How 2D CAD has helped improve fire safety drawings

Featured Designer | Phil Coley | Firetec | MacDraft User

Over the years we have spoke about the many different industries that 2D CAD has and is involved in but this year we wanted to make more of a feature of it, don’t worry we aren’t asking for the world here! We just want to hear your stories and also tell you ours, ranging from model railroads to space exploration and everything in-between we want to feature you guys as you are the reason that 2016 was such a success for us. We start 2017 with Firetec, a UK based Fire Alarm Company who use 2D CAD to create Fire Safety Drawings.

We are asked to create floor plans and layouts of all types of buildings around the UK, be it a small bungalow or a multi-storey block of flats, the principle is to give the location of Fire Detection Devices i.e, Smoke detectors / Sounders / Call Points, showing where they are within the premises. This is part of the Fire Strategy which is drawn up for Fire Safety procedures under the RRO Fire Safety Order 2005, which 95% of premises in the UK are required to complete.

Phil Coley, owner of FireTec has spent years working within the industry and seems to have seen it all.

We get calls through from customers who want us to add, lets say smoke detectors, to their existing plan and we think; great! They already have a plan created so we will just need to add our symbols to it, easy job! But that isn’t always the case! We might be sent a sketch, which means a bigger job our end but this is where 2D CAD comes in.

What Phil is talking about here is how easy it is to turn a 2D Sketch into a CAD layout. It doesn’t matter how good or bad the sketch is, it might look like it belongs on your fridge after being drawn by your 8 year old son but its still a starting block and thats whats important in the CAD industry. Many CAD softwares will allow you to import images into the document which means you can use the basic drawing tools within the program to recreate the walls, doors and windows and in minutes you will have the bare bones of a 2D CAD layout. So what comes next? Phil continues.

BSI 5839 states there has to be as installed drawings for any Fire System which is up-graded or totally replaced within the premises, this is where we come in. We have created hundreds, maybe thousands of symbols and icons which represent pretty much anything you can think of attaining to fire safety, for example smoke detectors, zone monitors, exit doors, control panels these are all standards you will probably know but also we use electronic and lighting schematics to make highly accurate plans. CAD has helped this industry ten fold, it allows the consumer to feel a part of the drawing process (if they want to be a part of it that is!) we can talk them through it if necessary and are always there to explain anything.

Phil claims that he doesn’t need to always show scaled drawings or even include dimensions in some of his plans, they really do sound diverse depending on the job at hand. Its probably important to mention though that we all take things like fire extinguishers at work, smoke detectors or even fire exits for granted when we don’t need to use them (and hopefully we will never need to!) but these all ended up where they are, be it your office or home, because people like Phil worked out the best place for them using 2D CAD Software.

We use MacDraft for our drawings, compared to the normal market leaders such as AutoCad etc MacDraft is streets ahead particularly for ease of use and the backup from the technical support staff who are second to none. When your in the middle of a project and you want a little help, MacDraft staff are on hand to help out.

Now I’m sure you’re reading this part and think we’re blowing our own horn here but what we want you to take away from that is that if you ever are stuck during a drawing, the CAD community is huge, the industry is massive, there will always be someone around who can help you out. Whether its us regarding MacDraft or a CAD forum such as cadtutor.net you don’t have to look far to find an answer to your questions. Its not a cut throat industry as some may suggest. Phil ends his submission with a nice nod towards MacDraft saying:

A final point is Microsot’s Symbol Libraries are such a time saver.

They really are, all of our time is very important to us, we want our CAD drawings to be done right but we also want them done so that we can move onto the next one. The library feature in MacDraft allows you to store any of your drawn objects and drag them into any future document meaning that you never have to draw an object more than once. In conclusion Phil and FireTec have spent years collating fire safety symbols and icons into their own personal libraries and in doing that have both sped up and improved their design process dramatically.
If you are interested in becoming our February Featured customer just your name email address and a quick line about what you use MacDraft for and our team will get in touch with you, we will even feature a clickable link to your website in the article if you like :)

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