To compare commercial fire alarm bids properly, normalize them line by line before you look at the totals. A cheap bid is usually cheap because something got left out: device count, conduit, permit fees, acceptance testing, as-built drawings, or battery calculations. Those exclusions come back as change orders at full price.
Three bids land on your desk. One is $41,000, one is $57,000, one is $63,000. The low bid is four pages, the high bid is eleven, and nobody has time to read either one carefully.
So the decision gets made on the number, and eighteen months later the project has cost $68,000 and the fire marshal has been out three times. It’s almost never dishonesty. It’s scope written loosely enough that two contractors read the same drawings and priced different jobs. Here’s how to read the documents so they’re comparable.
Compare fire alarm bids by normalizing the device count first
Open all three bids to the equipment schedule and count. Smoke detectors, heat detectors, pull stations, horn/strobes, strobes, modules, and the panel itself with its expansion capacity.
If one bid has 84 smoke detectors and another has 61, one of two things is true: they’re covering different scope, or one of them underspaced the design. Detector spacing follows the listed spacing and the geometry of the ceiling, so it isn’t a matter of preference. Notification appliance count is driven by audibility and visible coverage requirements, which is also math rather than judgment.
Ask the low bidder directly: “Show me the coverage calculation for this device count.” A contractor who did the layout can answer in a sentence. A contractor who scaled a previous job cannot.
Same question for the panel. One sized with no spare capacity works on day one and blocks every future addition. Ask what percentage of loop capacity is used at completion. Above 80% is a problem you’ll pay for later.
The exclusion checklist
These are the line items that separate a complete bid from an incomplete one. Print this and mark each bid.
| Line item | What a complete bid states | What it costs if excluded |
|---|---|---|
| Device count and coverage basis | Full equipment schedule tied to a layout drawing | Devices added during rough-in at change order rates |
| Raceway method | Conduit where required, plenum-rated free-air cable where allowed, stated by area | The single largest swing between bids. Conduit is labor-heavy and nobody adds it for free later. |
| Permit and plan review fees | Named as included, with the AHJ identified | A few hundred to a few thousand, plus schedule delay if a submittal gets rejected |
| Plan review resubmittals | Included, however many rounds it takes | Hourly engineering charges every time comments come back |
| AHJ acceptance testing with the inspector present | Included, with technician time for the full test | Rescheduled inspections and re-inspection fees, commonly $50 to $200 each |
| Battery and voltage drop calculations | Stamped or signed calculations submitted with the drawings | Undersized batteries that fail the first load test |
| As-built drawings, O&M manuals, sequence of operation | Reproducible copies delivered to the owner at acceptance | You pay a second company to document your own system later |
| 120V power and dedicated circuit | Stated clearly as by this contractor or by others | The classic “120V by others” line that becomes an electrician callout |
| Lock-on device for the panel breaker | Included | A five dollar part that fails an inspection |
| First-year inspection and monitoring | Priced separately and clearly, not buried in the install number | An install that looked cheap attached to a service rate that isn’t |
| Third-party inspection report submission | Named, with the platform identified | Out of compliance with the city while you think you passed |
Conduit versus free-air cable, the biggest hidden swing
If two bids differ by twenty percent and the device counts match, look here first.
Running fire alarm circuits in conduit costs substantially more in labor than pulling plenum-rated cable through open ceiling. Where conduit is required depends on the occupancy, the construction type, whether the space is a plenum, whether the wiring is exposed to damage, and what your AHJ enforces. It’s a code question with a real answer for your building.
What you cannot do is compare a conduit bid to a free-air bid on price. They’re different jobs. Get every bidder to state the method by area, in writing, and then either level them or throw out the one that guessed wrong.
Permits, plan review, and the inspection nobody prices
A commercial fire alarm installation is a permitted job with a plan review, and the review can come back with comments. That’s normal. What matters is who eats the cost of responding.
Acceptance testing is the item most often thinned out. A proper acceptance test exercises every initiating device and every notification appliance with the AHJ inspector present, verifies the sequence of operation including any elevator recall, HVAC shutdown, or door holder release, and confirms transmission to the supervising station. On a mid-sized building that’s a day or more of technician time, sometimes two.
A bid that allocates four hours to acceptance testing on a 90-device system is telling you something. Ask how many technician hours are carried for the test, and whether re-inspection is included if something fails. Our post on why commercial fire alarm inspections fail covers what inspectors actually check.
The documentation you are owed, in writing
This one is straightforward code, and it’s the exclusion that costs owners the most over a system’s life.
NFPA 72 §14.6.1.1 requires that on system acceptance, the owner receives reproducible as-built drawings, operation and maintenance manuals, and a written sequence of operation. Not a PDF of the submittal set. The as-builts, reflecting what was actually installed, plus the manuals and the sequence.
If a bid doesn’t name those three deliverables, you’re going to pay for them twice: once when the code says you should have gotten them, and again in five years when a service company has to trace your system by hand because nobody knows what module 3-14 does.
NFPA 72 also expects those records to live in a documentation cabinet labeled SYSTEM RECORD DOCUMENTS rather than stuffed inside the control unit, and the owner keeps them for the life of the system. Ask each bidder whether the cabinet is included.
Battery calculations, or how to spot a guess
Secondary power on a standard protected-premises system has to carry 24 hours of standby plus 5 minutes of alarm at full notification appliance load. An in-building fire emergency voice/alarm system needs 24 hours plus 15 minutes at maximum connected load. And the calculation has to include a 1.25 derating factor to account for battery aging and temperature.
So ask: “Can I see the battery calculation, including the 1.25 factor?” A contractor who did the engineering hands it over. A contractor who priced two 12V 18Ah batteries because that’s what the last job used will change the subject.
Undersized batteries don’t fail on day one. They fail the load test two years later, which is a deficiency on your report and a repair you pay for because somebody saved forty dollars at bid time.
Who submits your inspection report to the city
In Raleigh, under City Ordinance No. 2015-492 effective November 1, 2015, third-party fire protection inspection reports must be submitted electronically through The Compliance Engine, and the fire protection company that performed the work does the uploading. Not you. The city’s own guidance is blunt about the consequence: the business stays out of compliance until the contractor submits the report.
Fire alarm systems report annually under that program. Brycer, which operates the platform, charges the contractor roughly $10 to $12 per initial report, with deficiency-repair reports and acceptance test documentation free. A small number, which is exactly why it gets skipped by a bidder who works mostly outside Wake County. Ask whether they’re already submitting through The Compliance Engine for Raleigh work. If the answer is a pause, that’s your answer.
Five questions to ask every bidder before you sign
- What is the coverage calculation behind this device count? A layout drawing, not a number.
- Conduit or free-air cable, by area? In writing, so all three bids can be leveled.
- How many technician hours are carried for AHJ acceptance testing, and is re-inspection included?
- What documentation do I receive at acceptance? You want to hear as-builts, O&M manuals, and a written sequence of operation without prompting.
- Who submits the annual inspection report to the city, and through what platform?
The cost that shows up years later
One more thing to weigh, because it doesn’t appear on any bid page. Ask what panel is being proposed and how you’d service it if you changed contractors.
“Non-proprietary” doesn’t mean anyone can work on your panel. It means the panel is available through multiple factory-authorized distributors who compete for your service contract. With a genuinely proprietary system, when your contract ends, the only company that can legally program your panel is the one you just tried to leave. Commercial fire alarm control panels are generally planned on a 15 to 20 year service life, and parts availability rather than failure usually forces the replacement decision, so this choice outlasts almost everyone who’ll be in the room when you sign.
Ask which distributors in the Triangle can service the proposed panel. If the answer is one, you’ve learned the real price of the bid.
Get a bid you can actually compare
FireTek Systems designs and installs commercial fire alarm systems across Raleigh, Cary, Apex, and Wake County with in-house technicians and no subcontractors. Every proposal names the scope, the documentation, and who files your report with the city. More about us.
Schedule a free assessment (919) 296-1803Frequently asked questions
What should a commercial fire alarm quote include?
A full equipment schedule tied to a layout, the raceway method by area, permit and plan review fees, plan review resubmittals, AHJ acceptance testing hours, battery and voltage drop calculations, as-built drawings, O&M manuals, a written sequence of operation, 120V power responsibility, and who submits the inspection report to the city. Anything not named is excluded, whatever the salesperson says.
Why is one fire alarm bid so much cheaper than the others?
Usually scope rather than efficiency. The most common gaps are a lower device count from an underspaced layout, free-air cable priced where conduit is required, thin acceptance testing hours, and missing documentation deliverables. Normalize the three bids item by item and the gap typically shrinks to a fraction of what it looked like.
What happens if my fire alarm plan review gets rejected?
The AHJ returns comments and the design has to be corrected and resubmitted, which costs schedule time. A complete bid includes resubmittals. If yours doesn’t, each round comes back as an hourly engineering charge, and the reasons are usually documentable things like device spacing, notification coverage, or an incomplete sequence of operation.
Are fire alarm change orders normal?
Some are, when the building or the scope genuinely changes. What isn’t normal is a change order for something the code required all along, like as-built drawings or acceptance testing. Those are signals that the original bid was incomplete rather than that the project evolved.
Should I pick the fire alarm contractor my general contractor recommends?
Consider them, and still get the scope in writing. A GC optimizes for the number that keeps their bid competitive, and the fire alarm system outlives the construction contract by fifteen years or more. You’ll be the one calling for service, so read the documentation and service terms yourself.