Questions_and_Answer_FCI_Safford[5727].pdf

FCI SAFFORD– FIRE DETECTION AND ALARM SYSTEM

PROJECT 6C4C QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

SOLICITATION 15B60919B00000001

SUBMITTED BY SOUTHWESTERN DAKOTAH, INC.:

1. Section 011000, paragraph 1.4.q states (Where disruption is necessary, provide.) What are we providing?

CLARIFICATION: Provide local abatement/containment as required to complete the installation.

2. Who is responsible for blue staking the existing utilities the Government or the contractor?

CLARIFICATION: Contractor. Please refer to FA0.02C, with special attention given to Site Work Notes.

3. Sheet FA0.01A, note 38 indicates that the contractor is to contact the current fire alarm vendors to request removal of the existing site network programming as required for continued operation of site networks where applicable. Please confirm the contractor is to include a cost proposal from this company in the bid. Advise who the current fire alarm vendor is and provide contact information.

CLARIFICATION: System is not under warranty, it is not required to engage an existing company. The intent is to maintain system operation during the course of construction as much as possible to maintain coverage to parts of the site where work is not taking place.

4. Section 28 46 21.11, page 5, paragraph 1.8 Maintenance Materials submittals, indicates that 10 percent of smoke detectors and fire detectors to be included as furnished extra materials. Sheet FA0.01A, note 4 under delegated design indicates 5 percent. Please confirm percent of additional allowance that is to be provided as a separate line item for bidding purposes as Sheet FA0.01A directs.

CLARIFICATION: 10% spare material is to be provided at the end of job for maintenance and upkeep purposes.

The 5% detection and 5% notification appliance is a separate line item for use throughout the project if additional devices are found to be required by the delegated design professional during the course of preparing detailed Shop Drawings.

5. Sheet FA0.01A, note 42 and 43 indicate that the contractor may run into Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) and/or Lead Based Paint (LBP). Is there an ACM Survey and/or a LBP survey that can be provided to the contractor?

CLARIFICATION: FCI Safford does not have any surveys to provide.

6. Sheet FA0.01A, note 39 - advises of cutting/patching back areas. Please advise if these patched back areas will require corner to corner painting to match existing.

CLARIFICATION: Specified note says “..to be patched and repaired back to original condition.” The intent is to match paint on the patched area.

7. Other than what is specified in section 099100, will “pick-proof” paint be necessary due to the nature of the facility?

CLARIFICATION: No

8. Section 28 46 21.11, section 1.4, paragraph C, item 2, “Shop drawings shall be prepared by persons with the following qualifications: a. Professional Fire Protection or Electrical engineer licensed by a state licensure board.

B. NICET-certified, fire-alarm technician; Level III minimum.” Please confirm that the shop drawings can be prepared by ANY ONE of the following:

a Professional Fire Protection Engineer, Electrical Engineer OR NICET- Certified Fire-Alarm Technician?

CLARIFICATION: Confirmed that it can be any of the three; either a Fire Protection PE, or an Electrical PE or NICET Level III certified technician.

9. Please confirm if a Fire Protection Engineer is required to stamp the drawings.

CLARIFICATION: Please see response to item #8. Any of the three qualified professionals stated in Section 28 46 21.11, section 1.4, Paragraph C, Item 2 are acceptable.

10. Section 28 46 21.11, section 1.12, paragraph a, item 2, “Warranty Period:

Five Years from date of substantial completion.” Please confirm that the five year warranty is only applicable to the fire alarm contractor, and that the standard one year warranty applies to all other work.

CLARIFICATION: The warranty applies to all work discussed in Section 28 46 21.11.

11. Please confirm that if a NICET-Certified Fire-Alarm Technician prepares shop drawings, that a Professional Fire Protection Engineer is not required.

12. For bidding purposes only, a thorough geophysical survey is required per drawing FA0.02A, please advise how many boulders should be included for removal?

CLARIFICATION: This information is not available which is why a thorough geophysical survey is required to avoid or remove obstructions as required to install new underground pathways. Please refer to FA0.02C, with special attention given to Site Work Notes.

13. Please advise if nuclear gauges will be acceptable for the density testing?

CLARIFICATION: No

14. For installing fire alarm in the housing areas, what will be the procedure for installing concealed conduit, as patching and painting where applicable, will likely not be completed in a single day?

CLARIFICATION: Inmate accessible areas will need to have holes covered temporarily at the end of each day.

15. Laptops and some form of communication, i.e. walkie-talkies, will be needed to perform programming and testing on the fire alarm after install. Please advise the procedure/information needed to bring such items into the facility.

CLARIFICATION: Laptops may be authorized by the Warden in certain special occasions. The BOP can coordinate staff radios with staff escorts to accomplish “walkie-talkie” need.

16. During the site walk, it was noted that there are multiple walls throughout many of the buildings that are CMU wall. Please confirm that exposed conduit will be acceptable in such circumstances.

CLARIFICATION: Confirmed, however note that the intention is to run conduit in the ceiling space and concealed in drywalls as much as possible. In areas with CMU walls and exposed ceilings, the conduit should be run supported from the ceiling. Only when absolutely necessary is the conduit to be wall-mounted exposed on the CMU.

17. Please confirm that all walls, aside from CMU wall, are to have concealed conduits, in that we are to cut into the walls hide the conduit and patch and paint where applicable.

CLARIFICATION: See response to Question #16.

18. Please advise, per general note 3 on FA1.01, “conduits concealed in the ceiling shall remain in place,” where conduits are to remain in place are we to leave wiring as well?

CLARIFICATION: No, demolish all wiring per General Note 1 on said sheet. The intent is to remove as much wiring and conduit as possible. General Note 3 on said sheet is shown to allow conduit to remain in situations where it is difficult to access such as in hard ceiling spaces with limited access.

19. Please advise who will be witness/ Authority having Jurisdiction, on the governments’ end, to the final inspection testing and signing as a witness on the NFPA 72 form.

CLARIFICATION: The BOP is the Authority having Jurisdiction.

20. Is the emergency lighting that lined one of the halls, headed out into the office area, in the food service area tied into the fire alarm?

CLARIFICATION: No emergency lighting is tied into the fire alarms.

21. Is the fire rated curtains in the food service building tied into the existing fire alarm system? I.e. if a fire occurs the fire rated curtains close on alarm.

CLARIFICATION: The fire curtains are not connected to the alarm system.

They have fusible links.

22. Please advise which buildings, if any, can be tied to a single panel as opposed to needing a panel per building?

CLARIFICATION: This information is shown on the drawings in several places (Riser Diagrams, Floor Plans, Site Plans). Please review all drawings.

23. Please define which building will not require a fire alarm panel.

Specification section 01 10 00, paragraph 1.4, item e, “Each building on site will be equipped with a dedicated fire alarm control unit (FACU). A very limited number of small building will be served by the FACU from adjacent buildings.”

CLARIFICATION: This information is shown on the drawings in several places (Riser Diagrams, Floor Plans, Site Plans). Please review all drawings.

24. Commanding control station – Please advise if the headend unit is to act as a commanding control station or if a DACT is provided to dial out to another entity.

CLARIFICATION: The UL listed Central Monitoring and Control Workstation as well as a Fire Alarm Control Unit (FACU) complete with a Graphic Annunciator will both be provided in the Control Center room located in the Front Entrance building (see FA2.11). The Control Center room will operate as a proprietary monitoring station for the site. The installation must meet the NFPA 72 requirements for a proprietary monitoring station.

A DACT is therefore not required for the purpose of dialing to an outside central monitoring station, unless it is needed for other purpose (i.e.

providing additional communication ports for other purposes within the fire alarm system).

25. Limited conduit to be reused – Is all fire alarm to be installed utilizing new conduits?

CLARIFICATION: Unclear what part of specification or drawings is being referred to in this question. In general all conduit systems within buildings and aboveground should be new. However there are some existing underground conduits that are being reused, mostly located within the secure perimeter. Please refer drawings, paying special attention to Site Plans and Details on FA0.02A, FA0.02B and FA0.03.

26. “RCDD Reviewed and stamped” per section 27 15 23, paragraph 1.4, part B., please advise if an RCDD, electrical engineer, is to be included to stamp the drawings, as other sections indicate that a NICET Level III designer is acceptable.

CLARIFICATION: RCDD not required, unless Contractor proposes a system that uses IP based communication (i.e. NFPA 72 Class X) where active network switches are involved. Please see response to item #8. Any of the three qualified professionals stated in Section 28 46 21.11, section 1.4, Paragraph C, Item 2 are acceptable for the purpose of delegated design in preparing the Shop Drawings.

27. Please confirm if cost for an electrical engineer is required to be included for the review the electrical power and communication drawings as indicated by the specification sections?

2 are acceptable. It is the intent for the Shop Drawings to be complete, including field verifying and identifying 120V branch circuits serving Fire Alarm Control Units, Power Supplies and other auxiliary components. However an EE does not need to stamp to approve the branch circuits being used.

28. Mention of voice system in the specification section 28 46 21.11; however, on the drawings it calls for horns/strobes. Please advise if the intention is to have a voice system or a horn/strobe system.

CLARIFICATION: Voice system not in scope. Audible/Visible Notification is accomplished using horn/strobe system.

29. Per section 28 46 21.11, paragraph 2.11, graphic annunciator to be provided.

a. Please advise if the central monitoring and control workstation can eliminate the need for a graphic annunciator.

CLARIFICATION: The UL listed Central Monitoring and Control Workstation as well as a Fire Alarm Control Unit (FACU) complete with a Graphic Annunciator will both be provided in the Control Center room located in the Front Entrance building (see FA2.11). The Control Center room will operate as a proprietary monitoring station for the site. The installation must meet the NFPA 72 requirements for a proprietary monitoring station.

b. If not, please advise how many graphic annunciators are required and where they are to be located.

CLARIFICATION: A graphic annunciator (in addition to the Workstation) is required only in the Central Control. Other remote annunciators are required throughout the project as shown on drawings. In general, each building requires some form of annunciator either at entry to building or at a constantly attended location (i.e. guard station in housing units). Depending on the type of building, the annunciator can be part of the Fire Alarm Control Unit (FACU), for example in Administration Building or Chapel where the FACU can be mounted near entrance with no issues.

In other locations, due to security/tampering concerns or other concerns, the FACU is provided elsewhere in the building, such as in electrical rooms; in those cases remote annunciators are used.

30. Please confirm that there is no fire sprinkler work included in this scope of work; as per the job walk there were multiple buildings that had existing fire sprinklers and multiple buildings that were not sprinkled at all.

CLARIFICATION: Please review drawings. There are cases of providing new flow switches or tamper switches. PIVs throughout the site also need to be interfaced with the Fire Alarm System. However there is no scope to install a new sprinkler system or expand sprinkler system coverage within a building.

31. NFPA Survivability Level I, as per specification section 28 46 21.11;

paragraph 2.5, section d, item 2: requires that buildings have a sprinkler system, it was identified at the job walk that multiple buildings do not have existing sprinklers. Please advise how we are to proceed with this requirement.

CLARIFICATION: The intent is to meet Survivability Level I requirement for all new work (i.e. installing all wiring in metallic conduit) and also as much as possible within the existing facility. However where the existing condition is a building without Fire Sprinkler coverage, it is not part of scope to provide Fire Sprinkler coverage.

32. Per specification section 28 46 21.11, paragraph 1.7, section A, item 1.f, “Air-sampling system sample port locations and modeling program shall report showing layout meets performance criteria.” Please confirm that no air sampling is required, as no VESDA is outlined as part of this scope of work.

CLARIFICATION: Air-sampling/Aspiration type/VESDA is not used in scope.

33. Please confirm if a NICET Level III technician is required for project duration to oversee install only.

34. Please confirm that the 24-month maintenance service warranty runs subsequent within the five year warranty.

CLARIFICATION: Confirmed.

35. Section 28 46 21.11, paragraph 1.11, item A: “Maintain existing equipment fully operational until new equipment has been tested and accepted. As new equipment is installed, label it “NOT IN SERVICE” until it is accepted.

Remove labels from new equipment when put into service, and label existing fire alarm equipment “NOT IN SERVICE” until removed from the building.

Please confirm that NO EXISTING FIRE ALARM SYSTEMS are to be demolished prior to the entire new system being installed.

CLARIFICATION: Existing Alarm systems should function as much as possible during construction.

36. Can the project superintendent be the safety officer?

CLARIFICATION: Yes

37. Please confirm that there are two personnel required to oversee the project: quality control manager and/or superintendent and a superintendent and/or safety officer.

CLARIFICATION: See response to Question #36.

38. Please advise if the design package can be split up into multiple submissions, i.e. headend/control workstation and approx. ten buildings.

a. Submissions would be subsequent thereafter of ten more buildings and so on. This allows the contractor to start construction sooner, rather than designing all buildings at the beginning, taking a much longer design period.

CLARIFICATION: This would be acceptable provided that the submissions are split minimally.

39. Drawing FA0.01A, item 38, identifies contacting the existing/original installer.

a. Is the existing system still under a warranty?

CLARIFICATION: Not under warranty.

b. Can any fire alarm company come in and disconnect the existing systems since they will all be taken off-line at final acceptance of the new system?

CLARIFICATION: Yes.

40. Are duct detector only required on air handling units over 2,000 CFM?

41. Who is the on-sight Authority Having Jurisdiction that will approve the project?

CLARIFICATION: See response to Question #19

42. Who will be the Authority Having Jurisdiction for the final fire alarm testing?

CLARIFICATION: See response to Question #19

43. Is the fire alarm computer workstation for command and control of the fire alarm, or “view only”?

CLARIFICATION: Command and control.

44. Please confirm if the fire alarm system is notification is voice (speakers) or horns / strobes?

CLARIFICATION: See response to Question #28

45. Please define LED Graphic display(s). What buildings will they be located in? Are the graphics for the entire campus or specific building?

CLARIFICATION: A graphic annunciator (in addition to the Workstation) is required only in the Central Control. Other remote annunciators are required throughout the project as shown on drawings. In general, each building requires some form of annunciator either at entry to building or at a constantly attended location (i.e. guard station in housing units).

Depending on the type of building, the annunciator can be part of the Fire Alarm Control Unit (FACU), for example in Administration Building or Chapel where the FACU can be mounted near entrance with no issues. In other locations, due to security/tampering concerns or other concerns, the FACU is provided elsewhere in the building, such as in electrical rooms; in those cases remote annunciators are used.

46. Please confirm no Air Sampling Smoke Detection (VESDA) is included in this project.

CLARIFICATION: See response to Question #32.

47. Please confirm single mode, 12 strand fiber is a requirement for this project?

CLARIFICATION: Confirmed. All fiber to be 12 strand single-mode.

48. Will Underwriters Laboratories be required to approve the new UL Central Station Workstation and work area (building)?

49. Please confirm a DACT will be a requirement for this project.

CLARIFICATION: The UL listed Central Monitoring and Control Workstation as well as a Fire Alarm Control Unit (FACU) complete with a Graphic Annunciator will both be provided in the Control Center room located in the Front Entrance building (see FA2.11). The Control Center room will operate as a proprietary monitoring station for the site. The installation must meet the NFPA 72 requirements for a proprietary monitoring station.

A DACT is therefore not required for the purpose of dialing to an outside central monitoring station, unless it is needed for other purpose (i.e.

providing additional communication ports for other purposes within the fire alarm system).

50. Will a registered electrical engineer be required to approve the Electrical Power to the fire alarm panels?

a. Can this be done by a NICET Level 3?