Tutorial: price a fire alarm installation from a fire layout plan
A two-storey unit's fire alarm, counted zone by zone from the designer's layout, with the cable loop and its drops, then handed out as a marked-up PDF with a legend.
Chapters
What you'll learn
- Set up a section per fire zone from a two-sheet layout
- Give detectors, call points, sounders and the panel their Fire symbols
- Count the devices zone by zone and run the cable loop with a drop at every device
- Export a marked-up PDF with a scale bar and a Detailed legend
Each step below has a ▶ time: it plays the video from that step.
The steps
- New project: pick the customer and site and drop in the layout. Each sheet's number, title, level and scale are read off the drawing. Here each floor is a fire zone, so in the Sections card rename the two sections Zone 1 — Warehouse and Zone 2 — Offices. See Start a takeoff from plans.
- Choose the Count tool (C): with no item picked, the Add Count items panel opens on your Simpro catalogue. Tick the smoke detector, heat detector, manual call point, sounder strobe and the panel, and the fire-rated cable with its type set to Length, then Add 6 items. See Items.
- Give each device its symbol as you tick it: click the symbol button on its row, then on the System tab choose Fire in the industry list, pick the symbol (smoke detector, heat detector, manual call point, sounder, fire indicator panel) and Use this symbol. For an item already in the takeoff, right-click one of its marks and choose Edit item style….
- Count zone by zone: click a sheet's name in the Drawings tab to zoom to it, choose the Count tool and pick the item under In this takeoff, click each device on the plan and press Enter. Do the ground floor, then the first floor. See Count items.
- Choose the Length tool (L), pick the cable under In this takeoff and click from the panel to each device in turn, and back to the panel; press Enter. Run each floor's loop on its own sheet. Then choose the Drop tool (D), set the drop, turn on Every point and click each run: there's a drop at every device, ends included. See Runs, arcs, drops and wastage.
- Check the counts by zone: each sheet in the Drawings tab shows what's counted on it, selecting a device shows its count in every section, and 2 Review and price has a section per zone with its own devices and cable. See Drawings, sections and sheets.
- Hand it out: Export ▾ → Export PDF…, choose Current sheet (or all sheets) and the Detailed (part #, item, quantity, unit, labour) legend, then Export PDF. The sheet comes out at its original size with the marks, a scale bar that's true when printed at 100%, a title block and the legend. See Export, download and send.
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