Episode 28 | PDF vs Books, device spacing and calculations, and more

This episode explores the practical challenges of using PDFs versus physical books in technical exams and training, the importance of code fundamentals, and best practices for device spacing and calculations in fire safety systems.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of the Temporal Three Podcast. I am joined by my co-host, Mr. Charles Ulner. Howdy. And Mr. Chris Godwin. Well, guys, this morning I'd like to start out talking about PDFs and the NICET exam. So I had a recent training experience at a private class where all of my students were using PDFs.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Okay, Brian, I have a question for you on that.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

What was the age range of this group of students? There was actually a broad range. There were some uh people probably in their 20s all the way through their 40s and 50s. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

The old guys were using PDFs too.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

The old guys were using PDFs. It was actually dictated by the employer who decided uh to use PDFs in the class rather than getting uh the physical books. But I will say that at the end of the class, that the guys in the class all said they were going to go out and buy the physical books because they saw the drawbacks of the PDFs. And I think the employer uh looked at it and said, well, the PDFs are permitted in the exam. Let's use the PDFs in the class. But I think the the students realized very quickly how challenging the PDFs can be to navigate. Chris, what has been your experience with that in recent classes?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Um, I I did have one of us, one of my students in a class recently that was only using the PDF. And they were able to find information, but it's just something about having the book. You have the book, you you know where you need to be, you can flip right to it. And using the PDF, you're you're stuck, you're you're locked in. You have to search and then search through everything and scroll. And with the book, you just I need to be in chapter seven. Flip right to chapter seven, get the information. And I see the PDF as being more of a hindrance than anything else with the exam because yeah, you have access to the information, but you don't have the time to go through everything and it slows you down. And I'm not a fan. I I do not like them for testing purposes. It's just it takes too much time, it takes too long.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Chris, that's surprising to me because as uh an individual in your age group, it seems like digital is in your DNA, and yet you'd still prefer the old paper and ink solution.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Give me the book. Give me the book. Um give me a book, I can find it, I know how to use the book. And you know, that's that's a lot of what people don't recognize going into it is if you know how to use the book, the PDF is it's a secondary source, and you don't really use it that much.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

But that's that's how I feel about it, at least. One thing I have pointed out to my students when we were talking about tabs is you can't tab a PDF. No, you can tab a book, but you can't tab a PDF. And it was very interesting in the age range, and I'd say that a large majority of about uh 20 people, that I'd say 15 to 18 of them stated to me during the class at some point that they were going to go out and get the physical book for the exam. And uh I thought it was very interesting because it's the first time I've ever done a class that was entirely electronic. I'll tell you where they particularly struggled, guys, was in NFPA 70 in the National Electrical Code. It really became an issue in 70, and we hit 70 questions. They were just struggling like crazy, and it was really unfortunate because I talked to them about uh 31416 and uh you know finding that kind of information in conduit fills and all that, or or chapter 9, table eight was a big one, and they just really struggled, and anything that was uh, you know, fire alarm would take them to 760, but then there's you know a hundred references to fire alarm in 760, so it it really became a challenge for them for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I I could see I could see the PDF with 70 being you could probably navigate it quicker than 72 because we are so limited to what we're gonna use that book for. But it's still you look up anything and it's here's every time it's mentioned, and okay, just get me right to 760. It's eight pages. I need those eight pages. Well, here's you know, a page about this, and no, get me right where I need to be. Right, right. Yeah, books, good books are gonna be faster.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Absolutely. I hear your preference, Chris. And I hear your preference, Brian. Uh, from your experiences dealing with technicians out in the industry, would you say their preference generally tends to be books rather than the PDF?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Their their preference tends to be Google. I was gonna say, they just Google it. Google edition of code, what does it say? And I I've I've asked, I've had students in class a lot of times when we've been talking about it, they'd say, Yeah, out in the field, I just Google everything. Google it. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

So neither, neither out in the field. But unfortunately, in the nice exam, and probably in a lot of other state exams and stuff like that as well, uh, Google's not an option. You know, mobile device is not an option, phone or friend is not an option. You got to be able to find information. And we know for you know in the nice hit exam, although they provide PDFs that are searchable, that uh generally in the nice it exam, that having those books, those physical books, is just going to make you a lot faster, you know, considering that generous amount of time of a minute and a half per question.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Well, and then things come up from my experience where the detail of the code is not something you can easily memorize across the whole book. Right. We, as people who deal with the codes all the time, we may know where to look, but we still have to look it up to find the details. Right. Uh what spacing changes are affected by uh higher velocity airflow in a building. Well, I know where to look for that. I don't have that memorized.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yep. Yeah, exactly. A lot of tables, uh, you know, heat detector adjustment table, that's a great point. I don't have that table memorized. I know it's 176351, but I don't have the numbers memorized. I still got to look at it. So, yeah, absolutely. Well, guys, the next topic I'd like to talk about today is NFPA 72, Chapter 10. And what information is in chapter 10? So, chapter 10 is fundamentals. And in terms of the NICET exam, it's something that we're going to be using quite frequently. In the real world, uh, you know, a lot of it is design consideration, but lesser installation consideration, but still important in the real world as well. Chris, what's your take on chapter 10?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Uh I feel like anybody that's a new technician, check out chapter 10. Go through a not a deep dive into it, but get familiar with it. It's called the Fundamentals chapter because it's fundamentals to the equipment, fundamentals to the personnel, fundamentals to how your system, not necessarily just the system, but how everything's supposed to work. As far as real world, a lot of that just kind of gets ingrained through the work. And we don't really question it, but it is very much a matter of this is what code says. I mean, one of the biggest ones is you gotta have a smoke detector above the panel. And nobody for the most part realizes that until we point it out in class and they're like, oh yeah, no, above the panel, there's always a smoke detector. Well, it's because 10 to 4.5 tells you you've got to have it. You gotta have it above it. So I do feel like new technicians, check it out.

unknown 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Well, not only above the panel, but above the neck extender and any remotely located communications equipment as well. You put a you move a cellular away from the panel to get signal. Guess what? Now you gotta put a smoke above it.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah. Absolutely. And Charles, go ahead, Chris. I'm sorry. I was just gonna say, and and it's just it's information that we should understand, we should know from a technician standpoint. And a lot of times we do, but oftentimes it's because we're taught that instead of, hey, this is what the code says with this particularly. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Charles, what's your take on chapter 10? Uh, mine's a little different. I view chapter 10 as the junkyard of the toad. All this crap that doesn't really fit anywhere else gets dumped into chapter 10. The garbage truck comes in and dumps it.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Well, we sure communicate with our fellow instructors who sit on code committees. Uh, when two of them at least sit on chapter on NFTA 72, what your feelings are about chapter 10. We'll be sure and relay that to NFTA.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

In my early days of studying the code, there was an issue that was really uh vexing me. And uh it's mounting height of an enunciator. What is the required mounting height of an enunciator? And the reason this was such an issue for me is because there are people out there in the industry who think, well, if you program a button on the enunciator to send an alarm signal, it's a manual pull station. Right. What a bunch of hogwash that is. It's not a manual pull station, it's an enunciator. And uh I'd go into buildings and I'd see enunciators mounted at 48 inches, and that's just wrong. So I wanted to find a code reference for that, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Finally I called NFPA and I talked to the NFPA code expert, an engineer named Dick Roo, and uh Mr. Dick Roo, the engineer, said, Look in chapter 10. Never thought about looking in chapter 10. Found it. Remote enunciators are required to be mounted at a height that allows firefighters to easily see what's going on in the building. So four feet is not it.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Well, what amazes me is that you have a problem with enunciators at four feet because that's pretty much eye level for you. So that is.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

It is the bare bones minimum. It is the least necessary for what is to be determined determined to be safe. So when we're looking at the rounding, whenever we're rounding, whether it's up or down, most of the time we're exceeding the code. And for even numbers, for whole numbers, it's not really a big deal. But once you get into that point, here's how many, or point, here's your here's your spacing, that becomes a little bit of a thing that people don't take into consideration because I can't produce 0.6. I can't produce 0.6. If I don't meet that 0.6, it's not going to be compliant with the code. And that's where the rounding really comes into play to be in excess of what the code says. Code's the floor. You can always go above. Charles, any take on that?

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yeah, I uh uh would stress that the code uh in a rounding, we have to go with the more stringent requirements. Yes. So if it's 0.6, we have to round up for the number of detectors. The number of detectors always has to be more, not less. So that's an important consideration. Whichever one is more stringent, that's the way we have to that's that's the key right there.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Make uh remembering that the code is the minimum, the least we can do. And exceeding the minimum, is that ever okay, guys?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

No one's ever said this building is too safe. No one's ever said this building's too safe. So, yeah, exceeding code, pretty much in my experience, has always been pretty much it's good. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

So, one option, one uh application that we round down is in device spacing. As Chris, you mentioned that if we calculate spacing, say it as an example, is 13.1 feet. And working with whole numbers, the math is a little bit easier than working with decimal or fractions. So if we if we calculate a spacing as 13.1, for example, say on a high ceiling with a heat detector, um, we can round down that number to make the math easier for ourselves. So we'll say maximum spacing is 13.1. If we work with 13, we're compliant. But why can't we round up? Why can't we just go to 14?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah, going 14 is not going to give you the same. Uh the code, when we look at the with this an adjustment factor, it says 13.1. Okay, well, if you go with 14, that is going with a spacing that is greater than what the code tells us. So going with the 13, rounding it down, one, easier math. And two, it's going to be providing, again, more. Now, the amount more is decimals. It's a decimal point more. However, once we get to that point, we're still rounding the device count up. So it really doesn't have a negative effect. It's for most instances, it's going to provide you with more detection, more life safety.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

So the other one, the roundup scenario is for number of devices. And you kind of hit on this, Chris. And um, I like the analogy. If you calculate that uh across a row or uh across a uh column that you need 5.5 smoke detectors, can you have 0.5 of a smoke detector? And I guess in reality, in theory, I should say you can. You could take a sawzall to it and cut it in half, but is that going to be code compliant? No. Is it going to work? No. So what you end up doing is rounding up to the next whole detector. And uh that's a scenario where, again, if if the code requires, or based on the calculation, you require 5.5, you go to six. And as you said, Chris, you're making the building more safe. You're exceeding the required number of detectors, but going down to five. In this instance, rounding down is not acceptable. Because if the minimum is 5.5 and you go to five, you're now below the minimum. Charles, any takes on this?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

No, I think you're uh right on track, especially for testing. In the NISAT test, it's precise. Yep. Uh in state tests, it's precise. And when they have calculations of that type, uh 5.5 detectors, they're specifically looking to see that you know the absolutely. The application in the field, uh, there may be a little difference there. The code uses the term nominal, which gives us a little bit of leeway, I suppose. But the intent is to know we have to round up. We have to go to a higher number of detectors, not a lower number.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And I can see having that discussion with the AHJ of what nominal is, and it's actually in annex A for smoke detectors, this is plus or minus 5%, which is 18 inches. But if you try to put a smoke detector at 31 and a half feet, because the code says it can be up to, you know, extra 18 inches, the AHJ is gonna look at you like you're crazy and doesn't doesn't care what's in the code, say, no, it's gonna be 30 or less. So you're you're right, code world versus real world.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

And you gotta remember, it's annex A materials too, where it gives that additional most AHJs, it's just explanations and recommendations. So it's a recommended you do that, but if you do, if you do 30 or less, you have more.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Absolutely. Well, guys, it's been interesting and entertaining as always. Appreciate all our listeners joining us for this session, and I will see you again soon.