Anybody registered with CFAA? Debating whether we should register, and what is involved.

Sandro, What is CFAA?
Bill

Bill: It is the "Canadian Fire Alarm Association"

http://www.cfaa.ca/AN-EFFECTIVE-FIRE-ALARM-SYSTEM-SAVES-LIVES.html

I was wondering if any cdn electricians on the forum were certified to verify fire alarms. If so, what are the requirements to be certified.

I am certified with the CFAA.

Its not a difficult course to take if you have your electronics down pat. The course is offered as a correspondance course (all except for the Electrical portions, which you can apply for excemption from provided you already have your electricians C of Q). You can only apply for the correspondance course if you're working with someone who already has their CFAA certification. And you have to have a minumim of one year experience working with fire alarm systems.

The requirements for providing varifications are getting strickter all tht time, on many fire alarm systems, you have to have factory training to qualify to provide the varifications. Thats on top of your correspondance course.

The need for varification is growing rapidly, so there is financial motive. but most electricians I talk to don't want to take the time.

Hope this helps.

I am CFAA certified, as mentioned earlier in the post it is a very easy certification to get. My personal opinion is that unless you get the opportunity to work on lots of fire alarm systems with extremely experienced people it does not give enough knowledge to properly understand all the rules and regulations. The CFAA course also does not have any practical labs or troubleshooting tests. I completed the CFAA course without owning a copy of the building code, fire code, or standards for installing or testing fire alarm systems.
I decided to enroll in the ECAO fire alarm certification. This course was four semesters long, we studied all the codes, and did labs with many different panels. The knowledge gained from this course truly enhanced my ability to install, verify, test and troubleshoot Fire Alarm systems. It is also a requirement that you take an update course every five years. You can get more info at http://www.ecao.org/visitors/fap/fap.htm