally say, you know, Hey, I need a, a riser piece, you know, a riser manifold, but I need the, the well to come out at this strange angle, cuz you know, it's an old building and you know, you name it.

So I was really able to, to, to work closely with the fabrication shop too, which was new to me and a lot of the companies up in the Pacific Northwest, they, they tend to run their shops that way. A lot of them won't send their fabrication out to like the big, uh, names like, like Ferguson or, or reliable or anything.

They just do it in house. So, and, and all that was something I had access to and sort of the best. And worst thing that happened was they gave me a key to the place that was, you know, the best thing for them. And for me physically. Probably not the best, but I was at the office all the time at that point.

I, you know, I was there before anybody got there, just clicking away, um, working on projects, um, trying to keep everything moving forward and, and the last one to leave, you know, working late and, and all that, because a lot of the, the learning that I was doing, I really didn't feel like doing it on the clock.

I felt, I, I always wanted to be a, a useful tool in a way when it came to, to design. So I took a lot of the responsibility of learning how to do the job on my own time, which is something that I, uh, unfortunately haven't really seen a whole lot of, um, in, in newer generations of people that I've worked.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting. It's a hard thing to do, um, you know, to take that time, to learn, um, whether it be, I was always somebody who, um, was looking for the course was looking for the book, you know, to, to figure out how to do it. And that's one of the reasons why I started this podcast. Cause I was just, I was going crazy, trying to figure out how do I learn how to do my job better?

How do I get ahead? How do I, you know, short, how do I close this gap between, you know, what I read out of a code book and what I learned in school and, you know, uh, and then on the other end of that spectrum, uh, what it means to be a professional and not just a professional, but a excellent professional, you know?

Um, and so I resonate with that wanting to learn and, uh, having the integrity to. Strive to find that, um, just knowledge outside of work. That's something that, uh, yeah, I've had in my career and, and you have to, you have to be able to put in that time and, you know, it's, it's hard. I mean, and, and it was a little bit easy for me at the time I was, I was younger and I wasn't married and, you know, so I could see how, if, if somebody, you know, either has children or has a, a big responsibility outside of work, how it could be, you know, um, very, very challenging, but it's not impossible.

And, um, and I've seen, you know, direct comparisons in, in designers that I've trained, uh, in those who I, and I, I, I can just tell and, uh, who's putting in the time outside of work and who isn't. You know, as, as a manager, you can't really demand that of people, you know, people have their own lives and they have to live them how they live them.

But, um, there's, I could just kind of tell who did and who didn't end the ones that did tended to stick around, you know, so, yeah, I think it's interesting. Uh, at least I've seen it as a professional, whether it's in design or really any aspect of life, um, those who are willing to go the extra mile and keep learning and, and keep competitive.

I think I was just talking about this on the pod recently, I think. Oh yeah. I was like, I guessed on the pod for the first time recently. Oh, nice. And, uh, they were asking me what my, what my like big takeaway or big, you know, thing to promote would be for, for other professionals. And I was like, you gotta keep learning, cuz if you're not learning, you're not even keeping pace with.

You know, like just the inflation of knowledge in what you're doing. Yep. And then if you're not even on top of that note, learning at an accelerated pace, you're not even keeping up with those who are really good at what you're doing. So like if you're not, you know, learning at an accelerated pace in trying to be competitive on top of that, you're not in the game.

You're not really keeping at pace with, you know, the people who are gonna be the best at what they're doing and make the most money and, you know, have the best knowledge about the whole process. Exactly. And deep down, I wanna say that that was my desire, but most of it was, I was just really afraid of my inexperience and.

I was being involved in meetings where they're talking about money and that was the, the big eye opener for me, you know? Cause when you first start off and you're just training and just learning and all that stuff, it, you can get, you know, sort of enamored with certain processes and be like, oh look, you know, I can draw something in 3d and it looks like the real thing.

But once you start getting into the territory where you're sitting in, in meetings and they're talking about money and margins and hours and how it's all affecting and why, why aren't we at this percentage point when the number of hours that we forecasted should have put us here? Like that's when it all becomes real.

And that's when I don't care. If a designer can draw a fire pump that looks fancy in 3d, or if you give me a wire frame fire pump, if it passes, um, you know, uh, review and if, and, and if it's code compliant, then. Boom, you know, if the takeouts are right on your stock list, it doesn't matter at that point. So that was, that was a big sort of eye opening thing for me was this is, you know, to be a designer doesn't mean all you do is design.

You're designing stuff that gets installed that has other people attached to it. Um, that has money attached to it. That some of it is yours, but not all of it. And everybody still has to, you know, do their job and everybody else still has to get paid. And that was a big sort of, you know, driving force to me was if I don't get this stock list out, then, um, you know, um, I'm gonna change his name.

Uh but you know, Bob can't get to, um, you know, won't be able to go to this job site and work for the week and then he has to go home and then he doesn't get paid because I. Didn't, you know, get the list out in time. So a lot of that was a real big responsibility that I started sort of feeling, and it was, I never really felt it forced on me, but I just really, once I kind of got a big picture of it, um, the role of a designer really kind of, you know, uh, sort of opened me up to all that.

So, yeah. Um, man, that's really powerful. I know, I know exactly what you're talking about and yeah, like taking a look at the budget and the design hours, and then, you know, having your design manager, you know, ask you what completion point are you at in this design and, you know, when is this gonna be done as, and having those Frank sort of conversations.

Yeah. And then yeah, if the, if the foreman of the fitters aren't, aren't working, they're not getting paid. So it's, uh, You know, you that's definitely in your mind as you're yeah. Designing and yeah. Another good point. You had a couple points I wanted to, you know, circle back to, but one of 'em I just had like, flashbacks is you're talking about pump design.

And I was just thinking about how greater, uh, margin of certainty you need to have because of, you know, like just the way that a pump fits in a, in a design and how immovable it kind of is mm-hmm and yeah, I don't know. I just remember the first time I was, you know, designing a, a diesel fire pump and, you know, having to, um, settle that up and try to make it.

And, uh, just finding all that process so difficult. I, I was in the role so short of time, I never really got to feel comfortable with a lot of these things you you're talking about. Um, yeah. And, um, for, for something like that, one quick sort of note of advice that I'll, that I'll give on that is, you know, a lot of times fabricators, um, you know, the welds are, they can, they're pretty consistent, but sometimes they're, I mean, they're not a hundred percent precise, so what I've.

What I started doing a while back, um, and what I would do for any kind of fire pump that you're gonna be listing, um, which I mean, now they, now they have 'em on the, the ready to go slabs, where you just kind of connect to one point or the other, but in certain rooms where you have to build it, cuz the door isn't big enough to, to fit a whole, um, slab in there.

I've just started leaving the pieces, uh, plane end and, and cut 'em long. And then just, you know, leave a bunch of notes on the install plans that say, Hey, one of these ends is grooved and pull your measurement. And here's where the here's where we're gonna put the fire pump. And there's where the concrete pad is.

But the rest is, you know, and here's where all the valves go. Here's this piece. And here's that piece actually, you know, labeling the pieces for, um, the install, but just cutting 'em a little bit longer and leaving one end plane so that they know. So that way. You never get the phone call that says, Hey, your piece was too short.

We had to go back and get another 21 footer so that we can go back to the job site and cut it right. That way, you know, it's already cut long, a little bit, you get your right measurement and cut it to a precise length and it saves a, it saves a trip. And you know, and it also field installers are also pipe fitters.

So they, there is some fitting involved in a real perfect world. It would be awesome to be able to send out a, a complete, you know, stock list with everything ready to go. And they can just, you know, use the impact, drill to knock out all the couplings and go home. But unfortunately, like I said, I've never done.

I've never done two jobs that were the same and none of them have ever not involved some sort of fabrication in the field. So, yeah, that's a great point. Another point I wanted to talk about that you mentioned previously was. You know how to make things fit and how to make, you know, fire sprinkler designed constructable.

Um, that was a great, uh, pro tip on how to, you know, basically fashion your stock list to where you can have some flexibility. And I'm sure there's just a bunch of tricks to the trade, um, that come with time and, you know, reps, but mm-hmm um, yeah, I'd love to talk more about that. Um, idea, cuz I know it's so difficult.

Um, uh, you spoke a little bit about, you know, how to make, uh, what do you look for when you're, you know, verifying that yes, indeed. This design is going to fit or yes, indeed. That this is a functional design that can be fabricated and can be installed or maybe what are some common pitfalls would be a better question.

Uh, some common pitfalls that I've seen is, uh, it involves a lot of like riser, uh, using like riser nipples off of like your main piping off for your branch lines. Especially in, in some like BIM coordination, it, it tends to happen a lot. And I've seen more, um, of those mistakes happen on BIM projects, which has, they can have pretty, uh, catastrophic snowballing effects.

But, um, I have seen it to where, you know, you, there's a designer who's trying to fit a certain, you know, pipe bend or something, um, in, in the model just to get it to work. But either a fitting with that small of a takeout doesn't exist or they didn't take into account the additional welded piece that goes on top of your, or on the site or the, the outlet that just gets put on your main piping plus the fitting.

So. Really familiarizing yourself with, with what you have to work with is, is, uh, important because a lot, a lot of what the mistakes I've seen have been take out mistakes where you say, you know, if you got a plan and one elevation for one pipe is at, you know, 10 foot and then the other, the other pipe is at 10 foot four.

You know that there's no such fitting where I can get that next piece up only four inches because my back to back 90 on a four inch piece of pipe, if I use a fire lock fitting is eight inches. So that kind of stuff, where if I'm in a BIM meeting and they ask me, Hey, can't you move up that line four inches?

I'll say, no, I can't. Because my minimum takeout on that is gonna be eight inches to the center line. So that kind of stuff that really will. Sort of protect you from, uh, mistakes that can, you know, uh, cost you in, in the long run, because say that four inches is for a branch line and then your whole elevation is based on that.

And your main elevation is stuck and then you go to fabricate it and, you know, you'll get a field person asking you, Hey, how am I supposed to install this pipe four inches from here when you know, so that kind of stuff really, really, um, and, and not being afraid to, to, um, to be uncertain about certain pieces.

Like, uh, if there's, uh, when I'm fabricating, uh, when I'm making fabrication reports, if I'm working on multiple levels, like if, if it's like a two story building or something and, and we're going up, um, from one story to another, um, Say it's like a 12 foot sort of difference, uh, from one floor up. Uh, and there's a connecting piece between the second floor system and the first floor system, even though I know that if, if, uh, even if I know the elevations and even if all my plans, and even if I have a perfect building model that says, if I cut a piece exactly to, you know, 11 foot eight or whatever that it's gonna fit precisely, right.

Where it goes, I'm still gonna send out like a 12 foot six piece and say, Hey, field fab, this just, cuz I don't know exactly if they're gonna hang it right at the marker or not. So you have to leave in these sort of, uh, tolerances and, and um, and leave some things up to the job foreman whose job is to review their stock listing, um, review their plans and, and.

And, you know, make sure that they tell their installers, Hey guys, here's these pieces that, that we fabbed out long so that you guys can field cut these to ensure that we have a perfect fit and it's not gonna be either too long or too short or whatever. So, um, a lot of just really familiarizing yourself with, with, with what we have to work with, which is mostly pipe and fittings.

So straight lines and circles. It's not too complicated, but knowing the, the limitations, what will help you avoid a lot of those pitfalls? That's a great tip there, Marco. Yeah, I think, uh, you know, just to add on to your note about, about tolerances and, you know, everything looks good on paper, but you know, uh, people sometimes don't realize that there are.

Margins for error in pouring concrete or the way that building steel fits together. So having some of these, uh, tolerances or allowances in mind, I'm sure will help keep you out of, uh, sand trap. Yeah, for sure. But, so I wanted to talk about what you're doing now. Marco, I didn't wanna get too far into us speaking.

Um, even though I think I've already gotten us in that place without, um, letting the listeners know about, um, what you're doing now and, you know, to give context about, uh, your point of view and where you're coming from. Yeah. Would you tell us a little bit about, uh, dog fight fire? Yeah, sure. Um, I started dog fight fire in, uh, June of 2019 after, um, you know, being.

A designer, uh, after being a design manager at a company for the previous three years. And, um, it, it just, once, once you start, you know, going back to kind of like the money thing, which at the end of end of the day, it's kind of what we're all sort of in the trade for, in a manner of speaking, you know, where, where we all want monetary gain for our knowledge.

But, um, once I started seeing how the money was moving through, um, a lot of these companies and the amount of the amount of money that gets charged for design versus what some of the designers make can be, uh, pretty vast. depending on the experience of the designer, obviously, you know, designers paid what the, what they're they're worth, but just kind of seeing the bigger picture of, of being able to say, Hey, you know, if I, if I were on my own, I could be able to contract that entire amount for myself, which sounds totally selfish.

And I'm, I'm more of that, but, um, that's sort of what I kind of, um, started seeing and, and not necessarily at, at the company where I was a design manager for, but I had just kind of seen the trend and just being, been in enough meetings and seen enough reports to, to kind of see where, where I was versus where the company was selling my value for, you know, Using that time, you know, once I kind of figured out that I would eventually wanna be on my own, um, everything in my career has sort of been focused on, on getting to that point.

And there's still, you know, kind of like how we were talking about earlier, always learning. There's still stuff to learn. There's still a lot of stuff to relearn on top of that, you know, there's been, you know, I've been caught up with certain projects where you get, you get so caught up on like a high piled storage code application that you forget simple stuff.

And you didn't realize that you over spaced a sprinkler in a couple of rooms or something like that. So. Relearning a whole lot of things is also, you know, involved cuz how you mentioned earlier. Again, there's so much to learn and always something to learn. You might relearn something and not realize that you already, you know, went over it once or twice before.

Um, so what I started doing with what kind of inspired, you know, me to start dog fight was to be able to call my own shots for one and be a little more selective and not, uh, more selective of who I work with and not tied down to, um, just one specific company. So, um, that also, I, I felt would open me up to more opportunities to work on different kinds of jobs, jobs that I found a little more interesting, um, which.

You know, isn't always the case. Sometimes you take a job just cuz it's a business and you're not gonna turn away business. So if it's, you know, drawing a, a bunch of warehouses and you feel like you need to be drawing other stuff well, you know, until that stuff comes, you draw your warehouses. You know, you keep the, you keep the lights on.

So there's definitely a lot of that involved, but um, I'm at the helm, you know, and, and with me in charge, um, it's all on me. If it fails, it's it's my fault. And if, and if it succeeds, well, then I'm doing an all right job. So, uh, when I did start it, I, um, there's a sort of gray area in the Texas code that, that, um, that there's plenty of freelancers who are working, um, on their own and that they don't have the, the full Texas license that's.

In the code and where I get it from is in the code. It says any kind of planning, inspections, installations, or, or testing of fi anything, fire, sprinkler related, you need to have this license for. So the one that stands out to me is the planning part, which planning to me is designing. So, um, there might be different interpretations and, and, and all that out there for it.

But I always knew that I wanted to have the legit, you know, protection for it. So I went, I went ahead and I also, you know, paid for the insurance, which, which was costly and, um, and, uh, and got the license for the company. So as it stands, it's, uh, solely a design firm run by myself. But, um, the. The opportunities are there for me to explore inspections and which is kind of what I feel might be my next, my next, uh, venture and, and, and how I choose to expand the company and not necessarily continue expanding the design portion, but really kind of, I like to get my hands dirty on stuff too.

So, um, really, really kind of get, get out there as well. And, you know, and eventually the, the trucks with, with the employees and all that, but for now, um, just trying to do the best I can to, to design, um, the best work that I can for my clients. So, and by doing that is, is you have to be able to deliver on, on, on what you offer.

You know, you can't, you can't be a baker or call yourself a baker and your cakes are no good. You know, you gotta, you gotta really sort of wear the hat and, and do the job. Right. Which. Is, you know, a big thing to consider for anybody that, that is thinking that freelancing might be, um, might be a, you know, an easier way to do it.

If anything, it it's a little bit more difficult, but there are certain freedoms that, that you can't sort of replace at all by, by working at, at a, at an office or for an employer. So, um, dog fight has just kind of been been, you know, me just doing it on my own and, and trying to kind of see if my, my boat floats out in this ocean of, of an industry industry that we're working in.

That's awesome, man. I love hearing about that. And, uh, no, I don't, I don't think it's selfish for you to, you know, see the rate that, uh, your company pays and I'm sure now, as a business owner, you realize what all goes in to keep the lights on, but. I don't think it's selfish for you to say, Hey, you know, here's, here's my value.

You know, I might want to try doing this for, for myself and see how that goes. But no, uh, I wanted to just, uh, yeah, I really like the explanation about the impetus for dog fight and kind of what you've been getting into. But, so, uh, so you started dog fight and would you tell me before 2019? Uh, yeah, June, 2019, June, 2019.

So you've been at it almost two years now. And so getting close? Yes. Getting close to two years. And so you told us about like, the design stuff, but so do you also, uh, stock list and provide those services as well? Or is it mostly just the design part of it? No, no, I do. I do, uh, design and stock listing, you know, design, calc stock, listing, Asbuilt, everything that you would need to for, you know, turnkey plans, everything that you would need for, for permitting.

Um, and, uh, so yeah, I mean, beginning to end, I'm involved in projects even like with BIM projects, um, all the way to the end, which it's a little bit difficult, you know, to do sometimes cuz with BIM, especially it's, um, you have to work with different teams and not only are you working on a different project, but different subcontractors and there there've been, people might not be as, as ahead or, or, or.

You know, it's, it can get pretty difficult to work on, on BIM projects and stuff like that. But, uh, even on those projects, uh, once they're done, you know, stock listing and, um, and permit drawings and installation plans in the full nine. That's awesome. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about BIM, cuz I, I see as it's such a huge trend in the industry and uh, in my brief time as a fire suppression designer, I never was in a job that was like, uh, full 3d BIM.

I was almost always, um, on the smaller projects, it didn't have this kind of coordination. Um, no, like not very much like, uh, I never got to do a Highrise or anything like that. That would really just absolutely. Um, the 3d BIM coordination, but mm-hmm . Yeah. What are your thoughts on, uh, I've seen you post some funny memes about like, uh, coordination meetings and I know how tense they can get, but what are your thoughts on BIM and, and where it's going and, uh, your experience with it?

Um, from looking at it from a, uh, freelance designer standpoint, um, BIM is always going to be the toughest thing to put a price tag on, um, because the life of the project, even though it's it's, um, oh, the portion of the BIM project, even though it's determined by the project schedule, if you are fortunate enough to be working on a job with a project schedule, um, oftentimes more than often, it goes over that schedule.

And a lot of the changes that happen in BIM. Uh, you have to anticipate. So it's, cuz it's one thing to sort of look at a set of plans and then put a number on it and say, Hey, I can design that for you. For whatever X amount of dollars you wait for. The plans to get approved. Field guy takes the plans out and says, Hey, we can't hang the main at that elevation.

We gotta go down a little bit, you know, ad fittings here, we gotta move this branch line over and then we'll be good. That's one thing. But in BIM, you know, especially if you're working with certain, uh, contractors who have, um, meticulous demands, I mean, I've worked with a few, um, general contractors who start asking for.

Separate plans that aren't plans that would be required for, um, permitting process or for, for, um, stock listing or installation purposes. But they still want them say it's like a penetration plan or something, or a certain mockup, uh, of what, you know, a 3d rendering of what a riser room would look like or something like that.

That, and, you know, just because you can draw that or generate those plans for them doesn't mean it was accounted for in your initial, um, estimate. So approaching, approaching BIM, and from that regard is, you know, it's, it's really hard to put a price tag on it and you always have to anticipate that you're gonna be doing a lot of changes for it.

I don't wanna say for free, but a lot of that, you know, You can ask for a change order, but somebody can easily push they're easy to push back on and say, well, Hey, you know, it's a BIM project. You knew things were gonna change. So, um, as a whole though, I mean, it's, I mean, it, it it's pretty good. I, I don't wanna say that BIM has, has, uh, really, I mean, it's definitely changed the way things are done, but a lot of times it, I don't wanna, I don't wanna sound too negative about it, but more often than not, I work on, on BIM projects where we're still stuck in coordination and they're already putting a roof on the dang thing outside of the job trailer.

So it tends to get, they tend to get drawn out a little bit longer than, than necessary. And this is just in my experience and, um, you know, If there are any contractors out there who have a perfect, you know, um, schedule, you know, adherence and, and, and all their projects go well, then congratulations to them.

But from a freelance standpoint, that's one of the more difficult things to get involved with, especially if you are in a heavily involved BIM project. And you also have other contracts that are coming up, because again, you know, you have demanding, um, contractors who might say, Hey, we need you to change this and we need the changes done.

And your Mo your new model uploaded by tomorrow morning or by the end of the week, because, you know, for the next meeting. And so there's a lot involved in it. And the results from what I've seen are, I mean, they're, they're fairly good if. If what truly was BIM is what gets built. I mean, you were talking a little, a little bit ago about how there might be different, poor depths in concrete, or how certain structural elements sit on one another.

But I recently let's see three BIM projects ago finished one. It was the most smoothly run BI project I had ever been a part of. We were done right on time and everything. It was great. It just turns out that they built a completely different building with a completely different structural framing. But they said we modeled to a building that was very close to the new building they were going to build.

So like, you know, that kind of stuff that can come up where. You have these decisions made for, Hey, let's just BI it to where, you know, we're close enough and there's still field changes required, which at that point now is just a waste of money because there's no point in BIM something if field changes are gonna have to be constantly made.

And there's a lot of the, uh, design build stuff going on now to where a lot of these companies who are, um, uh, building, you know, big projects, especially in Austin, there's a lot of software companies moving and a lot of them have very deep pockets and a lot of them don't care how much stuff costs. And um, so when you do decide to get involved in a BIM project, you could be involved for many, many, many, many months, and it can get very tricky to.

Make sure that you are still getting paid properly and, and still putting out everything that they're demanding from you. So, and then on top of that, hoping that there aren't gonna be a bunch of field changes that happen, or if an architect changes their mind and you've already finished a certain portion of a BIM project, and you're maybe halfway through the stock listing, but they come back and say, Hey, they got rid of those ceilings.

Now they're gonna put up rights. And then they demand that you upload a new model, um, you know, with the changes. And so there there's a lot of that kind of interruption that goes on and a lot of changes made after the fact, um, when it comes to those projects, um, and with BIM involved. So I think it would be much better if BIM was planned.

Way before even ground was broken on a lot of these projects, but that's in a perfect world and we both know that buildings don't get built that way anymore. So usually you're still coordinating while the, uh, as soon as, you know, as soon as the, the slab is getting you're, you're still in coordination. So that's where I kind of feel it's all going.

Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. From the, from the beginning of your career to now, would you say that you've seen an increase in bid projects? Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, that's why I've sort of been switching more to, to Revit. I, I, I was mostly using AutoCAD and, and the HCAD extension for that. Um, but I have recently, uh, made the switch over to Revit just cuz it's, it's so much easier to work, um, on like in a three.

Platform when, when you are gonna be BIM coordinating something and especially with kind of like what I just talked about with so many changes that are constantly happening to continually go back into a 2d drawing and then render a 3d model based on those elevations every single time is it gets a little bit time consuming and again, time is money.

So the, um, I found the best, the best way, especially it. I decided after this past bin project that I did that I was gonna make the switch to Revit just cuz it's so, um, it's so demanding, uh, from a schedule standpoint now that you need to be able to generate your work quick and a lot of the functions in HCAD, um, from, to go from 2d to 3d, a lot of the things have to be really perfect in the drawing for you to generate your model.

So. It gets very time consuming. If you have to move something, just like a one inch over, say, if it's a main, you gotta move it over one inch. It just, it it's a lot, a lot of work to do for such a little difference in the drawing. So, yeah. I hear you, man. I, I know from when I, I used HCAD when I was a fire suppression designer and.

God, I was, I'm sure I was a nightmare for my design manager. Like the fact that you'd have to have all your end points connecting, and if you didn't get everything connected, just so they wouldn't list and or it wouldn't, you know, like do some of these automatic functions that you really needed to do to save you time.

And he would just, you know, end up deleting, uh, swaths of, of design just so he could do it quickly over. So it would list correctly, you know, for a young designer trying to figure it out. So I imagine that's, uh, infuriating when you're under the gun for a deadline. Yeah. So ma making the switch to Revit. I mean, I'm still, that's why there's been such a big delay in, in my uploads on YouTube is I'm still trying to learn it, you know, and if I do make a video on it, I was thinking about maybe making a video series on me, actually learning, you know, how to use Revit or hydro had Revit, but I'm just not at, at a point.

To where I'm comfortable enough to even, you know, it's just gonna be somebody watching me hover my mouse over all the different icons and seeing the popup window that comes up to see what the command is. But so I'm, I'm waiting to get to a point to where I can actually work with it very well. Um, and continue my, my videos with just, uh, primarily focused on Revit, which, which is, it seems to be Mo most of the message that I messages that I've received, uh, for my YouTube channel have been for requests on working with hydro cat Revit.

So it seems like as an industry, uh, that's kind of where the hydro had side is, is, is going to there's other software. That's just completely doing their own thing. But from the HCAD AutoCAD standpoint, that's. Things seem to be going as to Revit. That's awesome. Yeah. I'd like to talk a little bit more about and end on, uh, so what you've been doing with YouTube and, and on that note, I think you should start now because I think that some of the things that you learn now, you're gonna forget by the time that you think you're good enough to record and that I liked, uh, watching your videos just of you like going through stuff and like, you know, going through some of the rote tasks, I think you should, you gotta just, uh, start, start, uh, I don't know, man, this, the thing about content I feel like is, is, um, you know, it's not everything doesn't have to be, you know, the best thing you ever did and extremely crisp and clean.

And you know, of course we want to be that way, but you know, it's important for you. And there's like, not very much if any content out there on that subject. And so it's important for people like you, who. You know, have the, the knowledge and the technical ability to do so. And I mean, I would watch it and I don't even do any design for, so what does that tell you?

people who, people who don't even touch the touch, what you're doing would watch it. Like, I find it interesting. Like it's it, I learn watching it. So I think you gotta just dive in, man. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I'll definitely do that now, now that you mention it and, and, uh, go through some of the training stuff that I've, that I've been working on to, to get it going.

But, um, yeah. And with the YouTube, I mean, that's just me after, after working in, in this trade for so many years and coming across and learning, you know, coming across a bunch of different designers and learning so many things. Um, there's, uh, I guess one thing that, that I will sort of wanna leave on is, is.

My biggest sort of passion once I kind of felt like I knew what the heck I was doing was to train new designers into, um, to bring on because I, I, as a design manager, I, I kept having, you know, the, the unfortunate sort of task of hiring and firing designers that were kind of doing the round Robin type thing where they'd leave one company, um, for 50 cents more at another one, or they would leave another one after a project.

Didn't, you know, wasn't being installed the way they drew it and, you know, stuff was hitting the fan. So there's a lot of, there was a lot of the same names just continually coming up. And I was just sort of very frustrated from that. And so, while I was the design manager, I, I had to, I had the, uh, the fortunate sort of, uh, freedom to sort of pick and choose who I hired.

And, and after. Getting approval to hire a design, a design trainee. I really started implementing a lot of, a lot of what I learned early on, um, to the new people and, and to, to help them, you know, um, become successful in, in, in the trade. And the YouTube is, is sort of, um, my, my way of still continuing to do that.

Because when I, um, when I was a design manager, I, I kept us all in, in an open office, like in a big open office. And I was there, you know, with everybody. And I, I ran, um, a projector on the wall and sometimes I'd be like, Hey guys, check this out. Or, or share somebody's screen, who was having a problem. And we would all kind of figure it out together.

Or sometimes I would just be like, look at this hilarious YouTube video that I found. And, and so, you know, just to kind of like keep the, the, the vibe up and all that, but, um, Training was, was a big passion of mine and, and bringing on new, fresh blood, uh, was just something that I really felt the industry needed more people that, that aren't familiar with it that can sort of pick something new up and, and go with it.

And I, I also feel like it would really balance out a lot of the, uh, the workforce and, um, and sort of overall, um, as the, as the construction industry grows, it sort of, it, it, it balances things out like monetarily as well, bringing in, you know, um, new people and, and you sort of weed out these people who are getting paid overpaid, you know, in, in some aspects, you know, who have these bad habits who.

Might have the credentials, but maybe they've just learned a lot of things that I don't wanna necessarily say are the wrong way, but, um, are ways that don't necessarily jive well with how the company you're working for, or if you're freelancing, um, you know, how they would work with you. So YouTube has sort of been my, my way of, of kind of, you know, continuing to do and to teach how I taught, cuz it's not necessarily meant to be a tutorial, uh, YouTube channel or anything like that.

It's mostly, if you were just kind of sitting in the office with me the way my designers would and I pull up my, my, um, the, uh, the monitor on, on the, on the wall, through the projector and, you know, show you how I'm, how I'm doing stuff. And there's no, there's a lot of people that are very protective, uh, in the, in the trade with, with their design sort of quote unquote secrets.

But I mean, you know, you can. You can get a professional plumber's tool bag, but it doesn't make you a professional drummer, a professional plumber, you know? Um, so I don't care. Here's all my secrets. Here's how I do everything. Just please let's get new people in the trade, you know? So that's that's my, my whole thing is, is let's get some, some fresh blood in here.

That's awesome. Well, Marco, I think that's an awesome way to end. I just wanna say thank you so much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed it. Um, we didn't get to all our questions. I'd love to have you on in the future and, and follow it up. It's been, uh, easy and, and awesome. Thanks again, Marco. I really appreciate it.

Gusta anytime. Um, I'm here for 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 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 solocast episode 7 of Fire Code Tech. In this episode we are talking about the codes and standards around hazardous materials. This is the first of several episodes about hazardous materials so we are starting with the basics.  

• What are the codes and standards around hazardous materials?
• What is a hazardous material?
• What are some of the different types of hazardous materials?

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 seven of the fire code tech solo casts on this episode of fire code tech, we have hazardous materials. So this has been a topic that's been on my mind. Uh, just due to a bunch of project work. Recently, I really started getting into hazardous materials. In life safety analysis involved with hazardous materials about a year ago, um, had a project with a significant amount of hazardous materials in the form of, uh, explosives for military project.

And so yeah. Had to figure it out quickly. It was just RFP at the time, but. Um, still had a lot of implications for life safety and, um, code analysis. Yeah. Started really diving into this topic about a year ago and, and, uh, and the project work and the just, um, every day problem solving associated with hazardous materials has not stopped SIDS.

I'm going to break down the basics of hazardous materials. My goal is to bring a more structured approach to it. So, um, let me know if you enjoyed this, um, more concise, uh, thought out solo cast. Don't forget that if you enjoyed these solo cast and you want to hear more of these episodes, these solo cast, where I break down specific topics that I release an extra two of these a month for just the price of a cup of coffee.

You can check that out at patreon.com/fire code tech. Let's dive right in. So I'll try to start off where I frequently start off, which is what are the codes and standards surrounding hazardous materials. Once again, we are looking at these, um, this issue or this topic through the lens of how things work in the United States.

And of course, this is not, uh, ubiquitous. Of course, there are obvious exceptions in, um, jurisdictions that adopt different codes and standards or have different provisions. So, but by and large, um, this is how things predominantly operate in the United States. All that to say, we will be looking at hazardous materials with the international building code and the international fire code, um, which is, uh, traditionally how I assess these topics.

This is how mostly it's done in the us. Um, but yeah, that's the first preface that we're using the international building code for the purpose of this video. I'm looking at, what's adopted in Oklahoma, which is 2015. And so just wanted to start off with the codes and standards around it, because it's very important to understand, um, the hierarchy of where you find your requirements.

So, um, Another really good place to look when you're thinking about codes and standards for hazardous materials is NFPA 7 0 4, NFPA 7 0 4 is the standard system for the identification of hazardous materials for emergency response. And so you can think of, uh, the two systems for how to deal with hazardous materials like this there's um, how we deal with hazards and materials when they're in T.

And how we deal with hazardous materials when they are in side of a building in a storage capacity, in a, in a use in a system capacity. And so there's kind of two approaches. Well, NFPA 7 0 4 is predominantly, um, in association with the, uh, transportation capacity, but it does overlap with how we address these hazards in the building as well.

Um, for instance, if you look at, uh, toxic substances, there's a lot of good guidance and in FPA 7 0 4 with, um, how you identify these, um, substances and you know, what criteria you use. So they kind of go hand in hand in glove, if you will. So quick recap in FPA 7 0 4. And international building code and international fire code are typically the majority of the codes and standards that you use when you're assessing hazardous materials.

Just wanted to recap that before we go into our next subject, which is what is a hazardous material. So the building code in chapter three, defines a hazardous material as those chemicals or substances that are physical or health hazards as classified in section 3 0 7 in the international fire code.

Whether the materials are in usable or waste condition. So this is a great definition. So it kind of breaks down the hazardous materials into two types of hazards. And we'll break down these two hazards, physical hazards and health hazards. So the majority of hazardous materials, um, category wise are in physical hazards, but.

Health hazards also have some serious, um, fire and life safety implications. So basically this says, uh, where the substances that the building code lists as hazardous materials are, what's considered hazardous materials. So that's a little bit circuitous, but. Uh, the general sense of it is, Hey, we've identified some substances that are hazardous materials.

And so, um, if you have those substances that are listed in this code and stated as hazardous materials, uh, this is how you start to address them. So let's talk about the different types of hazardous materials to follow up, how we define. What a hazardous materials is, is we take a look at the code that is driving our assessment of hazardous materials and look at the definition within that code, how they define hazardous materials.

So in this case, we're looking at the international building code and. We're looking in the definitions in chapter two, to see how they define hazardous materials. And I've stated how they define hazardous materials. And so the next step would be to take a look at, you know, what are the different types or categories of hazardous materials.

So like we previously mentioned there's physical and there's health hazards. So I want to go over a couple, not all of these different categories of hazardous material. So for this next exercise, we'll be flipping kind of back and forth between. Chapter two and chapter three in the international building code.

So if you look at the specific categories and, and how it's most easily, uh, to, you know, take a look at all of 'em this in chapter three, but if you want to know the specific definitions of how you define these hazardous materials, You can look in chapter two. So if I want to tell you that a health hazard is a toxic material, a corrosive material, or a highly toxic material, then you can take a look at the table in chapter three, which is table 3 0 7 0.1, parenthesis two.

Um, and here you'll find the maximum allowable quantities of. Um, these health hazards materials. Um, and so this is kind of the, uh, broad overview and a good place to look at because this is, you know, the next step of our journey, but not to, you know, brush past this step that we're here on here now. So all that to say, so we have Corsis corrosives, um, toxic and highly toxic.

So you might ask yourself, uh, what's the difference between toxic and highly toxic? Well, in the definitions chapter, they stated explicitly, but, um, this is one of those instances where I was telling you that N FPA 7 0 4. Was the great place to lean on because they very, uh, more definitively defined toxic and highly toxic.

So a toxic material is, uh, chemical falling. within any of these characteristics. And so what the definition in chapter two for toxic goes to do is to describe, um, what parameters of lethal dosage amount or lethal concentration amount that, uh, you would consider. Something a toxic material. So in case you don't know what LD 50 S or LC 50 S are, this is a toxicology term.

That means a median lethal dose or median lethal concentration. So generally these are lab studies where they take a substance and they admit a, you know, that substance to an animal in some, uh, tested population amount. Um, at different concentrations and different ranges of concentrations. And then, uh, they have a, uh, basically, uh, an average of the, the lethal dosage or lethal amount of this substance.

And so where you would find this information about a material is in, uh, material safety, data sheet, material, safety, data sheet, or, uh, safety data sheet, SDS and MSDS. These are oftenly, uh, used interchangeably. So one of the first parameters in toxic is a chemical that has a median lethal dosage of, or LD 50 of 50 milligrams per kilogram, but not more than 500 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

When. Then this is important when you're looking at these, how is it given, um, in this case, in this first, uh, note it's administered orally and it specifically references albino, rats and how much they weigh. So, uh, this is, uh, you know, it's a complicated thing to look at. Um, generally in the STS or MSDS, they'll say what the animal it's adminis.

uh, two, and these are kind of standardized tests, but you have to be very careful when you're looking at these numbers, cuz it's not apples to a, to apples if it's, uh, rabbits and, and rats. Um, and so you have to be careful when you're looking at these. So the LD 50 of a toxic material is, uh, more than 50, but not more than 500, um, for a rat way.

Uh, between 200 and 300 grams and then a highly toxic material is, uh, has a median lethal dose or an LD 50 of 50 milligrams or less per kilogram of body weight. Um, and this is again, orally for a rat weighing 200 to 300 grams. And so you can see that, uh, 50 milligrams per kilogram is the threshold in which you cross over into a highly toxic material.

Uh, why is this important? We're gonna get to maximum allowable quantities, but, uh, there you have a significantly less allotment of hazardous materials. Um, when you go into highly toxic materials. So this ends the first episode in hazardous materials. Uh, yeah, so it's not a great place to end, but there's obviously so much here.

And you can see why I would want to talk about it because we didn't even get to H occupancies control areas or any of these other topics to assess the building components and what you need to do when you know, you have hazardous materials, but, uh, I don't wanna belabor the point. I'm still trying to figure out how to capture these large topics in a digestible.

But also in a entertaining way, um, for you to hear about these and to enjoy and to listen and to learn. And so, uh, thanks for coming along on the ride with me while I figured this thing out. But yeah, if you want to hear more about hazardous materials, I'm gonna release another episode on Patreon, diving into hazardous materials, but I hope you enjoyed and I hope you tune in again.

Um, thanks so much 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 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.

Craig Vesely is a registered fire protection engineer with almost two decades of experience in the industry. In this episode, we discuss aircraft hangars, combustible dust and his career as a fire protection engineer. Craig has outstanding takeaways for professionals about networking, problem solving and career growth. You do not want to miss it!

https://www.veselyfire.com/

How did you get your start in fire and life safety?

Would you speak about some of your other roles as a professional?

What was the transition like from working on the contracting side of fire suppression to the FPE role?

Where are you at today in your career and how has that impacted your perspective of the design process?

Would you speak about starting your own practice and your journey so far?

Describe your experience with combustible dust and navigating this niche subject?

Will you speak about your experience with the codes and standards process?

What piece of advice do you have for professionals who will listen to this podcast?

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.

You're in the right place. Hello. All welcome to episode 27 of fire code tech. On this episode, we have Craig ley. Craig is a fire protection engineer who got his start in fire suppression contracting. We speak about his transition to his role as a fire protection engineer. And then to a head of a department and now to being a fire protection engineer for a utility company.

In this episode, we talk about Craig's journey from his career and also we get into what he's doing now, starting his own consulting practice as a fire protection engineer, while he also keeps his day job as a owner representative in fire protect. Staff engineer. Craig also serves on the NFPA technical committees for NFPA 20 and NFPA 20.

We touch on these briefly during the professional development segment. Also in this episode, we talked about some really fascinating and niche design topics, such as combustible dust day and aircraft maintenance, hangar, fire protection. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I had a great time with Craig and talked about some really interesting stuff.

Don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Let's dive into the. Well, Craig, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks GU. It's a pleasure to be here. Glad I can get a chance to speak with you. Awesome. So I always like to get started with, you know, letting the listeners know a little bit about your background and how you got into the interest industry.

Seems like everybody has a different path. Would you mind telling us about that? Sure. I'd love to. Uh, my, my path is probably a bit different than most. Um, I did not go to school knowing that I wanted to be a fire protection engineer, uh, following graduation. Uh, I went to the university of Wisconsin Plattville and after that I moved to Madison, Wisconsin.

And in doing so, honestly, I was just starting the, the basic job search, like you would for any type of. Entry level job. So I, I found a posting, uh, with ahe fire protection. They're a large regional fire protection contractor sprinkled through the Midwest and they had an, an ad. Looking for individuals who were able to use AutoCAD.

So I took it up and set my resume in interviewed and was given my first position in the fire protection industry, designing sprinkler systems, man. That's awesome. Yeah, it's so funny that we both have a mutual background at ahe. I imagine. Uh, yeah, it was funny. We were talking about it previously. It's so, uh, interesting how good of a job market fire suppression has and just the ability to get a, a foot into the industry.

So, That's awesome. Yeah, it was, it was one of those, uh, jobs, you know, I always envision myself working, uh, designing cars or designing motorcycles or, or something like that. And once I got into the position, um, you know, I, I thought it would be just stepping stone. I'm gonna keep moving on. And, and I absolutely fell in love with the industry.

One of the big things I notice is I'm like, there's so many opportunities that are out there and having that understanding of, you know, working as a contractor and, and getting into the sprinkler systems, I'm like, it is such a, a stepping stone to other things and, uh, that you can do, um, so many different paths and, you know, such a need for qualified and you.

Individuals that can go out and, and really make an impact. So I was blown away. I was totally caught off guard and by surprise. And, uh, this is, you know, now. Boy, what is that? Uh, about 18 years later and each day I still find myself just as excited and invigorated with the industry we get to work in. Yeah.

Without a doubt, it's kind of, uh, dumbfounding how much opportunity there is specifically in fire suppression. It seems like there is a, a constant need for designers and, uh, people to get in on the ground floor on fire suppression, uh, and you know, fire protection in general. But. It's uh, it's pretty fascinating.

Yeah. I, I, I definitely, I have yet to meet any, uh, fire protection contractors out there that are, don't seem to have a, an opening for a new designer. It seems like there's, there's always a door open when you, you need somebody there. It's just it's can't get enough people, good people into our industry to fill these, these position.

For sure. For sure. Yeah. That's an awesome point, Craig. Um, I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into some of the other roles you've held in your career in fire and life safety. Yeah. Would you mind, uh, telling us about your path after ahe and some of the other different roles that you've been involved with?

Sure. Absolutely. So when I was at ahe, I'd say the first six months or so of my career, I was spent working in designing sprinkler systems, fire pump systems. And, and about that time, uh, there was an opportunity, uh, Within a, that they moved me to an estimator position. Um, so then I spent the next six months of my career as an estimator, really learning, how do we, uh, produce bids?

How do we price change orders? Um, what are some of the ins and outs of, you know, the labor market, um, material escalation, how, how does that work? And so I was as an worked as an estimator, roughly six months was the training that they had identified for me. At that point, then I was, uh, moved to a project manager role and spent four years or so of working as a project manager, um, you know, really out there building relationships, putting together bids, managing the work, um, you know, and it had taken me a, you know, just.

A bit out of the, doing some of the design work on the computer and providing some of that oversight to the project, but then really, uh, you know, helping to guide these things from conception through completion in 2008, right around the height of the financial crisis. And despite some of my parents' best warnings at the time to just stay put, uh, I accepted a new position.

I went to work for affiliated engineers incorporated in Madison, a EI. AI is a consulting firm. There's 19 offices and they're sprinkled, uh, mostly around the United States with, I believe a couple, uh, globally as well. And being headquartered in Madison. Um, I accepted a position as a, an engineer there and began leading engineering work for fire protection systems.

And it was really across a host of different markets. Um, I remember we did a lot of work in science and technology. Healthcare process, industry aviation and aerospace, and you know, quite a bit in the federal market as well, including projects with both the department of defense and the department of energy, uh, approximately I'd say three years or so into my time at a, I was then promoted to department facilitator.

So I was then challenged with overseeing fire protection for the entire. Um, I had a te small team of engineers that were working, uh, under me as well as, uh, one or two other individuals sprinkled throughout other offices. And so, you know, it was a real turning point for me in the career where, you know, for the initial stages, there was always somebody you could go to somebody else that if I had a question, I'm like, I can get them to consult, then, you know, they can help me guide me through this.

And it was that moment where I was thrust to the front of the line. And it was now that falls on your shoulders. You're gonna be the one who has to make that determination, that decision and, and offer that insight. So, you know, I think many of us, as you kind of go through your careers experience that where you all of a sudden go from the person, asking the questions to the person that everybody turns to and says, what do we do now?

And so that, that really kind of forced me to, uh, advance my own knowledge, my own understanding, um, you know, We'll get to my, my PE route as I, I got there, but you know, it, it forced me to just continue to develop my own career and my own capabilities to be able to answer those. So that was really kind of, as I worked those first few roles and, and went through the, the process of kind of advancing up the ladder.

Yeah, I like that. Uh, I'd like to, you know, touch on that a little bit more about how that's an interesting transition to go from, you know, fire suppression contracting to more a fire protection engineering role. Uh, sure. Yeah. What did you think of that? What did you think of that transition at the time?

Uh, going from the, the nuts and the bolts and, uh, oh, oh yeah. I wanted to say also you must have been pretty good at picking up the design stuff. If you moved from being an entry level designer to an estimator in six months, that's a pretty quick move. I feel like for somebody to pick that up, to be honest, GU I think it was my CAD skills at the time.

I think they looked at me and said, this guy just cannot cut it. Drawing for us. It's taken him too long, but he seems to have a bit of a knack for what we're trying to do. What else can we do with him to not have to fire him? So I, I think it was more mercy on the, the management, uh, my boss, Ken at the time of just not wanting to cut me loose all together and trying to find a, a better way for me to fit within the organization.

That's an interesting point. Uh, yeah, it's, uh, estimating is. Is fast and furious too, though. It seems like, you know, if a designer gets 40 hours to work on something, the estimator only gets like two or four hours to take a look at a job and, you know, evaluate it and, and bid it. So, yeah, that's no easy task.

I think you might be selling yourself short here. you know, I think what it helped though is as you look as my career advanced into the engineering world, uh, you know, part of that is. Able to look at something quickly and to be able to, to reach a decision. You know, I'd like to say that all of us get all of the information and it's well documented and we have no issues, but it seems like in the truth and the reality of the world is that there's always some kind of missing piece.

And so you're going to have to be able to evaluate the knowledge that you, the information you have on hand and use the knowledge that you've built to come to the decision you make at that time. I really felt like that kind of forced my hand to learn. Like you're, you're not going to get every single piece that you would like, you're gonna have to fill in the blanks a bit and fill in the gaps to get to what you need.

So, uh, it was, it was definitely an educational experience to say the least. Yeah, definitely. I, I resonate with that sentiment that you have to be able to extrapolate, you know, from the information and the stakeholders at hand. And you're never gonna be, most things are not just cut and dry, or if they do, you don't spend very much time on 'em if they're black and white.

So you spend most of your. In the weeds on the gray. So exactly. I definitely resonate with that sentiment. So many of us would love, I think, as, as engineers, we love black and white, but unfortunately it seems like we spend most of our career and time muddling through the gray, trying to find the way out.

Yeah. I think if it's clear in the code, we're the first one to say, oh, you know, I, I give the people around me, uh, at, at where I work trouble. Just, you know, I say that's code probably, you know, several times a week, just because, you know, if it's black and white, then that's the easiest thing for us. We can just, you know, snip get a little computer snip of the code excerpt and move on our Merry way.

But. You know, it's most of the time where you're like today, I was taking a look at like exhaust hoods for commercial cooking appliances and when it's considered commercial versus residential and you know, so I'm searching through the back of the international mechanical code, reading annex material for this subject.

And it's like, God reading forums from oh seven. You know, trying to see what other people have said about this subject. And so I think that's just a metaphor for the, for the profession, but definitely, definitely. I couldn't agree more GU so moving on to, um, you know, after, well, I did want to touch on a little bit more of that, like transition from engineering to contracting or contracting to engineering, if you will.

And, um, kind of the mindset change and. Yeah. I don't know if you had any more thoughts on, uh, that transition or it sound like you obviously, uh, you know, took to it and, you know, moved up into a, a manager and then, uh, you know, kind of a, a branch lead if you will. So yeah, I don't know. I find that fascinating, cuz I think, uh, there's several experience and just kind of career jumps in that little piece.

Yeah. You know, it. For anybody that's been to, to Madison, uh, where I live, uh, what you'll find is that a vast majority of what you see here is, is four story buildings. Um, you know, we have mixed some mixed use residential that's kind of taken off, um, some small warehouses. There's some manufacturing, some process, um, work, but it's not, you know, a, a home, uh, that you would say, oh, that that's really the focus of the area.

So for me, after spending that time at ahe, You know, managing work and chasing bids and, and doing that, I just realized that I'm like, there's so much more I wanna do with my career. I could spend the next 25 years selling systems for these different buildings and different clients, but I just felt like I wanted a, a bigger challenge.

Uh, and so when the opportunity came up, I said, I can take what I've learned here is the, the basis of my knowledge. And now let's expand that, um, you know, it's a double edged sword. It was a blessing and a curse. Uh there's plenty of days. I will tell you as the consulting engineer that I'm like, this is fantastic.

I really enjoy it. And then there's also plenty of days where you're like, this is really challenging. Um, you know, we're under deadlines to have design documents printed and, and ready to go. And you're still looking, as you said, through annex material, solving some of these issues and, and things that may not seem to be, um, you know, directly, you know, is it a sprinkler system or is it a, is that a rated wall?

I'm like, you know, some of those things seem very, um, Fall within our type of, of work and what we're comfortable with. Uh, what I found that was most challenging is there's a lot of other things that had come up, you know, as far as, um, you know, different fire stopping solutions or, uh, egress and parts and pieces that I hadn't had ex a great deal of experience in dealing with.

And so it really started to, you know, push my boundaries and forced me to, uh, continue to grow. You know, I'm a huge continuing education advocate, um, you know, go out there and attend webinars and, you know, things that may seem like it's a fringe item for you, but it's, uh, fascinating to me how much someone can learn.

And then you find ways to apply that in, uh, new ways that we use within our own engineering work. So just being a continual learner, It was a, a key piece of, you know, my advice to anyone that would look to make that transition as well. Uh, it, it is much more enjoyable. I really, really like being on the front end, working with clients and architects to, you know, develop a building, uh, you know, what, what is it going to look like?

And then how, how can we make it function and take that functional aspect of it and then make it fit within the. Codes and the parameters that we have to, um, you know, that's, that's where, to me the, the most exciting challenge lies. So, uh, I, I really, you know, wanted to expand and, uh, I definitely got what I was asking for and more.

That's awesome. Yeah, I really like that explanation. That's a great synopsis of, you know, what it means to be a fire protection engineer. I like that bit of exposition, but I wanted to move forward with the discussion and, you know, kind of talk about, um, what you're doing now and, and give the people. An idea of where you're at today and some of the work you're involved in and how that's continued to kind of color your perspective on fire and life safety.

Sure. So I had spent approximately 11 years working for AAI, uh, back in the, I'd say late 2018, early 2019, uh, a friend at the gym, uh, came up one day and, uh, suggested that I had apply for. Current role I have, uh, or one of the current roles I have is a fire protection program manager with aligned. Alliant energy is a, were an electric and gas, natural gas utility with service Terri service territories stretching across I one Wisconsin.

And so they were looking for someone. They had a gentleman who was, uh, nearing retirement and they wanted to find someone to come in and lead their fire protection program. One of the things that I guess was most intriguing to me about the position was like, it's really a team of, of one and you're responsible for overseeing any fire and life safety related issues.

Um, you know, when I interviewed the, the gentleman that I, I was replacing, he's like best described this is you're going to have to be our in-house subject matter expert. And so one of the things that I had taken a, a real. Passion and interest in was, uh, combustible dust, uh, while working at a AI, we had several projects with small combustible dust components, um, that, you know, I found to be really challenging and really interesting.

Um, I think a lot of the, the science behind combustible dust continues to evolve and some of the work that the, um, scholars are doing to, you know, understand how does dust react and how can we handle that? It's fascinating. So the more I read and the more I dove into the issue, the more I realized that by making a transition and moving over to align energy, I would have the opportunity to work with, uh, combustible dust, you know, part some of our older power plants are coal based.

So, uh, dealing with coal dust on a, a daily basis and having to understand some of the, the safety and the measures that we take to prevent accidents from happening. Um, was, was that opportunity. So I jumped at it. Uh, I made that change, uh, fast forward about another year. Uh, just last summer, last fall. I, I realized that my passion really lies still with helping and educating people.

And despite, you know, serving as that. Uh, fire protection person during the day, I really was longing to continue my work as a consulting engineer. I, I really enjoyed the client based projects. I liked working with architects, uh, finding ways to solve some of their new, innovative, uh, ideas and come up with the solutions.

And so, uh, I wanted to take what I had learned at ahe and at AAI and, and at line energy. And I, I've also opened up, uh, my own consulting engineering firm. Um, I really. Have long believed that there was a market that I could capture within the region around my home. Um, you know, it's not a, a hotbed near some of the main, uh, schools that have fire protection engineers.

And so oftentimes when you see a, a job opening in this area, you know, you realize that I'm like, there's just, there's just not that many here. And I kept looking at it. I'm still convinced. And as I'm working on building my own, my own firm here, uh, that there is this opportunity within this region for me to be successful.

So I wanted to take that step, uh, step out on my own and be able to continue to share what I've learned and help to educate, uh, others on what some of the fire protection, challenges and solutions. Wow. That's really exciting. Yeah. I'm super, uh, you know, interested to hear about that journey in, you know, taking that leap.

I mean, you've already had a, you know, not that your career is over, but you've already had such a stored career so far and you know, the projects that you've worked on and the pieces of the industry that you've seen, but. Yeah, I think, uh, now is a, is a natural time to talk to you about, you know, kind of what you're doing at your starting your own practice now and how that journey has been kind of taking those first steps to starting your own firm.

I'm fascinated in this subject. I think it's, uh, really interesting. Yeah. You know, it's, it's been a, a wealth of information and things that I've learned the experience, um, you know, It goes all the way from, you know, coming up with a logo, developing a website to, Hey, I need to invoice somebody and wait, I don't have an invoice, you know, before it was simple.

We, we have one it's stored on the file, just print this and send it off. And, uh, all of a sudden when, when it all falls back on you, you're now jumping into Microsoft word and you're searching in their templates to. Wow. I need an invoice. What can I create here? So, you know, it really provides you with a, the full gamut of experience from, uh, you know, seeking out, getting, getting your own hardware, your own software to finding ins you know, the professional insurance that you need to maintain to setting up bank accounts.

I mean, it, it really is the, um, ultimate in, uh, crash course tutorial on this is how it works. Um, so it it's been a, you know, a unique challenge, um, I'm sure that in many instances it may have been easier on myself. If I would've just chosen to cut the cord, um, get drop the parachute and just jump into this head first.

Um, maybe that would've, you know, provided me with more time. Obviously I've got my full time commitment to, to align energy that I have throughout the day. And so. It's become a lot of, uh, evenings, late nights working around. I have two younger kids working around their schedules and games and such. And then you throw in the ongoing pandemic and trying to meet and talk with people is obviously changed so greatly in the last year.

So. You know, it's been a, a never ending, um, challenge. But, uh, I guess in, in my case, I, I look at it as an opportunity. Um, you know, whether it is successful or unsuccessful, the, the things that I have learned in doing this, uh, are going to benefit me and my ability to be successful in the rest of my career.

So I wouldn't trade it for anything. Um, you know, and I, I just felt like. It was the time to do it. You know, you look at the, the career I've had up to this point. And, and a lot of it I said was spent, you know, gaining that knowledge, gaining the, understanding, the confidence and the, the ability to do that.

Um, and you know, you give it a consideration. As you move through and it, it becomes, you know, a timing thing. And for me, it was realizing I'm like at this point I finally felt like I've got enough experience. Uh, I've got enough contacts, I've got enough, um, you know, business acumen that I've been able to accrue in doing work, uh, with others and for others in all these kind of different areas where my career has gone and.

It was like, you know what? This is the time I want to capitalize and say, I, I feel like I've got enough now where I'm gonna be comfortable making that step. Wow. There's a lot of great stuff there. Yeah. I really, uh, appreciate that. Bit of explanation on, you know, kind of the journey and the extra work involved.

I definitely know what you're talking about, you know, with the nights and weekends thing as this podcast has been, uh, a labor of love for me as well. And just making time to, you know, whether it's, uh, in the early nights or mornings, you know, make time to get things done. Uh, that's something that I know about for sure.

Definitely. Yeah, but yeah, so I'm just fascinated, you know, you've been, um, at your role now. Um, and I know that you had, you know, quite a bit of time as. You know, somebody who probably was involved with business development and kind of the acquisition of projects, but yeah, I mean like, so like getting into your own practice, is this something that you just understand, like how the project acquisition function works and you could just kind of like, you know, like just the first customers and like, how does that work?

Is that from like existing connections? I don't know. It's just from somebody who doesn't have any background and like the BD side of it. I'm just like, I don't even know what the first step would even be and, uh, I I've, you know, read some different forums and stuff online and you know what, I don't know.

There's not always like, there's no book on, you know, how to get your first customer and fire protection engineering. So yeah, I mean, have a awesome career for. You know, a decade and a half, and then maybe you'll have the, you know, the connections and be able to talk to people and kind of have that business acumen you mentioned before.

But yeah, that's something I'm fascinated about. It is it's really, you know, it's a mix. Um, I I've found success. Uh, you know, part of it, I think just becomes you have to instantly put on your marketing cap. Uh, I didn't take any marketing classes. I, I wished I would have looking back now and seeing where I'm at, but, you know, building an online brand, um, you know, anything from, you know, helping my, my wife was instrumental.

We, we created a website and. There was a service. We used to develop a logo and, you know, some of those initial steps, just getting a, you know, footprint out there for someone to go and be able to find you, um, getting it so that you can Google search Vestly fire. And you can find that I've got a website and putting information up there so that people can find you, um, you know, I've had.

People reach out and contacts and, and develop customers from just having that online presence, um, you know, finding ways to leverage social media. Um, you know, I, I think we see a lot of these, uh, content creators and such, and, and it really is something that, um, I think you have to put to work now, you know, I never thought that, you know, having a, a LinkedIn, uh, business page and, or putting it on my own personal and, and sharing on things that I'm doing would have that impact, but it really did.

It's, it's it like, you know, expanded those net, that network and my connections to understand the. Opportunity that they have here, that I can work with them. Um, I'm I have this going. And so it's getting the word out. So, you know, it, it, it is it's, it's using the, the media, it's the marketing aspect. And then it's, it's the old fashioned connections.

Um, You know, as people have seen the, the posts or have talked to me and they begin to understand like, uh, oh, this is a, a service and, you know, really, you know, it's building on your network. So that's one of the things, um, you know, I, I always say I'm like meet people, you go to a conference, I'm like talk to somebody, um, you know, exchange business cards.

And, and it's kind of crazy the number of times that that's worked out where then I've had somebody reach out and say, Hey, can you help me with something like this? And all of a sudden, you know, you're putting together a proposal for some work that, um, was just naturally came up in, in conversation when people learn, um, that you work in fire protection.

So it's, it's, you know, really helping to just try and become a, your own advocate and really, uh, stretching out to try and get those to understand this is what you're working. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. That's, that's very interesting. Um, you know, since you have, uh, such a, uh, interesting career and background with fire protection engineering, I wanted to pick your brain on a couple of specific topics, uh, in regard to, you know, design because any, any time I get a chance to speak with somebody with that, you know, a design niche within the, you.

The niche itself of fire protection. Um, I love to just, you know, kind of explore these topics. Um, so yeah, I mean, the one you mentioned previously, which I didn't even expect to talk about, but I'm a huge fan of is combustible dust. I mean, that's such a nuanced and, and difficult, you know, subject in. Fire protection engineering.

I feel like people get out of their depths, uh, pretty fast when it comes to combustible dust and the, just the codes and standards associated with the, you know, the reports on the accessibility of the dust. And, you know, I, I think it's a very, uh, complex and nuanced topic. So, so yeah, maybe you. Since you were saying that you have interest in that subject, I'd love to hear more from you about that.

You know, that that's been one of the, the things, um, you know, you highlighted some of the issues and, and one of the reasons I was drawn to it is I said, it's, it's really, I mean, I consider fire protection. We're in a niche field here. Um, there's not like an expansive number of us. Like you may see for mechanical engineers or electrical engineers and, uh, you know, then you delve into this and you look, and, you know, people working in the combustible dust market are probably even a, you know, much smaller segment of the fire protection industry.

And so, uh, I was intrigued, uh, several folks that I had met. Over the years. Um, you know, the thing I found is that many of them had been doing it for many, many years and the amount of information they had was astounding, but many of them were looking to retire either up until now or in the next, uh, several years.

I think you're gonna see a real turnover in some of the engineers that. Working in the combustible dust market. So I was intrigued. I thought here's another opportunity. Um, whether, you know, I guess whether it's right or wrong, uh, you know, Richard Branson, I think I, I sometimes try to model after in that, you know, I just jump in and say, let's do it and let's figure it out.

And I, you know, he has got some quotes to that effect. And so that's really what I did. Uh, the beautiful part. I got a crash course that I don't think many others would be offered. Uh, when I came to align energy, uh, there was the gentleman that I was, uh, going to be taking over for upon his retire. I had a six to nine month window, uh, at, at the beginning of my time there, where I got to work with him.

And so having somebody that I could go walk through the process and, uh, you know, conduct a dust hazard analysis and understand some of the testing requirements and the calculations that we use to determine, uh, responsibility. Uh, how do we protect, uh, items? You know, I had firsthand opportunity to go to plants and areas that have dust and really look at what is the dust, uh, mitigation strategies that they've employed, uh, where are the areas that we need to be concerned, you know, diving into, you know, the class two, uh, electrical.

Classifications. And what is, what is it, you know, required for some of the equipment that we use in there and, you know, by having that opportunity, um, you know, I, I would give the, uh, the guy that I was learning from grief, I said, you're like the godfather of dust to me. Like, you just know the things that he had forgotten, um, you know, is, is what I hope to learn some days.

So. For me, it was that finding this opportunity within that market, um, you know, looking elsewhere, uh, I would think it would be a monumental undertaking for somebody to just say, I want to work on that without having some experience. Um, there's many, many good. Engineers that deal with this, um, and scholars that are obviously far more educated and advanced in their understanding of it than me.

And if you can find a way to work with those individuals to, to start to glean the knowledge that they have and the understanding. Just to build up your own capabilities is, is a phenomenal opportunity. So, uh, it was something I was interested in and I feel like, you know, when you peak your interest in something, uh, you'll, you'll find a way to get that.

And so, uh, in this case, the opportunity came up and I was able to get some, some firsthand experience working in this market. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I've had, uh, some really small scale projects that dealt with combustible dust. And the complexities involved and, um, so really just dipped my toe into those waters.

But, um, it doesn't take you very long to realize that they are super deep and that yeah, you really want to have, it's like basically, uh, hazardous materials. You don't, you don't want somebody who, you know, is a dilatant in, uh, hazardous materials or combustible dust. If you are. Developing a project with ex a, uh, you know, a decent amount of S and complexity with these, um, items, because they're just so, so niche and, and nuanced.

So, yeah, I like that. Plus I, I think the other part of this is that also having a network, um, you know, all of my years of attending conferences and, um, you know, webinars and such in meeting some of these. People throughout our industry, you know, having built relationships with some of them and having the ability to call somebody up and say, I'm working on something like this.

Uh, you know, what are your thoughts? What is your perspective on it? You know, being a one man show at align energy. I don't have another engineer here necessarily that I can always bounce an idea off of. And so having, you know, building up a network, um, you know, I'd challenge anybody listening to this to, uh, reach out, talk to people, meet people, um, you know, go grab a coffee with them and, and discuss these things.

When you have a chance. I've been paid back tenfold for the effort that I've put into my networking, by having the ability to talk with these individuals that are, you know, the leading, uh, you know, front runners in that type of market. So I would say if, if you get the chance, don't, don't sit there. Uh, you know, it's easy to sit, sit in a conference and take some notes and, and keep yourself, but, uh, challenge yourself really, you know, especially as engineers, let's push ourselves outside of.

Often introverted, uh, preference here and, and build up a network. So you, you have someone to turn to for some help. Yeah. I think that's a great point. It's, uh, such a powerful thing to be able to network and speak with somebody who's made this, their life's work and their passion, and, you know, people want to talk to you about this stuff, you know, or at least I that's the way I think about it, you know?

Somebody comes to me with a, a question about an area in which I have expertise. I just, yeah. I jump at the bit to be able to help somebody out. Um, so I think that's a great point, Greg. I, I really appreciate that sentiment and the challenge to those who are listening to, you know, expand your horizons.

That's something I'm all about, but speaking of niche topics, Recognize from taking a look at your LinkedIn profile that you had some experience in another area, uh, in which I think is a super fascinating topic and exceedingly niche, which is fire suppression and, um, just generally fire protection services for.

Aircraft maintenance hangers. I'd love to kick that topic around with you and, uh, talk about some of those unique design challenges. Yeah, you bet. Um, probably the most notable experience I had was in designing an aircraft maintenance hanger for a AR Corp. Um, they have a new facility, I guess, a couple years old now down at the Chicago Rockford international airport in Rockford, Illinois.

Um, in that case, the facility was. Membrane covered steel frame structure. So it was a group four aircraft hanger. Um, the project itself included two hangers. They were roughly 10 stories tall, and I believe around 90,000 square feet each. Um, and they were designed to fit. Either the Boeing 7 47 or the Airbus, a three 80 aircraft.

So the need for the client was constructing a hanger that was large enough that they could get those aircraft to fit within. Um, the two hangers were. Situated. So they were side by side with a kind of a T shape office and maintenance area, uh, in between those. And so the, the challenge was how do we provide fire protection for both, both hangers, the associated office space, um, there, um, You know, so things that we learned, uh, that project ended up using two diesel engine driven, fire pumps.

They were 3000 GPM each and both hangar bays had 15 of the high expansion foam generators. Uh, for that project, we used the Ansel jet X 27 generators. Uh, the largest one, I believe at the time, maybe, um, unless they've come up with something since might be the largest they still have for the, the high expansion foam generat.

One of the, the big challenges that we came up with on the project was with this steel structure. You know, if you envision it's each, it's basically a, a structure and then, you know, There's spacing between. So you've got basically these giant we'll call 'em U-shaped, uh, or rainbow shaped, I guess you could say, uh, structural pieces that go across.

And so then there's the wind bracing that kind of holds us all together and they put the membrane over the top. But unlike traditional construction, uh, one of the, the big challenges that we faced immediately was the, the weight of the generators and being able to brace them themselves was, was probably one of the, the more serious undertakings we uncovered right away in the project.

Um, spacing of those so that we could get the foam not to be deployed on top of the aircraft, but let's get it down to the. The floor level. Um, so moving these around, you know, it took a great deal of work with the structural engineer, uh, to really make that work. Um, you know, as long as we're looking at the, the roof here and kind of talking about that, one of the things I'd tell you is that the other piece of this was it's, it's using a membrane, um, within, you know, NFPA you'll find that you are to use outside air as the air makeup for the foam generators.

Well, using a membrane covered roof, we now were challenged with coming up with a performance based design. We could use, uh, the internal air, um, similar to what you would find in some of the department of defense projects. And so, uh, we spent a, a great deal of time in this case, working with Ansel, um, We were able to identify some performance data that they had from laboratory tests and then could document what that system performance would be, how that inside air may change the foam generation that we would experience from the generators.

By using, you know, air that may have, uh, you know, been heated. It may include some, um, other contaminants within the air. And so we're, we're forced to modify the volume and understand what that may do to change the amount of foam we were generating so that we could get a design. That would provide what we needed from the, the 4 0 9 aspect, but now using that performance base to use the inside air.

Interesting. Very interesting. You touched on a lot of great points there. Uh, yeah. I have some experience in, um, fire protection for hangers. So. Yeah, I love talking about this stuff. Yes. For those who don't know those pumps that you were talking about were in parallel, probably something that's unique to fire protection for hangers is the flow that's required to protect these facilities is, uh, beyond, um, what I've seen in any other type of a occupancy.

So, um, having to. Two, uh, pretty large fire pumps going in parallel. Did I say parallel before? Yeah. Parallel. Um, is, uh, something unique to this occupancy and something I think is super fascinating. Uh, yeah. That's, that's cool about the, the membrane hanger in really kind of, uh, I wonder, is that a unique case usually?

Do you get to use the inside air makeup for membrane hangers or, uh, it, it was on, on the one we did. Um, I don't know if others have come up with a, a better solution for penetrating that to get the, the outside air, but, uh, just working with the, the structural team and the, the membrane manufacturer, we had that, that was not going to be an option for what we were trying to do.

Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. That is a. It's they're, they're heavy, you know, you don't realize by looking at 'em that those, uh, chem guard 27 Ks or whatever you were referencing before. I I'm pretty sure those still are the, the largest ones I'm aware of. Um, but, uh, they're heavy and you need additional structural support and framing for those, uh, high expansion foam generators.

So, and if, if any of you could have seen the look on the architect's face, I think all of us have. Challenge in the design of a fire pump is that, you know, often room is not the luxury that we ever get blessed with. So, right. Uh, when we came to them and, you know, highlighted, we have two diesel engine pumps, so we have, you know, Um, both of a, you know, the foam concentrate tank, we've got our diesel fuel tanks, we've got our two pumps themselves, and then we've got the array of, uh, valves and associated piping.

Um, once we started to put together a layout and not cross over the tops of the controllers or violate any other codes, um, that pump room became. Quite expansive in a hurry. So it was one of those, uh, items where, um, you know, obviously the initial design, they did not include near the space that we had needed.

So we had to, uh, further coordinate and develop a, a situation there where we would have the, the access and the space needed to make all of that fit and still be something you could maintain in the. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. I think hangers and fire protection for hangers is one of the few cases where fire protection gets to drive a little bit, as far as, uh, programming space and requirements, as far as what we're provided with you, can't just be in a closet somewhere when you need, you know, uh, several hundred square feet to house, uh, diesel pump.

Tanks controllers, several controllers, foam concentrate, the, you know, the valving and piping associated. So yeah, I definitely know what you're talking about. It was great. It was, it was fun to, for, for the fire protection engineer to have a seat at the, the head table for ones and help drive the design instead of being forced to react to it.

instead of them telling you you're in a closet and deal with it, and exactly, you've got this bunch space. And it did, you know, it even extended out, um, within the hanger bays themself. Some of the other challenges we had was we used triple IR, uh, detector, flame detectors to operate the system. And so, uh, developing a layout with some of the other equipment and other parts and pieces so that we could maintain that line of sight for all the detectors and cover the entire space.

Um, you know, when you're essentially. You know, 90,000 square feet. I mean, it's, it's a football field by a football field. So, um, you know, the number of detectors in the location, we had to really drive a lot of that, um, alternate pieces that had to fit within what we were working to achieve. Um, some of the hose requirements, you know, and working with the HJ, uh, you know, we couldn't get a hose reel.

I think the limitation was 100 feet at the time. And so having them understand what some of. Limitations and the capabilities of what that whole system would be able to provide. So, uh, we had to work with them to, to further understand and develop what that was going to look like. Um, you know, even to, I think, anyway, it's done some hang work, where do I put the manual releases and how do I protect?

How do I identify them? So staff can find them quickly and protect them so that they're not inadvertently causing a release of the expansion system, as well as, um, in this case, you know, we had abor. Buttons a so that you could hold down that would help to automatically, it was one of the remote reset daily valves.

So as long as you were able to hold that you could stop that, uh, discharge if you were to encounter that. So there was a lot of parts and pieces that really, for once it was nice to be the, as the fire protection guy. On the project to, Hey, I get to sit up here and, and all of you get to help work with here's what we need to do.

Um, it, it was, it was fun. Yeah. That's a great, that's a great point. Um, I mean, for those who don't know, those flame detectors are a triple infrared flame detectors. And so usually the way they design 'em is to have overlapping coverage beneath the fuselage and wing of the airplane. So you can't have equipment in front of 'em.

They, uh, usually kind of, uh, have a, uh, redundancy in that you need two of them activating to initiate a foam discharge. And then, yeah, another really cool piece about on the equipment front is that, um, deluge valve with the flow control trim, that is the only way that you could have the option to abort the.

Fire suppression, discharge. Um, it's a very expensive valve and, uh, trim configuration to be able to, uh, push down on that diaphragm board, the, uh, you know, basically. The foam, uh, and water flowing. So that's, those are some unique, uh, equipment components that you wouldn't see outside of this application generally.

Yeah. You, you know, a couple other things we ran into Gus, um, in this case, the local sewer authority, uh, did not want us to be able to discharge directly into their, uh, sanitary sewer system. So the plumbing engineer and I had to come up with a, an underground. Uh, containment tank and there was a diverter valve then we used, so I believe it was 50,000 gallons in size is the, the final number we came to where, uh, upon release of the foam system, the diverter valve would then direct any of the effluent from those floor drains and trench drains to be held in the containment tank.

So you could get a, um, local. Company to come out and service that to pump that out and then take it to a, a treatment center for, uh, appropriate disposal. So, um, it was another challenge as we worked through and had sent some information to the, the local sewer authority that we didn't see coming. Uh, you know, I look at testing the system, um, you know, another challenge when you have an eight inch valve that opens like the valve opens is that, uh, the system pressure drop is so great.

When you have two pumps in parallel that adjusting the pressure setting so that you only had the primary pump. Activate was, was quite a challenge. Um, we did numerous field tests to get that pressure settings just right, so that you would have the ability to see that pressure drop without tripping. The second pump, um, you know, at running them in parallel, a concern was if both pumps operated, was there a chance that we would draw so much water that the underground water main could be damaged?

Uh, it was another one of those items where, you know, you get to the construction phase and you, you think you've gotten through it all, and then you encounter something during the commissioning work that it now requires, uh, a great deal of thought and consideration. Wow. Yeah, those are all great points.

Uh, the containment is one that I find that usually people have a lot of, uh, it's a, it's a topic. Concern, uh, first of all, the fact that you gotta talk with the utility company and verify that they will accept any, um, if at all, uh, amount of this discharge from the effluent, from the, um, high expansion foam.

Um, but then yeah, also, you know, working with, um, civil to locate. Uh, underground are, you know, uh, containment tanks, like you mentioned. And so, yeah, it's, it's a peculiar system as well that, you know, um, we have to be, um, associated with in, uh, hangar projects. Uh, But I wanted to get into a little bit about, I could talk about hangers all day and I would love to, you know, keep going on that subject.

Yeah. I would love to keep going on that subject, but I would be, I'd feel like I'd be, um, kicking myself if I didn't get a chance to ask you about your. Work on NFPA technical committees. I think that is something that is, um, really interesting and, you know, not too many times, do I get a chance to speak with somebody who has a, you know, an integral role in a, in a process, you know, um, to, uh, work with these committees.

So, yeah, I wanted to ask, um, if you would speak on your involvement with the, uh, NFBA technical committee. Sure. Sure. Um, you know, it's, it's fascinating to see, uh, from being on the committees, where are we headed? Um, the, as we have in, you know, people throughout the industry, developing new products and new technologies, and then how do you take something like that and fit it within the codes and standards that we are accustomed to dealing with while maintaining the ability to have the same type of system, um, The efficiency, the reliability that we've come to expect from a fire protection system.

Um, it's, it's been a fantastic journey for me. Um, 20 and 24, you know, the, the beautiful part is starting way back at the beginning of my career with, uh, ahe and designing systems. You know, these are things that I've had the opportunity to work with for, uh, nearly 20 years now. and, you know, working with the committee, um, you know, it's, it's a, it's a process.

Um, I think any of you that may have gone on to NFPAs, uh, website and you look at the number of, um, hearings that we go through, the number of, um, iterations that each of these get, um, you know, it, it was definitely eye-opening to me, as I took. Part in this process to just see, uh, how thoroughly reviewed these items are and, and how do we do that?

How do we write this, uh, language in such a way that it is not, you know, geared to any one specific manufacturer or one specific engineer? Or how, how do we make it? Um, very, you know, Understandable without being too restrictive or, um, you know, too, to the point where it would be, you know, a soul source type of thing.

So, uh, you know, it's, it's a, it's a challenge. I've enjoyed it. You know, part of it as I really. I like the fact that for me, again, it's another networking opportunity. Um, many of the individuals that I now get the chance to, to speak with and interact with are people that I've looked up to throughout our industry for, for my career and being able to work with them on a collegial level has been just fantastic, a fantastic experience and, and having them as a, you know, somebody that I can turn to call on and, and ask questions of.

Um, it's, it's been really rewarding. So if anybody gets the opportunity, I, I would definitely tell them that it's, it's a, it's very enjoyable. And it's worth the extra effort and the extra, the evenings and the, the time spent reviewing some of this work. Um, it's, it you'll definitely feel that reward.

That's, that's a great, that's great exposition on, you know, the codes and standards process. It, uh, it kind of blew me away the first time, you know, I heard somebody talk about the detail in which, you know, the process. As in, you know, kind of takes with, you know, nitpicking words and, you know, bringing up the occurrence of, you know, how many times we use this word to describe it, or, you know, the literal spelling of, of this word and kind of dissecting it down to the letter of the law.

Um, it's, uh, kind of, kind of wild to me and to, to get that consistently across all of the various documents, um, you know, I, I was surpris. Um, as you, as you look through just a number of N FPA standards and how, how much work it takes to just be consistent in the language and the terminology that's used, so that the, the end product of, of what is available for the codes and standards is something that you can understand and relate to.

So that that definitions are consistent. Um, You know, it's, it's much, there's much more to it, um, than I would've ever guessed until you, you really dive into it like that and see it firsthand. Yeah. That's so true. Yeah. I would like to get involved, but, uh, I don't know. It seems like, uh, I don't know. I don't know if I have time to, to get involved.

I I'm sure I do if I wanted to make time, but it seems interesting. And. I would wanna be involved with, you know, I feel like there's a lot of people applying for some of the, uh, I say more interesting, but I guess it just depends on who you are, which one you find. Interesting. But you know what, and I would tell you GU um, to anyone listening get involved, it, it may not be.

One of the, the core standards that maybe you're used to working with. But, uh, as a fire protection engineer, we have experience in dealing with so many of these issues that if there's an opportunity, if there's a, a standard that you are using on a project, um, you know, and, and you can get on the committee, begin there, at least give yourself the opportunity so that when you have a chance to get onto.

A standard, if the technical committee's looking for one that you're involved with, part of the resume that you're going to be providing is I've been part of that NFPA process. I understand the time commitments, I understand how we get from the draft all the way to the next published edition of that standard.

So find a way to get involved. Um, you know, Whichever ones that, that, you know, you feel like you're comfortable with sign up, be become part of the process. Yeah, I like that. I appreciate that. And so Craig, I just wanted to end with, I appreciate, uh, You know, all the different points you've touched on, but I just wanted to ask you, um, if you had a piece of advice for professionals, um, who are listening to this, um, you've had some great topics along the way, like networking and getting involved with the codes and standards process and just kind of, um, you know, how to dive in and really, um, lean into, uh, different work that you may not be comfortable with.

But yeah, I didn't know if you had any. Parting words for professionals listening. Yeah. I seize every opportunity you're given, um, you know, many of the career experiences that I've had, um, have been on the fact that I said, sure, I'll take it. I, I, you know, be, be willing to explore things, be comfortable with change and uncertainty.

Uh, you know, as any of us get through our, our daily lives, you see that, you know, often as we, you know, touched. It's not black and white. It's, it's gray and use the knowledge that you have to navigate that communicate, um, with people, you know, document items, you know, it's, it's so critical being able to, uh, speak right.

And, you know, Present yourself in an efficient manner. So finding ways to get up in front of people to gain the experience, uh, you know, never, never turn down something just because it looks difficult because some of those cases for me has been where I've had some of my biggest growth and where I've, you know, really been able to expand my horizons and my own capabilities.

So definitely look, look for those chances you get where it may seem treacherous. It might seem a bit scary, but it really is going to be, what's going to push. There's a quote, uh, from the movie, the greatest showman. And I, I keep it posted here next to my computer and is, uh, comfort, ah, the enemy of progress.

And so I think too often, it's easy to get comfortable in our careers and comfortable with the position. So I, I challenge any of you to step outside that comfort and, and really push yourself. You'll, you'll be amazed at what you can. Wow. I can't think of a better way to end the podcast. Craig, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about your career and um, some of the great things that you're doing now.

Um, if people wanna find out more about you, where would you tell them to go? Sure. You can look up, uh, my LinkedIn profile, uh, Craig ley, V as in Victor, E S E L Y. Uh, you can also visit my consulting website. That is Vestly fire.com. Um, either of those will will get you. Opportunity to see, learn a little bit more about me and get some contact information, happy to, uh, discuss fire protection and, and life safety with everybody.

Awesome. Well, thanks again, Craig. And we'll have to do this another time. I know we just skimmed the surface on your career and we got the spark notes, but I really enjoyed it. Thanks again, sir. You bet. Thanks Scott. I appreciate the opportunity. 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 solocast episode 6 of Fire Code Tech. On this episode we are talking about sprinkler systems 101. I wanted to start to break into sprinkler systems and start at the extreme fundamentals. If you enjoyed this episode don’t forget to go check out the extra episode on patreon.com/firecodetech

https://firesystems.net/2018/09/07/types-of-sprinkler-heads/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ylvugYc0w

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. Welcome to episode six of the solo casts of fire code tech. In this episode, we're talking about sprinkler basics. So I wanted to intro the conversation about sprinklers and really start diving into this technology. But. Before I take a look at the codes and standards and really go full bore on how to determine when these systems are needed and how to install them.

I wanted to talk about some of the system essentials or the extreme basics. I know this is gonna be two elementary for some of my listeners, probably a large portion. But I think it is important to have a rock solid understanding of the foundations of sprinkler systems. And maybe this will be informative for those who don't have a strong of a fire suppression background to start off with the standard for installation for sprinklers is N FPA 13.

So in the us, and in a lot of other parts of the world, Uh, NFP eight 13 is the standard document to determine the installation features and design requirements for a sprinkler system. Now, this doesn't tell you when these systems are required. And so I'm not gonna go into that for this episode as something that I will dive into further, um, at a later date.

But this is going to be more about, um, system component, basics and architecture and features of, um, fire sprinkler system components. So, yeah, that's kind of a preface for some of the content you're gonna hear about. In NFPA 13 is the national fire protection agency's standard for the installation of sprinkler systems.

So I realized, I didn't say that still. So, so in order to give us a basis or, uh, rock solid, fundamental, uh, base, I wanted to start with some definitions about a sprinkler system and what that. Let's take a look at 3.3 0.205, sprinkler definitions more specifically, the first definition in this category titled automatic sprinkler.

This definition says a fire suppression or control device that operates automatically when it's heat activated. Then it goes on to say the element is heated to its thermal rating or above allowing water to discharge over a specified area. So this is talking about the fundamental characteristics of a sprinkler and what we need to have in order to consider something a sprinkler.

I'm gonna plan to include a, a picture in the show notes, but the general characteristics of a sprinkler are, um, a deflector, uh, some sort of element to, to fuse or to break at a specified heated. Temperature. And then also, uh, a frame, if you will, there are a couple different types of sprinkler head, fundamental types.

So there's many subcategories within these types, but, um, I would say the main three categories are upright pendant and sidewalk. These all refer to the orientation in which the sprinkler is installed. And so when we take a look at the orientation in which they're installed, you have to, uh, there's easy ways to determine if the sprinkler is one of these types by visually inspecting it due to the shape and configuration of the deflector, which is the top piece of the sprinkler.

So. Upright sprinklers will generally have a curved deflector in order to ricochet the water off of the deflector piece and redirect it. Um, downwards, um, pendant sprinklers will. Uh, usually have a flat deflector because, um, of the dispersion pattern meant to deflect it downwards and side wall sprinklers typically have a, um, a like L shape looking deflector.

So this is ordered to, um, kind of flatten the spray pattern out and to project it forward. And so I'll try to include some pictures in the show notes, but I just wanted to cover this, um, first and foremost. And so. There's a couple different things that you can tell just by looking at a sprinkler. Um, generally there, if you want to determine, uh, so the hole in which the water comes out of a sprinkler head, It's called the orifice and the orifice there's standard orifice sizes.

Um, the most common is 5.6 K factor. So what does that mean? Why would you want to know when you have, uh, a certain size of orifice? Well, the size of the orifice and the pressure at which the, um, sprinkler is activat. Determines how much water is released when the sprinkler is activated. And so there's a simple formula for determining the amount of flow that a sprinkler releases, um, when activated, by knowing these factors.

And so the K factors range from, um, much smaller than 5.6, the residential sprinklers are, uh, I believe in the, the four range. And then if you look at. Specific application storage, sprinklers. Um, they can go all the way up to 25.2 K factor. So what does that mean? Let's do a quick little exercise to determine, um, at standard pressures, what kind of water release that would be.

So if we are determining flow, the equation that we. Is the K factor formula. And this is Q equals K times the square root of P pressure. So I did a little bit of back of the envelope calculations to take a look at what, uh, standard sprinkler at a 5.6 K factor with the minimum operating pressure of seven pounds per square inch seven PS.

And what kind of flow would that release? So it's important to kind of have these back of, um, you know, these understandings of standard flow for when you're taking a look at preliminary hydraulic analysis. And so, uh, the formula we we spoke about previously was K equals, I mean, Q equals K times the square root of P.

So if you take 5.6 K. And then you multiply that by the square root of. You get 14.8 GPM or approximately 15 GPM. So this is the, the standard amount of water that you could expect out of. Uh, one of the most common types of sprinkler heads available the 5.6 K factor head. And so then I took a look at a 25.2 K factor head, which is one of the largest that I'm.

I took a look at a 25.2 K ESFR head, a Viking head. And then I took a look at a cut sheet. Couldn't find a minimum available working pressure on a cut sheet. It said to refer to N F P 13, took a look at N F P 13 and took a look at a storage application for, uh, ESFR sprinkler head at about. 25 25 0.2 K factor.

And so the minimum, uh, working pressure of the head in the ESFR scenario for this example was 15 PSI. So I took 25.2 and I multiplied the square root of 15. And then I got approximately 98 GP. . And so the physical size of these sprinklers don't change, um, that drastically, and you can see that we've over quadrupled, the amount of water coming out of this sprinkler head.

So from 15 GPM to almost a hundred GPM, and this is, uh, 15 PSI is low on the. Pressures that, uh, 25.2 K factor head could operate at, could operate at, um, 60 PSI or maybe more if there were other applications I'm not exhausted exhaustively looking at these, um, pressure applications. So they could have, uh, quite a lot of water coming out of one of these sprinkler devices.

So here's the definition of the sprinkler system in, in FPA 13. We wanna talk about this because it goes over the fundamental architecture pieces of the sprinkler system here is a good basis, uh, for everybody to know. And in fact, I can't tell you how many times that I've gone back and read this, not too many sprinkler system 3.3 0.206.

I'm looking at the 2019 edition of an FPA 13. It says a system commonly activated by. From a fire and discharges water over the fire area that consists of an integrated network of piping designed in accordance with fire protection engineering standards and includes a water supply source, a water control valve, a water alarm water flow alarm, and drain.

the portion of the sprinkler system above ground is a network of specifically sized or hydraulically designed piping installed in a building structure or area generally overhead, and to which sprinklers are attached in a systematic pattern. Wow. That is dense. So let's go over a couple of these specific parts so I can expand upon 'em cuz they're, uh, multifaceted.

It says a system commonly activated by heat from a fire and discharges water over the fire area. So this rings up a situation in which I didn't even think about is you have, uh, so you have systems, fire suppression systems that are manually activated. Like, uh, the, the ones that I can think of would be, uh, Um, I'm sure there are pre-action systems that can be, uh, manually activated or, uh, you know, uh, a daily system could be manually activated.

And so that's an interesting caveat with that statement says, next sentence says. that consists of integrated network of piping design in accordance with fire protection engineering standards. That includes a water supply source, a water control valve, a water flow alarm, and a drain. So here they just, they just told you the, the fundamental pieces for what you need to call in a sprinkler.

Um, uh, water supply. So if you have no water to put into the system, uh, you, you can't have a sprinkler system. And so I want to dive into water supply analysis, but yeah, really, we're just going over the definitions here, a control valve. So a control valve is basically a way to. Isolate the system, uh, provide maintenance or to do work on the system.

And then they say a water flow alarm, which is a way to know when the system is activated. So for, uh, standard web pipe systems, this would be a vein type water flow switch, which is essentially a paddle within the fire suppression piping that is moved by the flowing of water and then sends a signal to the fire alarm panel.

or a pressure switch in the case of a dry pipe or a pre-action system. And then it says a drain. And so you have to have a way to get the water out of the system. If you need to maintain it, if there was a, uh, false activation, um, in the case of dry action or pre-action, you need to drain it for maintenance purposes.

So you have to have a drain. Something I think is interesting is they don't talk about backflow prevention, which. Is, and is not a component of a sprinkler system, I suppose. Um, you need one, you need one when you have a sprinkler system, but the physical sprinkler system. Is, uh, like they said, a control valve water flow alarm, a way to drain it and water to supply the system.

So it says the portion of the sprinkler system above ground is network of specifically size and hydraulically designed piping installed in a building structure or area generally overhead. To which sprinklers are attached in a systematic pattern. So here they referenced the hydraulic calculation method, as well as the pipe schedule method.

It says that there is intentional sizing to these pipes. So I've really just breached the surface on what a sprinkler system is. And if you can't tell for quick, A sprinkler system is a combination of valves, piping drains, and alarm devices that is utilized to put out a fire. And so there are a variety of situations in which these systems are required by, um, code for whatever jurisdiction you're working in.

And so, uh, really, I just wanted to cover some of the very essentials, um, on this topic. And I want to keep diving into the topic of what these systems are, their component architecture, and, uh, really just keep going on this topic. I. I didn't get, as far as I thought I would on this first episode. But, um, I think that just goes to show how deep the topic is and, and how broad it is.

Um, yeah, and I think I went on a tangent there about the, the K factor in the orifice and how much water you can flow. But I think that's interesting and important as well. So hope you enjoyed this solo cast and if you wanna check. Another, um, episode of similar length about sprinklers. You can go check out the Patreon at patreon.com/fire code tech, and, uh, hear another episode about sprinklers that's re released right now.

So go check it out. 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.