Fire Side Chat: How to Sell Code-Compliant Fire/Life Safety
Pricing Labor Is a Science
As you can well imagine, selling fire alarm systems in new construction is different than in existing buildings. Retrofit often requires you do all the engineering, whereas in new construction someone else does it for you so all you have to do is the take-off and labor/materials calculations.
Every item you intend to install comes with an established labor unit. Manual fire boxes will typically take 0.5 hours to install while notification appliance circuit (NAC) devices can take up to 0.65 hours each or more, depending on the difficulty factor.
The National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) offers a labor unit service called NECA Manual of Labor Units that provides you with the amount of time it takes to install common low- and high-voltage devices, including metallic and fiber-optic cable.
Each device includes labor units assigned three levels of difficulty commonly encountered. It’s up to you to know which one you need to use.
The NECA Manual of Labor Units is only one of many such manuals/services designed as a general reference for the determination
of labor. Another example is available from Durand Associates.
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About the Author
Shane Clary, SSI Contributor
Shane Clary, Ph.D., is Security Sales & Integration’s “Fire Side Chat” columnist. He has more than 37 years of security and fire alarm industry experience. He serves on a number of NFPA technical committees, and is vice president of Codes and Standards Compliance for Pancheco, Calif.-based Bay Alarm Co.
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