Counting sprinkler heads across every ceiling sheet: a fire protection takeoff, step by step

One legend per head type

Pendent, upright, sidewall and concealed heads are drawn differently, and the bid prices them differently. Teach each as its own Legend: pick it from the drawing's legend or draw a box around one on the sheet. Risers, valves and standpipe symbols are their own legends too. A legend is one symbol type; the count rolls up per legend across the set, so the export already separates what the estimate separates.

Count across the set, read it per sheet

Run the count and the engine sweeps every sheet for each legend. The By Page tab slices the same numbers by sheet, so the reflected ceiling plan for level 2 reads on its own; By coverage shows how much of the set has been swept, which is the question a reviewer asks before trusting a total.

Dense sheets: draw areas

A ceiling sheet with hundreds of heads can push a sweep to its cap. Use Draw area to count one zone, one riser's coverage or one alternate at a time; you can keep several areas, and counts made inside an area are recorded with that scope, so a zone-by-zone takeoff stays zone-by-zone in review and in the export.

Floors are floors

If a sweep hits its cap before covering everything, the legend shows ≥ N: at least N, a verified floor, never a total. Deepen the engine gear (Extra or Ultra) and re-run, or split the sheet with draw areas. A final takeoff export will not include a floor; a draft export carries it, clearly marked, if you need paper before review is done.

Review, then export

You accept or reject each legend's detections on the marked sheet. A tail of weak matches goes with one drag of the confidence threshold; a detail bubble the engine wandered into goes with a marquee or lasso. The takeoff PDF then lists each legend with its reviewed count, and it carries a fingerprint of the source set, so a count against a superseded revision is refused rather than rendered.

What this page shows, and does not

The steps above are the product's documented workflow. The worked figure on this site is a residential electrical sheet (see the first guide), not a sprinkler plan; when a fire protection set is cleared for publication, this page gets its own figure and says so here. The only measured timing we publish is the benchmark: one set, measured once.