iPad for Fire Inspections

[treycash]

Hello,

My small county office is in the process of looking into purchasing iPads for fire inspections. Is anyone using an iPad or an tablet now? If so what kind of apps are you using to document inspections? Any other information would be great help. Note: We are currently using inspection-solutions.com for our record keeping.

 

[cda]

have you checked with insp sol to see if they have anything that works on the IPAD?

I know some use "Firehouse" for ipads, because the dept uses Firehouse for other department related documentation.

I hear good and bad about firehouse, more on the bad side

I do not like checklist inspections, I would rather write the violation.

 

[jpranch]

I have a new Ipad Air. I have all the codes on it and that comes in very handy. I have to get some billing information straightened out to purchase some app's I need. For documents I'm using Dropbox to access my doc's in the field and meeting room. Love the Ipad!

 

[Tomskili]

My company has been using the iPad for a couple of years now and works great. One of our guys is a little tech savy and was able to create our own fillable PDF forms for pretty much any form from wet, dry, pre-action and any thing else. Unfortunately you have to have a PC or something to create the forms but with the PDF expert app for Apple you can fill and even capture the signatures. Drop box allows for easy access to the main hub for us and even communication between inspectors. Right now we only use it for the waterbased inspection but will be using it for all fire alarm and special hazard inspections as well. And like jpranch you can have the codes easy at hand also in PDF form which makes referencing very easy. Most you can search and some of the standards allow clicking the exact code referenced in the index to take you straight to the code. Also, it looks a little more professional to be able to pull out an iPad to reference codes, or have them sign, and then email a neat clean copy of the report within a few minutes.

 

[TheCommish]

make sure your get a buggy bumper case for the iPad any little drop will kill it

 

[treycash]

My company has been using the iPad for a couple of years now and works great. One of our guys is a little tech savy and was able to create our own fillable PDF forms for pretty much any form from wet, dry, pre-action and any thing else. Unfortunately you have to have a PC or something to create the forms but with the PDF expert app for Apple you can fill and even capture the signatures. Drop box allows for easy access to the main hub for us and even communication between inspectors. Right now we only use it for the waterbased inspection but will be using it for all fire alarm and special hazard inspections as well. And like jpranch you can have the codes easy at hand also in PDF form which makes referencing very easy. Most you can search and some of the standards allow clicking the exact code referenced in the index to take you straight to the code. Also, it looks a little more professional to be able to pull out an iPad to reference codes, or have them sign, and then email a neat clean copy of the report within a few minutes.

How did you get the codes on your ipad? Did you purchase them like a e-book?

 

[cda]

they are just a click away click away, with internet access

May need to add admendments if you have them

http://publicecodes.cyberregs.com/

http://publicecodes.cyberregs.com/icod/index.htm

 

[Tomskili]

How did you get the codes on your ipad? Did you purchase them like a e-book?

You can buy electronic copies. My boss was the one that got them for us so I don't know where he got them.

 

[cda]

If you just want IFC $ 79 - 99

http://shop.iccsafe.org/codes/2009-international-codes/2009-international-fire-code/2009-international-fire-code.html

 

[FM William Burns]

I had to go to a iPad after my Pocket PC began not charging batteries. Oh well been using it for about a year. I use iAuditor for all my inspection forms $5.00 a month. I also have all the codes I need in (pdf) on the device I also use Dropbox.

Since I believe in paying it forward.............Here is an exceptional CAD Ap for ya (Pad Cad) it does great job in the field and exports in (pdf or dwg) as needed.