All areas considered Ordinary unless otherwise noted.” This piqued my curiosity, and I started looking through the drawings with more intent only to find that there was, in fact, a page, completely unrelated to the MEP pages, that had another note pointing to a shaded area on it that had a sheet note that read, “Storage Area.” Ah ha! There was going to be storage in this “retail” building. It read: “Fire Sprinkler system to be designed in accordance with NFPA 13.
It was about this time that, as I was paging through the hard copy documents, I noticed a small little box with some notes in it. You get your roof framing plan or reflected ceiling plan up, whatever the case may be, and you start laying out sprinklers. You quickly remind yourself of the rules for spacing: 130ft 2/sprinkler, density of 0.20gpm/ft 2, etc. Right? You hear that word, and you immediately think ordinary hazard Group 2.
It read “ABC Retail.” Now, any sprinkler designer or estimator with a few years behind them knows that the word “retail” is a trigger word. It was only after I had built my backgrounds and was ready to begin laying out sprinklers when I stopped to look at the title block again.
I glanced at the name of the project on the title sheet but moved quickly into the guts of the drawings in order to get the design started. The design criteria for the fire sprinkler system was wrong. Sounds simple enough and, for the most part, it would have been except for one thing. Design and install was in accordance with NFPA 13, Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems. Other than that, it was business as usual. Nothing too dramatic, just a few items regarding fire department connection (FDC) locations and how their permit fees were determined. Having a long-standing relationship with this Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ), I was familiar with their currently adopted codes and standards as well as their amendments that were specific to their area. Knowing the area, I quickly identified the location and the associated jurisdiction I would be dealing with. So, there I was opening up a set of construction documents to begin a new fire sprinkler design for a new building being built. What’s the Building Owner Got to Do with It?
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