Fire Plans Review

[scfd001]

I would like to get information on how many fire departments are doing their own fire plans review versus the City or County Code Enforcement or Building Department doing the reviews.

[FWDbuff]

I'd like to add onto this and ask of the FD's that are doing their own Fire Plans reviews, are they being done by an ICC-Certified Fire Plans Examiner???

[InsuranceLCRep]

About 40-50% of the sprinkler plans I review have enough problems that I have to reject them. AND these are plans signed off by engineers and by Code Officials BEFORE I look at them most times. I find many code officials feel for that raised seal and that is the plan review. Common problems I see:

1. Sprinkler plans do not match hydraulic calculations, pipe sizes, etc.
2. Wrong design for the occupancy.
3. Water flow test data wrong, too old, or not close to the subject building.
4. ESFR systems, obstructions, wrong ESFR head for the commodity, or using ESFR head for a commodity not designed to be protected by ESFR heads.
5. Fire pump piping not correct, wrong location, wrong valve on the suction side, wrong pipe size, wrong electric supply, etc. etc.

I review the plans from an insurance point of view and follow NFPA 13 standards.

[sepalmer]

We conduct our own fire plans review and it is looking for fire protection items only. All our examiners are NFA Plans review trained. I agree with InsuranceLCRep about the problems we find and like to include Rated Walls and the use of seperated and non seperated occupancies.