Thomas P. Hammerberg

Knowing how to perform battery and voltage drop calculations is essential to ensuring an installed system will operate properly, and especially important in the plan review process. Battery and voltage drop calculations are...

In the 2018 edition of the International Building Code, the documentation information in paragraph 907.1.2 on fire alarm shop drawings was deleted. A statement was added telling users to prepare the shop drawings per NFPA 72...

Because March is still winter, the weather can be very cold and stormy or it can be nice and warm. Since a lot of people will be staying inside with the heat on, this seems to be a good time to review the carbon monoxide...

Michael Jordan said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Developing relationships and good communication with other stakeholders for a project will certainly save time, increase profits and...

How well do you understand the NFPA 72 requirements for pathway survivability? Like many other fire alarm applications, the code is not always clear, and there are quite a few different interpretations on this subject. Having...

Your life could depend on being able to hear and understand emergency messages broadcast from an emergency voice alarm system. Originally, NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code, only stated that the message had to...

Two issues always seem to cause the most headaches when installing fire alarm systems. One has to do with duct detectors. The other has to do with installing fire alarm devices to interface with elevator controllers. There is...

The National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies (NICET) lists various Occupational Safety and Health Administration documents as reference material for all levels in the Fire Alarm Systems certification...

Adding the Circuits and Pathways chapter was one of the many changes made in the 2010 edition of NFPA 72 as part of the restructuring of the National Fire Alarm Code. The primary reason for restructuring was to add a chapter...

Are you certified in the fire alarm or life safety field? If you are, why did you do it? If not, why not? I have heard many claims about the benefits and drawbacks of getting certified. I’d like to share some of my...

In my September article, I wrote about ways to improve chances of passing the fire alarm acceptance test the first time. It takes some effort on the part of the fire alarm contractor, but it can be done. This will improve job...

NFPA 72 describes three types of fire alarm testing: acceptance testing for new systems, re-accep-tance testing for modifications to systems and periodic testing for the ongoing testing of existing fire alarm systems. Over...