NICET Continuing Education & CPD

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on fire alarm pathway design per NFPA 72 — the performance-based pathway classes (B, A, X, N) and how each behaves under a single open, short, or ground; pathway survivability and its graded levels; when a shared pathway must endure fire; and how class (fault tolerance) and survivability (fire endurance) are independent axes that must both be chosen deliberately.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on emergency voice/alarm communication (EVACS) fundamentals per NFPA 72 Chapter 24 — the voice-system architecture and constant-voltage speaker circuits, the critical distinction between audibility and intelligibility, the acoustically-distinguishable-space framework, notification zoning aligned to the evacuation plan, message priority and override (live over recorded, manual over automatic), and pathway survivability.

A 1.5-contact-hour continuing education course on fire alarm emergency control function interfaces per NFPA 72 (Chapter 21 in recent editions) and ASME A17.1 — Phase I elevator recall and designated/alternate level logic, the separate elevator power shutdown where sprinklers protect the equipment spaces, HVAC air-handler shutdown on duct-smoke detection, smoke/combination fire-smoke damper release, magnetic door-holder release, fail-safe design and interface supervision, and the cause-and-effect matrix used to program and test every interface at the controlled function. Excludes engineered smoke-control system design.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on fire alarm installation wiring per NEC Article 760 — the power-limited (PLFA) vs non-power-limited (NPLFA) classification and its consequences, permitted wiring methods and the fire-alarm cable families, the one-way cable substitution hierarchy, separation from light and power conductors, and the dedicated primary-power branch circuit with its disconnecting-means marking and identification.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on heat and special fire-detection technologies per NFPA 72 — heat-detector operation and thermal lag, listed spacing with ceiling-height and beam derating, temperature-classification selection, aspirating (air-sampling) smoke detection, projected-beam detection, flame detection, and carbon-monoxide fire detection — with an emphasis on matching the technology to the environment.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on Emergency Responder Communication Enhancement Systems (ERCES) per NFPA 1225 / IFC 510 — the donor antenna, bi-directional amplifier (BDA), and distributed antenna system (DAS); channelized vs. broadband boosters; the grid coverage acceptance test; signal strength and delivered audio quality (DAQ); donor-antenna isolation and oscillation; system supervision and annunciation; and battery-backup sizing.

A 1.5-contact-hour continuing education course on the fundamentals of fire alarm inspection, testing, and maintenance per NFPA 72 Chapter 14 — the three distinct ITM activities, functional test methods across every device category and system type, smoke-detector sensitivity testing, impairment management, personnel qualification, remote/automated ITM, and the documentation and records regime. Teaches durable methods; edition-volatile frequencies are quarantined for verification against the adopted edition.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on mass notification systems (MNS) and their risk-analysis design basis per NFPA 72 Chapter 24 — the in-building, wide-area, and distributed-recipient architectures; why a documented risk analysis (not a prescriptive table) establishes the need for and design of an MNS; and how ECS message prioritization decides which message governs when a mass-notification event and the fire alarm signal collide.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on notification-appliance-circuit (NAC) voltage-drop design per NFPA 72 — the worst-case source voltage, the round-trip Ohm’s-law calculation, the lumped-load and point-by-point methods, the separate circuit-current limit, and the conductor/run/split remedies when a circuit fails.

A 1.5-contact-hour continuing education course on fire alarm notification coverage per NFPA 72 Chapter 18 — public- and private-mode audibility relative to ambient sound, the acoustics of distance and barriers, sleeping-area pillow targets and low-frequency 520 Hz signaling, visible signaling by candela with room and corridor spacing, and flash-rate/synchronization for photosensitive occupants. Coverage design only; NAC electrical/voltage-drop is a separate course.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on sizing the secondary (standby) power supply for fire alarm systems per NFPA 72 — standby and alarm durations, the two currents, the 20% aging factor, standard battery sizing, and charger/temperature constraints.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on the fire-alarm interface to smoke-control and suppression systems per NFPA 92 / NFPA 72 — dedicated vs non-dedicated smoke control (control priority and positive confirmation), waterflow and supervisory (valve-tamper) monitoring and the alarm/supervisory/trouble classification that must never be crossed, and releasing service (pre-action, deluge, clean-agent) with cross-zoned detection, pre-discharge delay, abort/manual release, and disable-for-maintenance safeguards.

A 1.5-contact-hour continuing education course on spot-type smoke detector placement per NFPA 72 Chapter 17 — the plume/ceiling-jet transport model, nominal spacing and the half-spacing and 0.7×S diagonal rules, spacing reductions for beams and joists, sloped and peaked ceilings, ceiling-height stratification, HVAC and high-air-movement effects, and environmental siting to avoid nuisance alarms.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on the systematic troubleshooting of fire alarm systems — a repeatable diagnostic loop, reading trouble signals as data, isolating ground faults by the half-split method, proper grounding and bonding, transient/surge protection, and the discipline for intermittent faults, verification, and documentation. Teaches the method and principle; edition-specific citations are quarantined and flagged for verification against the adopted NFPA 72 and electrical-code editions.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on tracking and adopting changes to NFPA 72. Perishable by design: it teaches the durable edition-management method — publication vs. adoption, reading a new edition (change bars, annex, committee draft reports, TIAs and errata), the recurring categories where the code changes (structure and definitions, pathways and survivability, detection, emergency communications, power, ITM, off-premises transmission, interfaces, remote access and software integrity), retroactivity for existing systems, and a disciplined edition-transition workflow. Every edition-specific value is illustrative and must be verified against the adopted edition; a full SME edition pass is required before release.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on advanced sprinkler hydraulics per NFPA 13, for designers who have already completed the Hydraulic Calculations Masterclass. Covers looped and gridded piping topology, the physics of why parallel flow paths reduce friction loss, which system types may not be gridded, iterative junction-balancing (trial-and-error and the Hardy Cross method), remote-area determination and NFPA 13’s peaking-verification requirement on non-tree systems, the velocity/normal-pressure treatment unique to gridded and looped flow-split points, and a full applied case study optimizing (shaving) design demand on a gridded distribution warehouse.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on choosing among NFPA 13's sprinkler design approaches for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — standard spray vs. extended coverage (head count and K-factor/pressure tradeoffs), quick-response vs. standard-response (RTI, the area-of-operation credit, and the QR/EC listing interaction), pendent/upright vs. sidewall, and the pressure-vs-pipe-size design lever — worked through a complete applied case study for a light-hazard tenant office suite.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on NFPA 13 antifreeze and cold-weather freeze-protection design for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — the governing 40°F / lowest-mean-one-day-temperature threshold, the current listed-solution-only antifreeze regime and the fire-testing history behind it, where antifreeze is (and is not) permitted, backflow-prevention and expansion-chamber/relief-valve sizing, heat tracing’s permitted and prohibited uses, the dry-sprinkler conduction-freeze trap, low-point drain design, and a full applied case study choosing and defending a freeze-protection strategy for an unheated loading dock.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout, covering the three NFPA 13 rule categories that most often survive a system acceptance test and only surface later as NFPA 25 ITM deficiency findings: obstructions to sprinkler discharge (the 18-in. rule and the continuous/noncontinuous distinction), spacing and clearance-to-storage errors (the 18-in./36-in. rules and why spacing figures are sprinkler-type-specific), and lateral sway-bracing errors (which piping requires it and the 40-ft/6-ft spacing limits) — worked through a full applied case study diagnosing three realistic redlined design errors and a pre-submission self-audit built from the same three categories.

A continuing education course on the current NFPA 13 (2022) edition’s key provisions and structure every designer should know — the reorganized chapter map, the Chapter 19 design-approach methods, the reorganized storage family (Chapters 20–26), component-rating and identification floors, valve/waterflow-alarm/hanger discipline, the hydraulic-calculation and plans documentation package, the hazard-classification framework, and the full acceptance-testing package — applied to a legacy sprinkler system update case study.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on dry pipe, preaction, and deluge sprinkler systems per NFPA 13 for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — the dry pipe valve’s pressure-differential principle, the water-delivery-time table and manifold test connection, noninterlock/single-interlock/double-interlock preaction and their system-size and supervision limits, deluge systems for rapid fire growth, the 30 percent area-of-operation increase, valve-room and low-point-drain requirements, and an applied case study selecting a system for a deep-freeze storage room and a data center.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on fire pump selection per NFPA 20 for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — pump types and suction condition, reading a certified pump curve against the churn/rated/overload governing points, net positive suction head, suction-side hydraulics, discharge-side component and relief-valve verification, electric and diesel controller behavior, pressure-maintenance (jockey) pumps, and field acceptance testing, worked through a complete fire-pump-selection case study contrasting diesel versus electric/VFD implications.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout: the ceiling-only-vs-in-rack decision for high-piled and rack storage per NFPA 13 — commodity and rack classification, how CMDA, CMSA, and ESFR express their design requirements differently, when in-rack sprinklers are required and when ESFR's ceiling-only exemption applies, the full ESFR eligibility gate (rack configuration, piping system, clearance, deflector position, draft curtains), in-rack sizing, the secondary design scope that shifts with the chosen technology, and the real cost/reliability/flexibility tradeoff — worked through a complete two-bay rack-storage warehouse case study.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on NFPA 13 sprinkler hydraulic calculations for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — the fire-science basis for the density/area method, identifying the hydraulically most remote design area, selecting and shaping the density/area demand, applying the Hazen-Williams friction loss, velocity/normal pressure, and elevation formulas, adding the hose stream allowance, reading a hydraulic calculation graph sheet, and diagnosing and resolving a failed pressure check with the correct design lever, worked through a complete warehouse case study.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on NFPA 13 renovation and tenant-improvement (TI) design for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — establishing an existing system's real design basis (pipe-schedule vs. hydraulically calculated) when documentation is missing, the reverification duty triggered by adding sprinklers or modifying piping, the distinct existing-systems density/area curve, the hydraulic penalty of an occupancy/hazard-classification change and its narrow small-room exception, the obstruction rule when a ceiling changes, the modification-specific acceptance-testing rule, and a full applied case study evaluating an existing system of unknown pipe schedule for a tenant improvement.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on residential sprinkler design per NFPA 13D and NFPA 13R for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — which standard applies by building type and height, the shared design-density floor and listed-flow override, the design-sprinkler-count cap (2 vs. 4), positioning and spray-pattern requirements, water-supply sources and duration (10/7 minutes vs. 30 minutes), domestic demand, the fire department connection, and garage/attic protection — worked through a complete case study that designs a 13D single-family home and then carries the same compartment into a 13R low-rise apartment building.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on NFPA 13 seismic protection of sprinkler piping for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — the seismic design force F_p = C_p × W_p (including the optional height-factor reduction), zone of influence, lateral and longitudinal sway-brace spacing and load checks, four-way riser bracing, brace-angle load-rating reduction, tension/compression and structural-attachment design fundamentals, brace fastening rules, flexible couplings and seismic separation assemblies, clearance at penetrations, restraint of branch lines, and the separate seismic-fastener requirements for ordinary gravity hangers and pipe stands — worked through a complete case study that braces a mechanical-level cross main.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on NFPA 13 storage commodity classification for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — determining Class I through IV, the Group A/B/C plastics tiers, the cartoned/exposed and expanded/nonexpanded thresholds, encapsulation, the solid-unit-load density credit, plastic-pallet reclassification, special commodities carved outside the general ladder, the worst-case-governs and small-quantity-exception rules for mixed commodities, storage-arrangement dependence, translating classification into the correct NFPA 13 density/area design basis, and the in-rack sprinkler mandatory trigger as the downstream protection consequence of classification — worked through a complete mixed-commodity warehouse case study.

A 1.0-contact-hour continuing education course on private fire service main design, grounded in NFPA 13's own underground-piping chapter (extracted from NFPA 24) plus NFPA 291 flow-test terminology and Fire Protection Handbook design rationale: materials and joints, bury depth, protection beneath buildings, thrust restraint, backflow prevention and its hydraulic effect, acceptance testing, and a full applied case study choosing between a looped and a dead-end layout.

A 2.0-contact-hour continuing education course on water-supply analysis for designers who have already passed NICET Water-Based Systems Layout — analyzing a hydrant flow test per NFPA 291 (static/residual/flow, the pitot discharge formula and coefficients, extrapolating a test to a desired residual pressure, reading the water-supply graph, applying an honest safety margin), evaluating NFPA 22 water-storage tanks (gravity, suction, pressure, and break tanks, usable-capacity boundaries, and break-tank refill-credit sizing), and reaching a documented adequacy judgment through a complete applied case study.