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AI drafting for fire alarm plans

AI Fire Alarm Plan Drafting

Fire alarm plans are spacing tables applied room by room: a candela rating for every strobe, a smoke detector every 30 ft down the corridor, a pull station at every exit, and all of it moved again when the ceiling changes. Nomic drafts the device layout in CAD from the architectural plan and the RCP, sets candela from the room dimensions, and checks the layout against NFPA 72 and the IBC before your fire alarm designer of record reviews and approves it.

Start for freeAll drafting work
Last reviewed: November 2026

You send

  • Architectural floor plans and the reflected ceiling plan
  • Mechanical plans with air handler capacities
  • Sprinkler layout for ceiling coordination
  • Device cutsheets and the designer's basis of design
  • The NFPA 72, IBC, and local amendment editions

Nomic hands back

  • Fire alarm device plans as DWG files
  • Candela and device schedules in Excel and on the sheet
  • Clouded PDFs showing every device placed or moved
  • Open questions for the fire alarm designer of record
1234567ABCGUEST ROOM301GUEST ROOM302GUEST ROOM303SUITE304GUEST ROOM305GUEST ROOM306GUEST ROOM307GUEST ROOM308SUITE309SUITE310GUEST ROOM311GUEST ROOM312STAIRS2SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSFFACP27'-3"27'-0"27'-3"27'-3"27'-0"27'-3"94'-8"1AFIRE ALARM PLANSCALE: 1/8" = 1'-0"N1234CONSULTING ENGINEERSREVISIONS1ISSUED FOR REVIEWPROJECTRIVERSIDE HOTELSCALE1/8" = 1'-0"DATE04/21/2026KEY PLANSHEET TITLEFIRE ALARM PLANSHEET NUMBERFA-101

On the sheet

Fire Alarm Plan, annotated

A fire alarm plan with detectors, notification devices, pull stations, and the signaling circuit.

  1. 1Smoke detector
  2. 2Horn strobe for notification
  3. 3Manual pull station at the exit
  4. 4Fire alarm control panel and circuit

The problem

Every room is a spacing table, and every RCP revision moves devices

The notification layout is mostly lookup. Wall strobes mount 80 to 96 in above the floor and their candela comes from the room size, so a 20 by 20 ft office gets 15 cd and a 60 by 60 ft lobby needs 135 cd or more than one appliance. Sleeping rooms need 177 cd when the strobe is within 24 in of the ceiling and low-frequency sounders. Hotels and dormitories need a set count of accessible units with visible alarms, pull stations go within 5 ft of each exit door, and the IMC calls for a return air smoke detector on most air handlers over 2,000 cfm.

The ceiling devices are where coordination breaks. A smoke detector ends up inside 3 ft of a supply diffuser, a ceiling strobe lands on a sprinkler head or a light fixture, or a soffit added in the latest RCP splits a corridor into two ceiling heights. Each architectural revision means walking the devices against the new ceiling, and the devices that moved have to be found again on the riser and the device address list.

01 / Layout

Devices placed from the floor plan and the RCP

Attach the architectural plan, the RCP, and the mechanical plan, and name the codes. Nomic places detectors, pull stations, notification appliances, and duct detectors on your FA layers with your symbols, and tags each device to your legend.

  • Spot smoke and heat detectors spaced by ceiling and room
  • Pull stations at exits and horn strobes or speaker strobes
  • Duct detectors and elevator recall detectors where required
02 / Candela

Candela set by room size and mounting

Nomic measures each room on the architectural plan and picks the candela rating from the NFPA 72 room spacing tables for the mounting your designer chose, wall or ceiling. Rooms it cannot size, such as a space missing its ceiling height on the RCP, are listed instead of guessed.

  • Wall and ceiling candela from the NFPA 72 tables
  • 177 cd in sleeping rooms when within 24 in of the ceiling
  • Accessible unit counts checked for hotels and dormitories
03 / Check

Checked against NFPA 72, the IBC, and the ceiling

Nomic checks its own layout against the NFPA 72 and IBC editions you name, then against the RCP and the sprinkler layout so ceiling devices clear diffusers, fixtures, and heads. Each device it placed or moved is clouded, and anything that needs the designer's judgment is listed for review.

  • Detector clearances from supply diffusers and returns
  • Ceiling devices coordinated with lights and sprinkler heads
  • Required visible alarms in accessible guest rooms counted

Checked against

The code and documents behind every sheet

Name the editions the project is designed to and Nomic checks its own drawing against them before handing it back. Your engineer or architect of record makes the final call and stamps the set.

  • NFPA 72 Chapters 17, 18, and 21
  • IBC Section 907
  • IMC 606 smoke detection in air distribution systems
  • NFPA 101 fire alarm requirements by occupancy
  • ADA 2010 Standards 702 alarms
  • The RCP and sprinkler layout

How it works

From a sentence to a stamped set

  1. Step 1

    Ask for the drawing

    Say what the sheet needs to show and attach the backgrounds, markups, cutsheets, or photos. A sentence is enough to start.

  2. Step 2

    Nomic drafts it in CAD

    Nomic works in CAD on its own computer, on your layers and blocks, following how your firm drew the same thing before. It saves real DWG files to the project.

  3. Step 3

    Nomic checks its own work

    The drawing is checked against the code editions you name and the source documents. Everything Nomic drew is clouded, and open questions are listed.

  4. Step 4

    Your team reviews and stamps

    Your engineers and architects review the clouded changes, make the final call, and issue the set under their own stamp.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Nomic works in CAD on its own computer and saves fire alarm device plans as DWG files, with detectors, pull stations, notification appliances, and duct detectors placed from the architectural plan and the RCP. It checks the layout against NFPA 72 and the IBC before your designer reviews.

The fire alarm designer of record. Nomic is a new source of drafting capacity, and the designer sets the system type, the basis of design, and the device choices, reviews every sheet, and makes the final call before submitting to the authority having jurisdiction.

Nomic measures each room on the architectural plan and looks up the candela in the NFPA 72 room spacing tables for wall or ceiling mounting, for example 15 cd for a 20 by 20 ft room on the wall. Sleeping rooms get 177 cd when the strobe is within 24 in of the ceiling, and rooms Nomic cannot size are listed as open questions.

Yes. Nomic checks ceiling devices against the reflected ceiling plan and the sprinkler layout, keeps smoke detectors at least 3 ft from supply diffusers, and shifts strobes and detectors off light fixtures and sprinkler heads. Each moved device is clouded so the designer sees what changed.

Nomic can tabulate device counts and current draws per circuit from the cutsheets for the designer to use. The battery and voltage drop calculations, and the decision on circuit and pathway class, stay with the fire alarm designer of record.

No. Nomic saves DWG files to the project that open in AutoCAD or any DWG editor, and it does not edit Revit models. Revit teams link the DWG or use the change list Nomic writes.

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AI Fire Alarm Plan Drafting: Devices per NFPA 72 | Nomic