Simmons Fire Systems

I am not sure what Donna T. is talking about but Rick has always provided stellar service. I have used him on several of my remodels as well as recommended him to numerous clients when a sprinkler system is needed. I, as a home designer in the Bay area, have a reputation to uphold when I refer someone and I would never refer anyone who is not on the top of their game.
Recently on a project in Burlingame I had a project that was extremely difficult with an old portion of the home connecting a substantial new addition. The city required a sprinkler system so I called on Rick to design and install the fire sprinkler system. The project went so smoothly that the client called me a thanked me for the recommendation. Once again Rick did a great job.
Unfortunately, for Donna T. sounds like a mistake was made when gas heaters were probably installed after the fact to close to a sprinkler head and that set of the sprinkler system. There is always two sides to the story and unfortunately she has made a case that deserves a response.

I really hate giving one star reviews and I only do it when companies screw up then ignore the problem for so long that I have nothing else to do but sit and seethe and stew over it. This is what happened with Simmons Fire Systems.
We were enjoying a cool summer evening on our back patio when our outdoor ceiling mounted gas heater set off the fire sprinkler. It was a horrific mess of water and noise as the alarm sounded and all of our neighbors gathered in the street in front of our house. We had no idea how to stop it and had to call the fire department to get everything turned off. The fire department should have been automatically notified when the alarm sounded but a fault in the wiring kept this crucial step from happening. I told Rick Simmons about it right away and it took several months for the problem to get fixed. He replaced the sprinklers on the back patio with commercial grade heads that allow for a higher temperature before detonating. We had to pay for the new heads even though the heads he installed were not suited to be on a patio with ceiling mounted gas heaters (something he knew we were installing) However, if the heads weren’t the wrong ones, we’d never have known that the alarm wasn’t wired correctly to notify the fire department in the event of an emergency. Now we have the right heads and the wiring has been fixed but I’m still not 100% confident that all is right. That’s what happens when you shake a customer’s confidence.
Less of an issue (but still an annoyance) is that all of the sprinkler head covers inside the house were white even though Rick knew from the beginning that some of our ceilings would be stained dark brown. It took forever to get the white heads swapped out. Seriously, it took over a year! We were told that there were custom colors and requested some brown ones but ended up settling for black because that’s all he could eventually produce for us. Shocking that something so easy can be so casually screwed up and remain that way for so many months.
And here’s my final complaint: They installed all of the sprinklers in the ceiling while the house was in framing and they should have known that light fixtures typically go in the CENTER of the rooms and down the CENTER of the hallways so they should have kept their sprinklers away from that area since code doesn’t allow the sprinkler and light fixture to be right on top of each other. My electrician was surprised that the sprinkler installer put so many of his heads every place the homeowner would want to put a ceiling can light or light fixture.
There are plenty of other business that do this type of work so save yourself some grief and find one that offers better quality of work and a better response time when problems arise.