For fire sprinkler subcontractors
Fire sprinkler software for commercial subs — hydraulic calc to final inspection.
Your job starts with weeks of hydraulic calculations and a permit set that an authority has to approve, and it ends with three inspections you do not control. In between, mains, branch lines and drops are three different crews, and your trim crew cannot start until the ceiling grid is in. SubMark tracks the engineering, the install and the inspections on the same job, and bills all three against one schedule of values.
14-day free trial, no card needed. Sign up from here and fire sprinkler is already selected when you pick your trade. See pricing →
- Design and permit effort billed as its own line
- Rough, hydro and final on a dated daily log
- Impairment and fire watch logged as extras
What actually goes wrong on a commercial fire sprinkler job.
You spend weeks on engineering before you can bill a dollar.
Hydraulic calculations, a flow test, a permit set and a deferred submittal to the authority having jurisdiction — that is real engineering labor, often paid to a designer, spent before a pipe is threaded. If your schedule of values has no design-and-permit line, that work is uncompensated until installation starts, which can be months. Carry it as its own line and the first draw can cover the work you actually did first.
Every phase is gated behind an inspection you do not schedule.
Rough inspection before the ceilings close. Hydro test before trim. Final before occupancy. Each one unlocks a piece of your draw, each one sits on an inspector’s calendar, and missing one by a day can push a whole month’s draw into the next one. Logging each inspection on the daily log the day it happens, next to the date each GC cuts off billing, is how a month stops disappearing.
Your drops wait on the ceiling, so your trim crew chases other trades.
Heads cannot be set to final elevation until the grid is in and the tile layout is fixed, and the grid moves. So the trim crew works a floor, gets stopped, comes back, and the last 15% of your contract turns into a series of short visits you never bid. Logging each return trip on the daily log as it happens — and as a change event when it is somebody else’s grid that moved — is what turns a pattern into something you can price.
Impairment and fire watch are always extra and rarely documented.
Tie into a live system in an occupied building and somebody has to take the system out of service, run a fire watch and put it back. That is hours, often after-hours, usually requested verbally by a superintendent who needs it done tonight. A T&M tag priced off your own rate list and e-signed by that superintendent before he leaves is the difference between billing it and absorbing it.
Before you mobilize
The 4 things fire sprinkler subs settle with the GC before mobilizing.
What is approved, where your scope stops, what has to be true before you start, and how you get at the work. Every one of them turns into a change order three weeks in if nobody writes the answer down — and the answer is worth nothing if it only lives in one PM’s inbox.
In the pack
Switch on Pre-Construction Review and these 4 questions are already the list, worded the way fire sprinkler subs ask them.
- Confirm the approved hydraulic calculations and shop drawings
- Confirm the point of connection, flow test and backflow requirements
- Confirm the ceiling and head layout coordination with the other trades
- Confirm the inspection, testing and AHJ sign-off sequence
Tick them off job by job, with your own note on each. The note is your answer — the pack ships the question and leaves the answer to you.
Pre-Construction Review is an opt-in module — it is not one of the eight switched on at setup. Turn it on in Settings and the list is already there in fire sprinkler terms, with no upgrade and no setup call. Edit it once and it applies to every job; the tick and the note stay with the job it was asked on. See every module →
The fire sprinkler job, phase by phase.
Design, underground, mains, branch, drops and three inspections — each one a gate on the next. Here is how the work maps to what ships in SubMark.
- 01 Bid & estimate
Takeoff off the FP-sheets, head counts by hazard classification, pipe by size, riser and pump requirements.
Bid Board, Plans & Drawings, Takeoff, Estimating & Proposals
- 02 Hydraulic design & permit
Flow test, hydraulic calculations, a stamped permit set and the deferred submittal to the AHJ.
Submittals with merged PDF export, Job Costing for the job’s labor and material
- 03 Underground & fire service
Fire service lead-in, thrust blocks, post indicator valve and the underground flush and test.
Daily Labor Logs with photos, Change Events for anything in the trench
- 04 Riser & mains
Riser assembly, valves, fire department connection and mains run through the building.
Purchase Orders, Invoices Inbox, Time Clock & Labor Logs
- 05 Branch lines
Branch piping, hangers and sway bracing, armovers roughed to the approved ceiling layout.
Job Costing for the job’s labor and material, Crew Scheduling
- 06 Drops & rough inspection
Drops set, then the rough inspection before the ceilings close in.
Daily Labor Logs as the dated record of the rough inspection, Change Events
- 07 Hydro test
Pressure test held and witnessed, then signed off — the gate on everything after it.
Daily Labor Logs as the dated record of the test, Schedule of Values & Draw Log
- 08 Trim & heads
Heads trimmed to final elevation and escutcheons set, chasing the ceiling grid zone by zone.
Where Workers Are, Crew Scheduling, Change Events for every return trip
- 09 Final inspection & closeout
AHJ final, contractor material and test certificates, as-builts, O&M and the retainage release.
Submittals, Schedule of Values & Draw Log, Lien Waiver Tracking
Every module named above ships today; the eight below are on from day one, and the rest are a switch in Settings, not an upgrade. The full list is on the product page.
In the pack
These 9 phases load with the Fire Sprinkler pack the moment you pick it at setup.
They are the phase list your foremen pick from on every daily log, so the hours come back tagged to the part of the job they were spent on.
- 01 Permit / Hydraulic
- 02 Underground
- 03 Mains
- 04 Branch Lines
- 05 Drops
- 06 Rough Inspection
- 07 Trim / Heads
- 08 Hydro Test
- 09 Final
Rename, reorder or delete any of them in Settings — the pack is a starting point, not a cage.
A fire sprinkler schedule of values that bills the engineering too.
Fire protection is the one trade where a serious chunk of the work happens at a desk before anyone goes to site, and most SOVs have nowhere to put it. These are the kinds of lines a commercial fire sprinkler SOV usually needs:
In the pack
Open the SOV builder on a new job and these 5 lines are already in it.
- Material 30%
- Underground / Mains 25%
- Branch / Rough 25%
- Trim / Heads 15%
- Test / Final 5%
What most commercial fire sprinkler subs add
- 01 Hydraulic design, calcs & permit billable before install
- 02 Submittals & material approval
- 03 Pipe & fittings — material stored-material line
- 04 Sprinkler heads & specialties — material stored-material line
- 05 Underground fire service
- 06 Riser assembly & FDC
- 07 Mains
- 08 Branch lines — Level 1
- 09 Branch lines — Level 2
- 10 Drops & armovers
- 11 Hangers & sway bracing
- 12 Trim & head install
- 13 Hydro test & inspections
- 14 As-builts, certificates & closeout
The design-and-permit line matters more here than in almost any other trade, because it is the only line that is fully earned before mobilization. Everything after it should be broken far enough down that a failed hydro test holds up one line, not your whole draw.
That longer list is an illustration, not a template — your SOV is negotiated with your GC. SubMark gives you the SOV to build, and tracks every draw, retainage amount and payment against it. It is your record of the job, not a replacement for the GC’s billing system — you submit the draw the way each GC requires and log it here.
Read next
Schedule of values for subcontractors: how to build one that bills clean
How to break out line items so design and permit effort is billable before mobilization, and so one failed inspection does not stall an entire draw.
T&M tickets in commercial construction: getting signed, and getting paid
Impairment, fire watch and after-hours tie-ins are almost always T&M — what belongs on the ticket, and how a month of signed tags becomes one change order.
Inside SubMark
One calendar for every crew on every job.
A mains crew, two branch crews and a trim crew chasing the ceiling grid across four jobs. SubMark schedules every worker in one calendar and flags the conflict before the inspection date.
On from day one, in every trade’s setup.
Nothing is paywalled by tier. These eight are switched on in every one of the 29 trade packs, fire sprinkler included, from the moment you finish setup.
T&M Tags
Field tickets priced off your own rate lists and signed by the GC on the spot.
Change Events
The field logs a scope change with photos the day it happens, then it converts to a CO.
Draw Calendar
Every GC’s billing cutoff and submission method in one calendar, with reminders.
Submittals
Submittal packages with a material library, cover sheets and merged PDF export.
Daily Labor Logs
Weather, narrative, labor, materials and photos, with a submit-and-review workflow.
Timesheets
Weekly rollups with worker signatures and supervisor approval, plus a payroll summary export.
Where Workers Are
A live view of which workers are on which job today.
Safety
Toolbox talks, inspections, incidents, and certification and COI tracking with expiry dates.
Pick Fire Sprinkler at setup and SubMark loads the fire sprinkler pack: the real phase list from permit and hydraulic calc through underground, mains, branch lines, drops, rough inspection, hydro test, trim and final; a material list built around pipe, heads, hangers, valves, riser assemblies and flexible drops; and zone as the unit of work once you switch Zone Tracking on. Anything the pack gets wrong, you change in Settings.
The worker types are already there too — Foreman, Fitter and Apprentice — on every worker record and on every daily labor log. The only thing left to enter is your own rates.
Questions
Fire Sprinkler subcontractors ask us these.
Does SubMark do hydraulic calculations or sprinkler layout?
No, and it should not pretend to. Hydraulic calculation and layout belong in your design software, and the output belongs to a licensed designer. SubMark is the business system around that work: the hours spent on design costed to the job, the permit set and submittals tracked through approval, and the design-and-permit line billed on your schedule of values.
Where do the rough, hydro and final inspections get recorded?
On the daily log for the day each one happens, with the narrative, the crew and photos, through a submit-and-review workflow — so it is a dated record rather than a date in somebody’s head. Put that next to the draw calendar, which holds every GC’s billing cutoff, and you can see which inspection has to happen this week for this month’s draw to go out. If you want each zone to carry its own status as well, Zone Tracking is a switch in Settings.
How do we bill an after-hours tie-in and fire watch?
As a T&M tag. You set up your own rate lists — fitter, foreman, apprentice, overtime, truck, equipment — so the office prices the tag off them, and the superintendent who asked for the work e-signs it on site before he leaves. Bundle a month of those tags into one change order rather than arguing about each ticket separately.
Does it track fitter licenses and certifications?
It tracks the certifications your people hold and when they expire, along with COIs, and warns you before anything lapses. It is a tracker — it does not renew a license or file anything with a state board or an AHJ for you.
How do draws work if every GC wants them a different way?
You keep submitting the way each one asks. SubMark holds one schedule of values per job — hydraulic design and permit, underground fire service, riser and FDC, mains, branch lines, drops, trim and head install, hydro test — and logs every draw you submit against it, with retainage held and the payment date. Put that next to the draw calendar and you can see which test has to land before this month’s draw goes out.
Do my field crews cost extra?
No. Field users are free and unlimited, and so are the subs you invite into a job. You pay one company subscription: $249 a month with your first 3 office users included, then $39 a month each. The whole breakdown is on the pricing page.
See it on a fire sprinkler job.
Start the trial, confirm fire sprinkler on the first screen, and the pack loads your phases, checklists and worker types in your own words. Or take a 30-minute walkthrough with the person who built it, on your kind of jobs, instead of a canned demo script.
14-day free trial, no card needed. See the whole product →
$249/mo for your company, your first 3 office users included, $39/mo each after that. Field crews are free and unlimited. See what's included →
Other trades
Electrical
Gear you pay for months before you bill it, rough-in hours that disappear, and every tenant change landing on your scope.
HVAC / Mechanical
Equipment bought a year before it is billed, shop fab the GC will not pay for, and a closeout that holds your last 10% for six months.
Plumbing
First in the ground and last out of the building — with a quarter of the contract value stuck behind the finish trades.
Drywall & Framing
A third to half the contract spent on board before anything is hung, five finish passes nobody can measure, and three punch walks and a clean-up that are all on you.
Concrete
Pour days that cannot move, ready-mix invoices you reconcile weeks later, and forms that are capital cycling across placements.
Glazing & Glass
Custom material you cannot order until you field measure, cannot return once you do, and cannot bill until a water test passes.
Roofing
A tear-off that owns the building until dry-in, rotten deck nobody bid, and a warranty package standing between you and retainage.
Low voltage
Drop counts that move with every furniture plan, cable sitting in a locked IDF for months, and a final 10% that waits on a test report.
Fire alarm
A quarter of the contract behind an acceptance test you do not schedule, retests you never bill, and device counts that move all year.
Painting
The last trade on the schedule, four return trips for other people’s damage, and prep bid against a wall nobody left you.
Flooring
A slab that fails its moisture test, prep bid against a flatness spec nobody hit, and a whole building’s material stored for months.
Masonry
Scaffold that is capital, grout lifts gated by an inspector, and a mock-up panel holding up the whole brick order.
Structural & Misc Steel
Two thirds of the contract is detailing, mill material and shop work, earned before a single piece is erected, and the last five percent is a handrail holding your retainage.
Wood Framing
Fourteen buildings billed as one percentage, a lumber package that is 40% of the contract before a wall goes up, and blocking you owe six other trades that nobody drew.
Excavation & Sitework
The only schedule of values on this site that opens without a single line for product you buy: your contract is production, billed against quantities somebody else surveyed.
Waterproofing
Work that is buried within a week of going in, blamed for every drop of water for the next ten years, and finished with sealants months after everyone forgot you were on the job.
Doors, Frames & Hardware
Half the contract is product you buy months early, and the last three openings out of four hundred hold your punch, your final draw and your retainage.
Demolition
A scope nobody can see until you open the wall, extra work that leaves in the dumpster before anyone prices it, and retainage held for a year after you demobilized.
Insulation
A four-day window between rough-in inspection and board that nobody protects, half the contract sitting in material you staged weeks early, and firestopping everyone assumed was yours.
EIFS / Stucco / Plaster
A schedule set by cure time that nobody believes, a weather barrier you bury on day two and get blamed for in year three, and joints drawn by somebody else that crack on your wall.
Acoustical Ceilings (ACT)
Grid that cannot start until every trade above the ceiling is finished, tile that drops in the last three weeks of a two-year job, and a finished ceiling the whole building then uses as an access hatch.
Paving & Asphalt
Material with a clock on it and a crew on the clock whether you place or not, a subgrade somebody else owns, and six months of construction traffic on the binder course you have to warrant.
Tile & Stone
A finished floor installed on somebody else’s slab, to a flatness tolerance the concrete sub was never asked to hit, with waterproofing and movement joints that belong to nobody until the warranty call comes.
Millwork & Casework
Half your contract earned in your own shop before anything reaches the site, built to a drawing of walls somebody else framed, with the furnish-and-install line drawn in a meeting you were not in.
All trades
SubMark ships a setup pack for 29 commercial trades. See the full list.