The Fire Protection Podcast: Episode #77 – Fire Doors & Dampers: An NFPA Overview with Shawn Mahoney

Yeah, you’ve had some really good videos lately.  

I guess, did you start doing this, what, last year or the year before, these little videos on social media?  

Shawn Mahoney:

I think last year I started with some.  

I think I had high hopes of doing one a week last year, and that fell off in March, February, March.  

Then this year I started again and I’m going to try to do one a week this year.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, I’ve seen you put a sprinkler one out and then you did the fire doors and dampers and that kind of piqued my interest.  

Shawn Mahoney:

I’ll put videos out on whatever.  

Either it’s something I’m working on or if people are asking me questions about things, that’s kind of what I will put videos out on.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, I guess you’re getting all the input from the industry and if you’re getting a lot of questions somewhere, might as well put something out there.  

There are probably a lot of people that aren’t asking the questions that have ’em.  

So is it just going out on, is it YouTube or LinkedIn?  

How are you guys getting it out there?  

Shawn Mahoney:

Right now it’s just on my personal LinkedIn.  

I did start on Instagram, which I’m kind of just using as a repository at this point.  

I’m just posting ’em all on there.  

It’s growing a little bit, but I’m not really trying too hard.  

Drew Slocum:

And soon you’ll be on TikTok doing all the…

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, maybe I’ll do some dances along with the sprinklers and stuff.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.  

That’s great.  

So I caught your videos the other day.  

It’s essentially NFPA 80 Fire Doors and Dampers, and I know you mentioned some, I didn’t even know about 105.  

Not really The smoke dampers.  

I thought it was all under 80, but 105 handles the smoke side.  

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, so fire dampers are NFPA 80 and then smoke dampers are 105.  

If it’s a combination, it’s got to follow both of them.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, it’s interesting.  

I’ve, being on the inspection software side, we’ve seen a lot of inquiries over the years for 80 and smoke dampers and everything, and it’s really nicely laid out in the NFPA codes of what to do and everything.  

But it’s funny, you have all these different sectors of fire protection with alarms, sprinklers, or extinguishers, everything, and you think this would be a bigger part of the fire protection service and inspection industry.  

They’re expensive pieces of a building and the design of them, there’s a lot that goes into ’em, but I dunno, I just feel that the maintenance, the demand is not there that we see.  

So from your perspective, you get a lot of, obviously you’ve seen a lot of questions here.  

Are they coming from owners or more contractors?  

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, I mean, most of the stuff that I see, at least in my role doing some of the fire door stuff, it’s all mostly from the healthcare side that I’m seeing.  

The drive for fire door inspections, fire damper inspections, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires hospitals to follow 101 in order to receive payment for the care of those individuals.  

So they’re required to follow 101.  

They get their inspections by the Joint Commission that they look at, making sure they’re doing all of those inspections.  

So they’re obviously doing it and hospitals specifically have a lot of smoke compartmentation, so they do have a lot more of these fire doors and fire and smoke doors that need to be inspected.  

And that’s where it’s not even really a question of how do we do it?  

It’s just getting it done.  

And so I see a lot from the enforcement side.  

I also think it’s like owners think fire protection.  

They think, okay, I’ve got a sprinkler system and a fire alarm system, and those are my big systems that I need to maintain.  

I have to pay because they were expensive to install.  

They look expensive.  

They’ve got all these components, but they don’t think that just a simple fire door, or they don’t see the value of that.  

And I think passive fire protection has such a huge value and people just take it for granted.  

They don’t realize the implications of not properly maintaining those.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.  

I’m wondering, obviously if there’s a fire, and obviously there’s a cause of a fire and maybe the reporting and the incident reporting on the fire department and fire service side are like, what is the reason why that fire spread?  

And there’s multiple cases that I’ve seen and it was reported that fire doors were a bigger issue.  

There was one in New York City a few years ago, and it was just that the fire door is jammed open and it just spreads.  

But if there’s no data behind maybe some of those tragedies or incidents of why that spread, maybe the, I think they would understand, they know fire dynamics really well on the fire service side.  

So you think they’d be on top of it a little bit more?  

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, I think people in the fire protection side, I think everybody understands the value in it, and I don’t know if it just comes down to an enforcement side and just resourcing.  

I think that’s a lot of the issues.  

And maybe it is more education for the owners for them to understand what these doors actually do and the implications they can have.  

I know we were talking about, you brought up the fire and the apartment building in New York City, and that’s huge.  

That shows one of the biggest things that we rely on those fire doors, especially in apartment complexes, especially if the building’s not sprinkled, we’re relying on compartmentation to keep the fire into that unit of origin, and if one of those doors is compromised and then it spreads right into the corridor, there goes your means of egress and just shows the need for these fire doors and making sure that we’re properly inspecting them.  

Then we were also talking about before, it’s an education piece for the tenants because NFPA 80 requires you to inspect it annually.  

A lot happens between those inspections and it’s a lot on the use, so you want to make sure you’re educating the people in the apartments.  

This is why the door needs to be shut.  

People just think it’s a hindrance.  

So they’re just like, I’m just going to chalk the door open.  

It’s easier for me.  

Oh, the fire marshal says it has to be shut, but it’s easier just to keep it open.  

They need to understand that that’s there to keep everybody safe.  

Drew Slocum:

Right, right.  

Whether it’s easier to get out or whatever the heating or cooling is, if it’s in a bad apartment building or something.  

Shawn Mahoney:

I mean, even as simple as latching the door all the way, if the door is not latched completely, the fire can still spread.  

That’s one significant component of a fire door is it’s got to be self-closing, self-latching.  

If it’s not latched, then you’re spreading smoke, you’re spreading hot gases, and then the fire can still spread.  

So even if the door looks like it’s shut, if it’s not latched properly, it could still cause that fire to spread.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, it’s interesting.  

People understand the egress side to it.  

If it’s a fire door, people understand that a little bit more, an emergency light over it or exit sign, they know that to keep that unblocked.  

And I feel like there’s a lot of education even with the public about that on that side for the egress, but not on the actual fire door side.  

If there is an incident in the spread of that fire…  

Shawn Mahoney:

I think people are probably like, well, it’s an egress door.  

I’m going to chalk it open.  

It’s going to be easier to get out.  

They don’t realize that it needs to be shut.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.  

So what are the main, I guess we’ll start with fire doors and then we can move to dampers and smoke dampers.  

What are the main kind of inspection components?  

I know you did on your video, you had NFPA link up, which is really cool.  

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, there’s 13 inspection items, but it basically comes down to we’re going to look at the fire door.  

We’re going to make sure that it’s properly listed, labeled, it’s the right rating that’s supposed to be there.  

The other thing about NFPA 80 is you’re always inspecting to the most, you’re doing your ITM to the most recent edition of NFPA 80, but it only needs to comply with the edition of NFPA 80 that was being enforced at the time of installation.  

So you’re not looking at, oh, they changed the requirements for this door and now I have to put a new door in.  

Now, that’s not how it is.  

It’s like, these are the items I need to look at.  

So even the ratings, that is where it gets a little confusing to determine whether or not it’s the right rating, but that usually is the first inspection that you do, and then you determine what it needs to be, and then you just keep checking that there are some allowances in 101, and maybe there were changes to the jurisdiction that the door might not actually be what the current additional 101 would require, but you’re just looking at the listing, you’re making sure that the door is not damaged.  

All of the components work properly.  

The door self-closes.  

The door self-latches.  

If there’s any glass, it’s not broken.  

There’s no signage on the door that’s over 5% of the area of the door.  

That’s an important thing.  

We don’t want to put combustible material on the door and you can’t be putting signage on the glazing.  

So that’s another requirement, NFPA 80, that not a lot of people follow.  

The biggest one is if it’s an automatic door, they usually put the sticker that says automatic door right on the glass is actually not permitted by NFPA 80.  

And that’s, again, you don’t want to be putting combustible material on that separation.  

So just the biggest thing is making sure it’s not damaged and then checking the gaps.  

That’s one thing that’s going to, over time, you’re going to get damage to the door.  

And then also it’s just the buildings move, the doors get tweaked.  

You need to check that there’s proper gaps between the door and the frame.  

So based on the material of the door, it’s typically between an eighth of an inch plus or minus a 16th of an inch.  

You’re going on measuring the gaps, make sure it’s not too tight and not too much open, and then you want to check that the undercut on the door and making sure that that’s proper.  

And then field modifications and FPA 80 has some job site preparations that you’re allowed to do to a fire door assembly.

If it’s anything above that, you need to get approval from the listing agency to do any work that door.

So you just need to make sure that people aren’t putting items or components on a door that would stop it from working.

The biggest one that you see is people put the kick down door stops on the door.

That’s not permitted.

It’s not permitted to chalk open fire doors.

You can’t put that kind of stuff on a fire door.

So on the inspection side, essentially, now, I wouldn’t say anybody can do it, but NFP says qualified, as it say, qualified.

It’s all up to the, I was looking for the specific, it’s basically just qualified to the authority having jurisdiction, so the person has to have knowledge of the doors, how they’re supposed to operate, how they’re supposed to be inspecting them, and the authority having jurisdiction would state what that qualification is.

Drew Slocum:

And if there’s a big fix, then you bring in a door company probably.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah.

I mean, and if you’re a new owner, if this is your first time doing it, maybe you do hire someone who is more educated on the fire code requirements and building code requirements to do that first initial survey.

I know a lot of people have someone do a survey of all the fire doors in their building that would create that list of doors that needs to be inspected.

They’ll determine whether or not they’re compliant at that time.

And then just looking forward, you’re just looking for the damages, making sure that there aren’t any changes to those doors.

Drew Slocum:

Yep, yep.

Yeah, I think overall, even in your residents, I think it’s good to know this knowledge because even when you’re sleeping at night, your door should be closed.

Everybody in the fire industry kind of, I think understands that.

But maybe the public,

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, no, close before you doze.

That’s also that’s…

Drew Slocum:

I’ve never heard that.

That’s good.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, so the Fire Safety Research Institute, that’s their closed before you dose, close the door that’s in homes though.

The doors aren’t rated.

A lot of that relies on just fire dynamics and limiting oxygen and air movement that actually limits the fire from moving.

It’s not like, because a lot of the doors, they can just be hollow wood doors, but just the act of closing, it would stop the air from being able to move and actually spreading into those pieces.

It’s a significant impact on having doors shut.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, it is interesting.

And obviously gives you time to get out too if there’s an issue.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, I’ve heard many stories from firefighters.

One specifically where they went in a house fire, they went in, put the fire out, and then they went into a bedroom and someone was, they woke somebody up and they had no clue that there was a fire.

You wouldn’t even know that that room, that the house was on fire, but their door was shut and they didn’t even know.

And just the impact of having a door shut is insane.

Drew Slocum:

That’s wild that they didn’t have, well, they probably didn’t have smoke detectors or

Shawn Mahoney:

Didn’t wake ’em up.

This is another get into low frequency smoke alarm deal.

You might not have gone, you have gone woken up, or some codes don’t necessarily require you to have, or local codes don’t require you to have a smoke alarm in the bedroom.

So you might have not actually even heard it might have not allowed enough downstairs, 72, all NFPA standards would’ve required you to have one in it.

But I know a lot of, even Massachusetts, when you sell a house, they just require you have one on every floor.

So there is a case in which you might not have one in there.

Drew Slocum:

That’s true.

Alright, so that’s fire doors.

What about fire dampers?

Obviously in the HVAC system, when are those required anyway?

Shawn Mahoney:

Fire dampers, anytime Smoke dampers.

So fire dampers are, anytime you’re basically penetrating a firewall or a floor or a fire floor, like a rated floor assembly, you’re going to have a fire damper.

Smoke dampers are basically, anytime you’re penetrating a smoke barrier or smoke partition, there’s a little bit more nuances to that as far as the smoke damper side, because technically if you’re just running a duct through a smoke compartment, you don’t have to put smoke dampers if you don’t have any registers in that space.

If you’re going through a smoke barrier, you’re going to have a smoke damper.

And then if you’re going through a fire barrier, it’s going to be a fire damper.

And if it’s a combination smoke fire barrier, then you’re going to have a combination smoke fire damper

Drew Slocum:

Around what year was that starting to be required?

You have a lot of buildings you maintain.

And when did that start getting enacted more where fire dampers became more of a thing?

Shawn Mahoney:

I couldn’t tell you.

I’m not exactly sure.

I mean, it’s been around, fire dampers have been around for a while.

Smoke dampers.

Again, I talked about healthcare.

You see them a lot in healthcare, because healthcare, you have a lot of smoke compartmentation, you have a lot of smoke zones, so you do have a lot more smoke barriers than smoke partitions in hospitals.

So a lot more smoke dampers.

You’re mostly going to be seeing just fire dampers in most buildings.

You don’t really have smoke barriers and partitions in other buildings.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, it’s interesting.

Funny enough, my sister works or worked for an HVAC, she still works there, but I worked for an HVAC contractor and they were big on the fire damper and even smoke damper side, but it was mainly in healthcare.

And there’s all these commercial buildings with, they have them installed, but it’s only kind of regulated at healthcare and maybe some bigger manufacturing.

But it’s like, man, there’s so many other commercial applications, and are they even getting maintained?

And then you go back to the enforcement question there too,

Shawn Mahoney:

Right?

Yeah.

Well, fire just dampers are even harder in general because they’re usually up and hidden away and not accessible while NFPA 101 5,000.

So NFPA’s building code requires them to all be accessible.

So you have to have accessible hatches to get to the damper has to be labeled in older buildings, they just kind of get stuffed away and then they get forgotten about.

So, that’s another issue.

I mean, fire dampers, smoke dampers are also big.

If you’re doing HVAC shutdown, you could be using dampers instead of that.

So if you’re doing a high-rise building and you’re doing the sandwich design where you’re pressurizing one and depressurizing others, that could be done with dampers.

So you might have those in those kinds of buildings as well.

Drew Slocum:

Gotcha.

Shawn Mahoney:

But smoke dampers are typically run off.

They run off the fire alarm.

So you’ve got, because you have to have some sort of smoke detection, so you usually have a duct detector or using area smoke detection, and then the fire alarm’s going to be closing that damper.

So when you’re doing smoke damper inspections, obviously the first thing you’re looking at, making sure they’re not obstructed, but then you’ve got to do essentially an integrated test.

You got to use the fire alarm to trigger that damper to make sure it’s working properly.

Drew Slocum:

It’s interesting that, all right.

Yeah, on the integrated test, obviously you want to make sure NFP four is getting into that where you’re making sure the whole system works, but I’m just putting my hat on of like, Hey, I’m a fire alarm service provider.

If I’m going in and doing the annual NFPA 72 test, why not test the smoke while you’re there?

And they may be doing it and that, I may be wrong, just assuming that they’re not doing it, but all right, well, why don’t I have one or two technicians certified to work on smoke or fire dampers?

If you’re doing the annual test anyway, just toss it into the contract.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah.

I mean, from a fire alarm contractor perspective, you should know if there’s smoke dampers, right?

You’re going to know that there’s outputs.

You’re going to know that it’s closing them smoke dampers.

They only need to be inspected every four years.

So it’s not as often as you would be going up there doing the duct detectors or whatever, but at least you’re up there where those things are.

That’s when you’d be doing those.

Same thing for fire dampers.

It’s four years.

It’s one year after you install it, and then four years after that, hospitals can go up to six years.

So again, it’s not as often as you’re doing the fire alarm stuff, but it could be something that you’re doing.

I mean, now the building codes, fire codes are all requiring you, if you’re testing a system and it’s got a subordinate system, you need to confirm the response to that.

So technically, fire alarm contractors need to be looking at that smoke damper every time they fire it off to make sure it’s closing.

They can’t just be checking the relay or output module.

They need to be looking at it.

Drew Slocum:

So it would push it back to an annual, almost an annual verification that it closes.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

I guess all the nuances of NFP 105 or whatever wouldn’t be in there.

Shawn Mahoney:

There’s a little bit more that you would get into whether or not the HVAC is running at that time and all that, but from a 101 5,000 IBC where they state that you have to confirm the response, you should be checking that damper to make sure it shut.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

So with fire dampers, obviously you have the one with the link that’s kind of self-contained.

Is there a fire damper that is connected to the fire alarm panel at all?

Shawn Mahoney:

You could.

I think it’s less common.

Most of the ones that I’m seeing are all just So they’re not actuated, meaning that they just have the link that drops them.

You can have one that’s actuated, but then you’d have to have a heat detector up there, which I would assume is less common depending on what your opening looks like.

Some of ’em could just be an air transfer opening.

It might not be in a duct, but depending on all of that, how you would have that.

Drew Slocum:

Well, even if with the heat detectors, the heat detector is just connected directly to the damper, it’s not connected back to the fire alarm system.

Shawn Mahoney:

I’m not sure exactly how that would be.

I think it could be either way.

You could do it through the fire alarms.

It’s the same thing with fire doors and drop in fire doors.

You could do it, it could just be one contained unit with its own detector, or you can do it through the fire alarm system.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, that’s interesting.

There’s probably some the ways to do it, now I’m thinking about it.

If you have it connected back to a fire door, if you know that fire door is open for X amount of time, it would send a signal back to the fire alarm panel saying you got,

Shawn Mahoney:

So the most common way that we’re interfacing a fire door with the fire alarm system is just going to be the magnetic hold opens.

There’s no way that a fire alarm system would know.

It’s always sending power to those magnets to keep it open.

It just lets ’em go when there’s a fire.

It doesn’t actually know if the door shuts.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, okay.

Gotcha.

Shawn Mahoney:

In most cases, even if you have a power operated fire door, which means it can open and shut itself, for the most part, the fire alarm system’s cutting power, and then when you cut power to a power operator automatically just shuts.

It just goes to a self-closers.

So there’s no way that the fire alarm system would necessarily…

Drew Slocum:

Know that it’s shut.

Shawn Mahoney:

They wouldn’t know.

Okay.

Yeah.

I’m just thinking remote inspection, or not remote inspection, but more remote monitoring.

Shawn Mahoney:

Right.

So yeah, on the 80 and 105 side for dampers, there is allowances for remote inspection testing of these.

So there’ll be limit switches that test it.

It’s all got to be listed.

I don’t remember off the top of my head.

You still have to go in every, I want to say it’s every three times and confirm you can do some remote testing.

You don’t have that for fire doors.

Drew Slocum:

More on the damper side, not accessible.

I could see that if you can’t get up there.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

This passive fire protection, A bunch of people have been commenting on my LinkedIn as well.

It’s called passive, and it feels like it’s not being looked at.

And you pushed it back to that potential on the enforcement side because that’s what’s going to drive a lot of this enforcement and education.

I’m wondering, we have all these compliance platforms that these AHJs are rolling out, which manage all of their buildings in a city or wherever their jurisdiction is.

They look at their fire alarm systems, they look at their sprinkler, they look at, they’re even looking at the extinguishers.

Well, let’s just add fire doors and fire dampers to that.

Those are part of the system.

And I may reach out to some of those platforms because that’s just as important sometimes to the AHJs, and there’s no way they could enforce it through those platforms essentially.

And then they know how many buildings out there have fire doors and have fire dampers.

So I think there’s probably an easy way to do it, and it could be just regulating through those platforms.

And then the contractors, if they allow those contractors doing the fire alarm or extinguishers, allow them to at least go in and do the inspection.

They’re going to grab a lot of data.

And while you’re doing the extinguishers, might as well look at the fire doors.

Shawn Mahoney:

And almost every building has a fire door in it.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah,

Shawn Mahoney:

Exactly.

If you’ve got a stairwell, you’ve got a fire door because the doors into the exit stairwells are all rated.

But maybe that’s another reason why it’s from the resourcing side, because all of a sudden, if you’re looking at doors and dampers, now you’re just introducing all of the buildings in your jurisdiction.

I don’t know if that comes into play, but yet, I mean, very much not looked at as much as I think it should be.

I think people look at fire doors and don’t think much can happen.

When I see a fire door chalked open, it is painful for me.

So dangerous.

We were talking about, I go to my dentist’s office twice a year and I take the stairs, and every time I take the stairs, at least half of the doors are chalked open.

And I think it all started with COVID, and this was a big thing in COVID where they were chalking open all the doors so people weren’t using handles together.

But then it just kind of stayed, and every time I go, I pull all the door chalks, but then every time I go back, they’re still there.

And obviously it’s just an education thing.

They probably hate me.

They’re like, why all of a sudden all of our doors are shut?

But if you imagine a fire started on any of those floors, all of a sudden your stairwell is no longer tenable.

Now, it’s a huge thing that it’s a pretty big consequence for something that people don’t seem to think it’s a big issue having a door chalked open.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, kind of wild.

So yeah, this is great info.

Again, keep up with the videos and all that.

I am really excited to see them out there.

And again, getting more information out to the masses, even to the public is important.

Shawn Mahoney:

I think my drive for some of the videos recently is thinking of a facility manager who’s just trying to learn a little bit more about their building.

So someone might have said, oh, yep, fire doors.

They need to be inspected, but why and what needs to be done?

That’s the kind of stuff I’m trying to focus on.

The little bit above and beyond some of the basics of these things

Drew Slocum:

And some of the simple things that they can do themselves and just be aware of it.

And it’s a small procedure.

It’s probably not going to cost much.

If anything, if you have a company come in and do it, it’s probably going to add a cost.

But if you can do it internally as a facility manager on the visual and just basic inspection side, it’s pretty critical.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah.

Oh, certainly.

And even just looking at, it’s just getting an understanding of your building in general too, right?

You’re going to be able to start noticing an issue with a door before you need to all of a sudden replace it.

You might be able to keep track of the health of these types of components of a building.

Drew Slocum:

Yep.

Are you heading out to Las Vegas for CE?

Shawn Mahoney:

I will be there.

Yeah.

So June 15th.

Well, that’s the Sunday.

So 16th through the 18th is our conference in Expo.

I’ll be out there in Las Vegas.

Looking forward to it.

You going to be there, Drew?

Drew Slocum:

I plan to be.

I know Inspect Point will be there, and we have another company joining us.

I can’t announce it just yet, but maybe by this time this airs, it’ll be announced.

But anyway, they’ll be there as well.

So really cool to see everybody.

I know this is the bigger show, because selfishly, I like it in Boston.

It’s an easy train ride for me.

But Las Vegas is, they got the big draw, right?

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah.

Vegas is always our biggest years.

Boston’s always a love hate with a lot of us locals.

It’s close, but also we are not staying there, so we have to drive in and out of Boston every day.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Shawn Mahoney:

Wrong day.

But yeah, so we’ll be in Vegas for the next two years.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, nice.

Shawn Mahoney:

So we’re reusing our contracts up from during the COVID time where we had to had to get those reused.

So we’ll be there for this year, and we’ll be back there again next year.

Yeah, it’s a big draw, which it’s exciting being out there.

Drew Slocum:

What is that?

Is it Mandalay Bay or is it Yeah, Mandalay Bay.

Oh, yeah, that’s a big conference center.

Yeah, it’s going to be good.

I’m looking forward, oh, go ahead.

Yeah, anything specific out there that you guys are highlighting this year?

Shawn Mahoney:

I think the big thing that I’m excited about is you can basically go to our conference for free and get two or three days worth of educational content.

You get to go to all 400 plus exhibitors.

You get the Expo Advantage pass, which is free to go and see the expo, which I highly recommend anybody goes.

So you can see what’s new and upcoming from all of the exhibitors there.

But then we have two theaters that we’re putting together.

Last year we did two theaters.

One was a natural disaster theater and one was latest issues facing firefighters.

This year we’re redoing the latest issues facing Firefighters Theater, which is all free educational content geared towards middle management firefighters, but focused on the training academy of the future.

So what does it look like?

Training firefighters going forward.

So a big looking at immersive learning, augmented reality, asynchronous learning, how are people applying that?

As well as looking at technologies that allow you to train firefighters in that way.

So a lot of simulators and things.

I’m excited to see what that has coming forward.

And then we also have a theater for facility managers in hospitality venues.

So it was our focus because Vegas has a lot of hospitality.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, totally.

Shawn Mahoney:

But it’s kind of geared towards most facility managers the way the presentations landed, but a lot about how are we using technology to perform the inspection, testing, and maintenance that we’re required to get some on sprinkler systems.

We’ve got inspection ones, talking about fire alarm systems, mass notification systems.

There’s one that I’m excited about, which is how do you prepare your building and maintain your building during a wildfire to make sure that the occupants inside are safe?

So what does that look like from a lot that gets into dampers and HVAC and having to protect your building, which I’m interested in seeing what that one is.

So I think the thing to take away is you can go to our conference and expo for free and get two or three days worth of content as well as that expo.

Or you can come and get the conference passed and there’s over 130 presentations going on, which there’s tons.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, it’s insane how many presentations that go and just walking around the expo hall.

And you guys have those presentations throughout the Expo in the theater?

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah, the two theaters in the back.

Yeah.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, yeah.

It’s always the highlight of the year.

Right?

It’s a big one.

Shawn Mahoney:

We always refer to it as the Super Bowl of NFPA Super Bowl.

It’s a lot of work.

So I work as the technical lead for a lot of the educational content.

I run the review process for all the proposals.

We’re already working on next year, we haven’t even gotten to this year.

We’re already writing call for proposals for next year.

We’re thinking about planning.

We’re already looking at what these theaters are going to look like next year, so maybe if it’s too late, you’re not going to be able to make it this year.

We are most likely going to have these same theaters going forward where you’ll have these opportunities to get these educational sessions as well.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, my team wanted me to speak at one, and I was like, oh, I think one of the theaters was open or whatever, and I was like, I’m speaking a lot this year.

I actually just spoke on AI and fire protection and how that’s transforming just our business every day.

And it’s like every week something’s happening with AI and yeah, it’s insane.

Shawn Mahoney:

We have a panel on that at C and E this year.

That’ll be…

Drew Slocum:

Oh, you do?

Shawn Mahoney:

It’s like the use of AI mostly from the facility management side.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

I know there’s a lot on the code side, and that’s a sensitive topic, but it’s doing a lot of things in our day-to-day lives and how do we use that effectively, but also be thoughtful in how we do it.

Shawn Mahoney:

Yeah.

Understand the limitations.

I feel like that’s the most important thing, right?

Drew Slocum:

Yes.

Shawn Mahoney:

Understand what your limitations are with it.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

I had some angry people, very excited people at the present.

There were about 300 people there, but there were some comments thrown around at the end too.

So Yeah, I can imagine.

Riling everybody out.

Yeah, we’ll get this out here soon and looking forward to seeing you here at CE and I’ll probably talk to you before then.

Yeah, of course.

And be commenting in all your videos and stuff.

Where can everybody find you?

Anything about what you’re doing online?

Shawn Mahoney:

LinkedIn’s probably the best place to find me.

That’s where I’m posting most of my stuff.

I do have an Instagram, I’m trying to remember the, I think it’s fpl LSI don’t, I’ll give you the name.

You can throw it.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, I’ll drop it.

Shawn Mahoney:

I don’t remember off the top of my head, but yeah, if you want to follow me on Instagram for the same videos I’m posting on the LinkedIn.

Drew Slocum:

Great.

Well, thanks again, Shawn, and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Shawn Mahoney:

As always.

Thanks for having me, Drew.

Drew Slocum:

Alright, thanks man.