Episode 29 | NFPA 72, fire safety, technical training, fire alarm signals, and more

This episode explores the importance of attitude in technical training, the hierarchy of fire alarm signals, and key considerations for fire alarm system design in various occupancy types. Hosted by Bryan McLane with insights from Charles Aulner and Chris Godwin.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello everyone and welcome to the Temporal Three Podcast. I am joined today by my co-host, Mr. Charles Ulner. Hello, Charles. Hey everyone, I'm Charles. And Mr. Chris Godwin. Hi, everybody. So, guys, today I'd like to talk about what is your type. And Charles, I'd like you to lead this discussion because this is something you and I have talked in debt in depth about. And uh you have some very specific opinions on this, and Chris and I will certainly chime in. So I'd like you to talk a little bit about this. What are we talking about when we say what is your type?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Well, Brian, I've uh had a lot of experience out in the field teaching, and I've seen all different types of technicians out in our industry and industry professionals coast to coast. Uh as you know, our classes are all over the place, and we get to interact with more professionals in our industry than most other people do. And one thing really stands out, and that's attitude. No matter where we teach and where we go, we run into some students who have a really positive attitude that shows up in training. They dive into the books, they work hard. We have other students who are not so enthusiastic about life in general, let alone training. And from an instructional perspective, those students seem to give us a little more resistance in accepting new ideas, code requirements, concepts, and all the things that we try and put out in front of them. So the ones who tend to have a more positive outlook and attitude always tend to be more successful from my experience than the ones who adopt a more negative attitude toward everything in general. Brian, back to you.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Absolutely, Charles. I would agree with that. And I uh don't have as many, at least uh teaching nice at fire alarm, as many years of instructing it as you do, pretty close. But um I do, I have experienced that. There's always the guy who sits in the back of the room with his arms crossed and just looks just unhappy to be there the whole time and doesn't interact and doesn't answer questions. And usually when we do the quizzes, a lot of times I'll find these are the people that struggle. And this is a guy that won't open the book and look anything up because he already knows it all, or he just doesn't want to be there. And that's unfortunate. And we always, as instructors, do our best to engage people, to help them to bring some life to the code. Uh, because code is very dry and very boring, so we try to liven it up to try and make it more interesting. But sometimes some people are harder to reach than others. Chris, have you experienced that?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, absolutely. Most most of the time, like you said, there's that one person in the back that whether it is because they've been doing it for so long that they don't think that they can learn anything new, or they just I have to do this because my boss told me to. My favorite part about that is when that person finally starts looking into things and starts realizing this is, you know, really important. This is stuff that uh you can learn. You can learn anything at any point in time in your career. And uh, like I said, my favorite part is getting to see the complete change of that dynamic, that personality, when they start looking stuff up, when they start realizing that they might not know everything that they need to know. They know how to do their job, but they might not know everything that they need. And when there is that complete change and they start to, I um, I don't want to say respect, but actually start having more of an appreciation for the content and being able to learn how to use the books. So that's that's probably um that's the person that I try the most to try to reach in every single class.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Absolutely. And I think Charles, you're with me on this. That's the kind of the guy. If you want to be ignored in the class, be engaged. If you want the focus of the instructor, don't be engaged. Is that true, Charles?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Uh yes, for sure. And you know, we hear things like that's not the way it is in the real world. Have you ever heard that, Chris? All the time. All the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

The real world is gonna be full of context. The real world is gonna be full of a lot more than a lot of times what we're going over in the class. But using the book and finding the answers, especially when we're talking about anything from like a nice edge perspective, they don't care about the real world. What does the book say? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

I I use that differentiation myself if we're in a regular fire alarm class, just a straight-up fire alarm, whether it's fire alarm INT or fire alarm design or any of their other fire alarm offerings. I say, okay, this is what the code says, and always defer to the local AHJ and say that there's shades of gray here. Code says this, your AHJ may want this, you always do what the local guy says. But when we're in the NISAT exam, I'm very regimented about it. And I say to people, look, it doesn't matter what your AHJ says, and very important to remember, your AHJ is not grading your NISAT exam. NISET is. And they use black and white code requirements. So things are much more black and white in a NISET class. And Chris, you're absolutely right. I've seen that. People struggle with that and push back on that. And uh, I have to kind of gently tell them, look, you you can't go into the exam with that mindset because that's a that's a great way to fail the exam and pay NISAT some more money, is going in there and saying, well, I'm gonna do it the way my AHJ wants. That's not the answer NISAT's looking for. Charles, you agree?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yes. I and we hear this kind of thing regularly. I don't care what the code says, that's the way we've always done it. Have you heard that before, Brian?

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah, absolutely. It's it becomes particularly interesting at level three with project management. And why a lot of people struggle with project management and are blindsided by the level three exam, which has the highest failure rate of all the exams, which not only from our information, but from NISET directly, even higher than NISET's uh sprinkler hydraulics uh exam at level three, higher than that one, which is a really big beast of an exam. And I think the main reason why is project management, because a lot of people approach as, well, this is the way my company does it. Uh, this is the way we've always done it, this is what my state requires, and NISET doesn't care. NYSET's very regimented and said, look, you know, textbook says this, that's the answer we want. They wrote the exam, they get to decide what the correct answer is.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

One of the things that uh one of the things I always bring up when we get into uh these classes, especially, especially when you see that one person that's like, it's not how you do it. It's not how you do it. One of the things always bring up, take that real world and dial it back. Shut it off. You need to look at it from a what does the code say? What would a book say, especially with your project management information at level three? What would a book say to do? And for a lot of people, it's hard to shut off, but that is what you gotta do to do the training, to do the preparation, especially when it comes to nice at stuff. For fire alarm, like you said, Brian, always what does the HJ say? What does your local authority tell you what to do? Because they're the ones that are going to be judging your actual work for work. For the NISAT exam, what's the black and white of the code say?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Charles, is it hard to uh silence a little voice of the AHJ on your shoulder telling you how to do things, particularly in the NISAT training or in the NICET exam?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, for some people it really is. They're very unwilling to accept what the code says uh because they're so accustomed to the way they've always done it, what they hear from others out in the field. And when I first started engaging in training as a young technician, I was shocked at what the code actually requires compared to what I had been doing out in the field. And that's that sticker shock wasn't just me. I see that in virtually every class that we teach with various technicians. They're like, oh my gosh, I've been doing that in the field, and the code requires this. What's the deal?

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yep. And it it comes down to it, is the HJ is if that's what they want, and as long as it doesn't violate the code. But yeah, and sometimes it is in violation of the code. Now you're really putting a quandary with the local guy. Well, my HJ wants pull stations at three and a half feet because that's what he's wanted for years and years and years. And um the code says uh three and a half to four feet, but um, you know, if you're anything below three and a half, that's a problem in the code. So what do you do? You do what the HJ tells you unless it crosses what the code requires. Well, gentlemen, the next thing I'd like to talk about, another uh discuss a little bit of NFPA 72, chapter 10. And in chapter 10, there's a section that covers signals. And what does NFPA 72 mean by signals? Well, there are different signals that the fire alarm system can indicate and has to be monitored for. And there are three common ones, and there are two less common ones that we don't think about that I'd like to talk a little bit about. Chris, why don't you talk to us about alarm signals? What's the purpose or the function of an alarm signal?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Alarm, simply put, get people out and get the fire department rolling. That is the purpose of your alarm signal. It is to alert that there's an activation of the fire alarm system. One of your devices, whether it's a pull station, smoke sector, heat sector, one of your devices has activated and it is time to get people out of the building. We're activating the notification appliances. Um, if there are any emergency control functions that are associated with it, we're starting that process. All of that has to happen within 10 seconds and get people out. Get people out. Fire alarm is life safety. Alarm is the part where it's time to go.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

And then in addition to performing the activation of the notification, the audible invisible, we also got to perform the emergency control functions. And there is a timeline required by this within chapter 10. Chris, what's that timeline? How quickly does that have to happen?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

10 seconds. 10 seconds from the activation of the device, you should have your signal received at the panel and activation of notification or whatever emergency control functions that that particular device is going to be tied with.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

So, one other thing about this that's in chapter 10 that's very uh interesting. I like discussing this because Chris, I know you have a real world example of it based on your uh your life experience that audible invisibles are required to be simultaneously silenced together. But in one specific edition of the code, only one year did they allow them to be silenced separately. And have you had any real world experience with that, Chris?

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah, um that edition was 2010. It's the only edition of code that permitted that. Up until up until recently, Vegas was using, and that's that's where I'm from, so that's where a lot of the work was from, was using the 2010 edition because you could silence the audibles and keep the strobes going. So, in a lot of your hotels and casinos, that was one of the reasons they held on to 2010 for so long. So the technicians could do their annual inspection testing of the audibles and the visibles, set them off, hear it go off, silence the audibles and leave the strobes going so that they could walk the system and make sure all the strobes are going. Yep. It's the only addition.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yep. And they uh quickly changed that. There was a the reason that I understand they changed it was concern for hearing impaired people or possibly sight-impaired people because you're getting mixed signals now. Well, the strobes are going off, but the horns aren't going off. What's going on? Is it a real fire or not? But Charles, supervisory is another one. That's kind of the uh second priority of uh signals. Talk to us about supervisory. What does supervisory mean?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Primary intent to supervisory signals is to notify the building owner of an off-normal condition. So we'll see those used with uh sprinkler system control valves, especially. If the water supply to the sprinkler system is shut off, the sprinkler system ain't gonna work. And the building owner needs to know that so that they can open that control valve and allow water into the sprinkler system as an example. You might also see a supervisory signal for things like temperature control in a building. Uh, if you have a freezer and it gets above 32 degrees, the building owner will want to know that. It's not an emergency for the fire department to respond to, it's not a malfunction of the control panel or the fire alarm equipment, it's an off-normal condition, something that the building owner will want to be made aware of.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Is there a timeline also associated with that one as far as response time goes?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Uh 90 seconds in the code for supervisory.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

The other question I had about supervisory, Charles, is what's the difference? Is supervisory different from a trouble condition?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yes. Uh I like to think of trouble signals as a call for superhero. So if we get a trouble signal, that means that there's a malfunction with the fire alarm equipment. We need a fire alarm superhero technician to go out there and fix the problem. So if you need a superhero for your fire alarm system, the trouble signal is the bat signal up in the sky saying, fire alarm technician, come out and help.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Well, Chris is a fan of the dark night. Talk to us about trouble signals.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

So, trouble signal is just like Charles was saying, it's there to alert that there's something wrong with the fire alarm system. It's there's not an activation, it is the something's wrong. You need to get a technician out here to address this. It's exactly for that. Your troubles are there to alert that there's a malfunction, could be device wiring, could be one of your major pieces of equipment components, ground fault, any of those things. With that, there's a fault on the system. And we have a particular time in which when a trouble is sent to when we have the actual panel recognizing that trouble. It's up to 200 seconds. You got three minutes and some change for trouble signals to come in. Because it's not necessarily an alert, get people out, it's not an uh off-normal condition like what we would see with supervisories. There's a problem. It's not a problem that we need to evacuate the building yet. So you got more time with them. So trouble trouble signals, something's wrong with the fire alarm. Something is wrong specifically with the fire alarm. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

So another type of signal that we see, and this is a newer edition of the code, because it used to be in uh 72 chapter 10 or previous uh chapters, I think it was chapter four previously, that they would talk about um the three signals alarm supervisory and trouble. And those were the big three, and the ones, well, in newer editions of the code, they added some other signals. One of the adding was pre-alarm. And pre-alarm is an abnormal condition that threatens life or property, but does not rise to the level of an actual alarm condition. So, a common example of a pre-alarm is a detection of smoke that is below the alarm threshold. And some of the analog addressable panels will support this feature where uh when it smoke reaches a particular level, it goes into a pre-alarm, kind of an alert condition, doesn't evacuate the building because it's not to the threshold, not to the 4% required by code for an alarm condition, but creates an alert that says, hey, you may want to look at this. I'm seeing smoke. It's not to the level of it's a fire alarm, but it is a approaching a fire alarm level. Another one that is recent is carbon monoxide. Chris, uh, talk to us about carbon monoxide.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Um, carbon monoxide, odorless, tasteless, formless gas. It's a byproduct of combustion. Very dangerous. Yes, very, very dangerous. Uh, what it does is when you breathe in carbon monoxide, it binds on your blood cells to the receptor that oxygen would normally bind or bind to. So you're not able to breathe. You've got you've got the what uh the body's looking for for the gas. That's why it allows for it to bind, but it's not oxygen. So it is a very, very dangerous byproduct of combustion. When we have carbon monoxide, you've got to have carbon monoxide detection. Now, carbon monoxide detection is gonna come with its own alarm features. It's not gonna be utilizing what we would for fire alarm. On fire alarm, when we have alarm, you got temporal three pattern. It's that half a second on, half second off, repeat until there's that bigger pause. With carbon monoxide, they use a temporal four annotation instead.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

This podcast is temporal three. What are you talking, temporal four? We don't have four. We only have three.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

We can only go up to three. We can only count to three. So, yeah, notification a little bit different.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah, and I I the humorous thing I find about temporal four, it's not like the building occupants, the lay people are gonna know the difference between a temporal three and a temporal four. And I guess that's fine because you still want them to get out. But as far as uh, you know, it it's it's um a different may result in different action. Um, obviously you want to get out, you want to get out the fresh air and stuff like that. But Chris, I think the biggest thing is carbon dioxide is dangerous, and that's why in recent years in the code that there's been a realization of this and that there's been more inclusion both in 72 and in the building and life safety codes as well. So, Charles, these signals that we talked about all have a priority. What is the priority of signals? What is the number one signal, the most important signal on a fire alarm? Obviously, alarm is number one. Is there a possibility with AHJ approval that another signal could be number one?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yes. Yes, there is. Um, with AHJ approval, ECS, emergency communication system signals can be uh number one priority as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yep. And ECS, an example of that would be like a mass notification system, which we're starting to see more and more of. So there's with AHJ approval, as Charles said, the code says, yeah, fire alarm is number one. But if the AHJ thinks mass notification or ECS is more important, and that comes down to okay, is it more important for people to know the building's on fire or to know there's a tornado warning? Not a decision we make. AHJ gets to make that decision to decide where the priority is. What's below that in the in the hierarchy? Everything else. Everything else. Everything else.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Specifically, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, it really is. And and 72 does state a hierarchy of uh EC of uh fire alarm ECS with a secondary. Actually, put CO below that because again, it is a type of alarm signal, but a different type of alarm, and then pre-alarm, and then good old-fashioned supervisory and trouble. Supervisory, um, you know, again, that off-normal condition, trouble, that problem with the fire alarm. Way down at the bottom, uh we have holdup, which is allowed to have priority over supervisory or trouble again with AHJ approval. So, with a combination system bergfire, you may have holdup signals that with AHJ approval can actually be higher than supervisory in trouble. So, guys, last thing I'd like to talk about today is our question from the field. Our question from the field today is I have an assembly occupancy. Is voice evacuac required? Chris, is voice evacuac required in an assembly occupancy?

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Uh the answer to this is both yes and no. It depends. If it depends on um, one, which code you're going with, and two, depending on which code you do go with, what your occupant load is. If you're going with the IBC, it's not required in a group A, which would be your assembly occupancy, until you have an occupant load of a thousand or more. Prior to that, you're just using horns and strobes. NFPA 101, however, if you need a fire alarm system, you're doing voice e back with it. You're gonna need the requirement of NFPA 101 is if you have an occupant load more than 300, you need to have voice e back and a fire alarm system for it. So yes, you do, but not all the time. Not all the time. It's so it is it's a yes and no, dependent upon occupant load or which codebook you're using.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

So you're saying the answer to this question, Chris, is it depends? The answer to that question is what's my context?

SPEAKER_01 21:55

What's the context behind it?

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Exactly. So, Charles, if if I'm a fire alarm technician or fire alarm designer, excuse me, and I'm designing that fire alarm for the assembly occupancy, how would I know whether my age, how would I know whether to use IBC or NFPA 101? Who who could tell me the answer to that question?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

First, you could find it in the state code. Each state or jurisdiction adopts one or the other or both. Some adopt both, and it may be by project as well. So you may have uh Veterans Administration Hospital that says we're following NFPA 101 guidelines, regardless of what your local jurisdiction might require. Generally, you look to the AHJ, that could be the local fire marshal uh on a federal project, it may be some other designated individual to find the answer of which guidance, which code we're following.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Absolutely. We got to ask that question. We are not in a position to make that determination ourselves. We we always ask, ask for guidance, hopefully get it in writing. Uh if it's unclear, but I agree with you, Charles. And uh, you know, you navigate the state documents and that you ultimately you talk to the local guy and say, all right, what are we doing here? Gets get some uh get some clarity on the project.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

And in most cases, Brian, the uh occupancy stamped right on the blueprint. So you'll know what it is. Some individual who makes a lot more money than a fire alarm technician identifies what that occupancy requirement is.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

All those uh individuals with the zeros to the left of the decimal point instead of the right of the decimal point, like my check. Yeah. All right. Well, guys, as always, it's been a great, informative, interesting conversation. I want to thank all of our listeners. Remember to subscribe, and we'll see you next time on Temporal Three. Hey, Chris, it's temporal three, not temporal four.