Rediculous IMO....£360 for 3 hours worth of plugging in a flamin laptop!
Oh, how I hate this forum sometimes. I've just typed a reply to your post, and watched it disappear as I mis-keyed, deleting the lot, rather than the one letter I wanted to.
However, it's probably well that I try to respond with brevity.
I did start off by pointing out what a commissioning visit should cover, and why it costs the way it does. I think, in the end I will put it in a new thread presently, as it was quite long.
For the moment though, £120 an hour for commissioning on a closed licence system is not expensive at all when you consider all the factors that go into making up that rate, such as development of the protocol, the knowledge that had to be trained into the guy wielding the laptop, not just of the program he's using, but also of the wider fire standards, and laws. Getting him there.
The key thing is that the DESIGNER, should have made the end customer (your customer I guess) aware that these costs were part of the cost of having that system, because of the nature of the protocol it runs on.
The key difference is that open licence manufacturers tend to design the protocol in line with the standards, to do what their devices should. BUT. They then pass on the responsibility for the rest of it to you. This method passes on all responsibility for correctness of design, suitability for application, correct operation, and more to you.
Most closed licence manufacturers retain that responsibility - and in effect, would let you off the hook if it came to court.
I wanted to say that whilst in many ways fire commissioning isn't at all unlike signing off on an EIR or PIR, there are differences.
Electrical systems have designed in safety, such as fuses, breakers, RCDs, isolators, and overload protections, which ensure in most cases that the worst that can happen is a loss of service.
Fire has no such fail-safes. The fire system ends up being the very last line before death is the most likely outcome, rather than just a minimal risk factor.
That's why closed protocol manufacturers need to ensure they cover the cost of knowing that any system out there using their kit is 100% right in the field. Without that certainty, and the costs it bears for development, commissioning and so forth, it is THEM in court when someone dies, and not you.
Open licence manufacturers take the view that you had the ability and competence to take on that responsibility yourself, and the end result is that YOU end up in court if it all goes barbeque.
In that sense, using a licenced system can be an insurance as much as anything - similar to employing a design engineer to sign off on the design of a large electrical system.
Mostly, commissioning fees are set at a rate they are, because there are massive development costs to recover, as well as intensive training for the guys who do the commissioning (as I say not just in the system, but in knowing how to make it comply fully with the law, standards, and other legislation), and the cost of making sure that it all stays relevant, and available.
I'll try to make a better job of my points a little later.
