Fire Sprinkler Software

[lharrah]

I am a civil PE assisting with a small start-up Fire Sprinkler Contracting business. Utilizing EPANET software for hydraulic design thus far. It's good for basic design but very tedious task to format output per NFPA for AHJ review. Anyone know of any good "pre-owned" fire protection software for sale? (Perhaps someone going into retirement or closing a business). Anyone familiar with "THE" software and it's strengths/weaknesses?

Thanks

 

[TravisMack]

"THE" is a fairly decent low cost calculation software. I have seen and reviewed some of the printouts. I don't find it as easy to follow as Hass or Hydrtec, but it does serve its purpose. I also think it has undergone a few upgrades.

For fire sprinkler contracting, I have used several drawing / calculation programs. In my experience, Hydratec (

http://www.hydratecinc.com)

is the best AutoCAD based program. You can integrate calculations and drawings very easily and quickly. Also, on the contracting end, if you purchase the complete version, you can get the material/fabrication listing portion.

AutoSprink (

http://www.mepcad.com)

is probably the best program for fire sprinkler design available. However, it does not utilize the AutoCAD backbone that the other programs do. It is also fairly expensive ~$11k. I assume you already have AutoCAD, so Hydratec (or OmniCADD, SprinkCAD) should run between $3-5k.

If you would like any more info about the programs, feel free to ask.