Using terminal blocks for class A system

[chris_s]

@Rfrye76

Sorry for the delayed response, I was not expecting the thread to have any more replies so I have not checked it recently.

I am basically designing the the system to the point of wiring diagrams, detection/alarm placement, material lists, and general information. we will then give this information to a contractor and they will install the fire alarm system. I have little to no experience in fire alarms, my background is electrical engineering and most buildings that we work with are small enough to use a conventional system. this building is 70’ x 200’ with 24" I-beams on the ceiling and 24’ height to the ceiling with 3 floors. the building is not open and there are numerous cable trays and equipment ducting that needs to be considered in this.

sink or swim i guess. most likely the information that I come up with will be delivered to simplex or converted to a different vendor that we can simply purchase the equipment and have an electrician/fire alarm tech install it.

You’d probably be better off having a fire alarm vendor do a design-build for you, then you won’t have to worry about any of it or take on any liability.

If you come up with the device placements you can send the plans to a vendor who will give you a quote and a material list, and if you select them they’ll give you the wiring diagrams, panel layouts, riser diagrams, etc. If you don’t want to do any of it, you can work with a fire alarm vendor and get all of it done for you. Nothing has to rest on your shoulders outside of budget concerns, have an experienced fire alarm company do the smarts & parts and you can turn the information and material over to the electrician to install.

[system]

[quote] Nothing has to rest on your shoulders outside of budget concerns, have an experienced fire alarm company do the smarts & parts and you can turn the information and material over to the electrician to install. [/quote]

This is what we have generally done in the past. This is an attempt to get our feet wet in the fire alarm system design, so we can cut out the cost of having a fire alarm designer do work that we can accomplish in house. I am going to request a vendor change to a company that is more “DIY Friendly”. Right now my biggest focus is code, but using simplex seems to be a big hurdle for me as far as preliminary layout and wiring diagrams go. an educated guess is great as long as its not wrong.