FireDeck Reviews and Details

Questions & Answers

1. What makes FireDeck unique?

   It builds the whole AHJ submittal package, not one piece of it. The free manufacturer tools each solve a single calculation for a single brand, and you still assemble the cover sheet, device matrix, voltage drop and cut sheets into a PDF by hand. FireDeck produces the complete package in one pass across Fire-Lite, Notifier, Potter and Silent Knight, and renders the battery calculation on the manufacturer's own official form, so the plan reviewer sees the format they already expect.

2. Why should a person choose FireDeck over its competitors?

   Most field service platforms were built for the trades in general and adapted to fire protection afterward. FireDeck starts at the fire alarm submittal, which is the part that eats evenings and gets packages kicked back at plan review, then grows outward into inspections, work orders and invoicing. It is also built by someone who does the work. The panel list, the calculation defaults and the AHJ details come from real jobs rather than from a requirements document.

3. How would you describe the primary audience of FireDeck?

   Small and mid-sized fire protection contractors, the shops where the person doing the design is often the same person on the ladder. Mostly fire alarm work, and increasingly inspection and service work as well: NFPA 72 testing, NFPA 25 sprinkler ITM, and NFPA 10 extinguisher inspections. Typically one to thirty technicians, doing their own submittals and their own inspections rather than subbing the design out.

4. What's the story behind FireDeck?

   I am in the fire alarm business, and I built FireDeck for my own jobs first. I was losing evenings retyping the same battery calculations and rebuilding the same submittal packages by hand, and watching packages come back from plan review over cover sheet details that had nothing to do with the design. So I automated the parts that never changed from job to job. It turned out other shops were doing the same work the same way, so it became a product. It is still early and still being tested against real jobs.

5. Which are the primary technologies used for building FireDeck?

   Next.js and React with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS on the front end, a Go backend, and PostgreSQL. It runs in Docker behind nginx on our own servers. Everything works in a browser, so there is nothing for a technician to install on a laptop or a phone.