Licensed in TXPE · TX

Fire protection design in Texas.

Texas is Rush's largest out-of-state market, and most of that work comes from sprinkler contractors who need an engineer's seal and calculations they can defend, on a schedule that matches a Texas bid calendar rather than a big firm's queue.

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What licensure means here

Matthew Rush holds an active Texas professional engineer license. A Texas PE seal is accepted statewide, in delegated jurisdictions and at the State Fire Marshal's Office alike.

What’s building in Texas

Distribution and data center construction lead the state, with petrochemical and energy work along the Gulf Coast and semiconductor and advanced manufacturing around Austin. All four are hazard-driven designs well beyond a routine light hazard layout.

8 markets

Where we work in Texas, and what it takes.

Every market builds something different, and the fire protection design follows the building. Here’s what we see most often across Texas.

Dallas-Fort Worth

North Texas

One of the largest industrial markets in the country, and the source of most Texas volume: bulk distribution, cold storage, and a heavy data center pipeline. Warehouse work lives and dies on commodity classification and rack configuration. ESFR versus in-rack is a multi-million-dollar difference on a large building. Data centers pull in double-interlock pre-action over white space alongside conventional wet systems everywhere else, and the two have to coordinate cleanly.

ESFR & in-rack
Cold storage
Pre-action / data center
Fire pumps

Houston

Harris County & the Gulf Coast

Industrial and energy construction with flammable and combustible liquids in play, which puts NFPA 30 and foam systems on the table far more often than in other markets, and those are the designs where getting the protection scheme right at concept stage saves the entire budget. Houston also holds enormous healthcare and institutional construction, and the city runs its own plan review and permitting.

NFPA 30
Foam & deluge
Industrial process
Healthcare

Austin

Central Texas

Semiconductor and advanced manufacturing campuses, tech office, and high-rise residential. Fab and cleanroom construction is a specialist problem: hazardous production materials, control area limits, exhausted enclosures, and suppression that has to protect equipment without ruining it. High-rise residential brings standpipe design and pressure-zone planning into the sprinkler package.

Cleanroom & HPM
Control areas
High-rise standpipe
Tech campus

San Antonio

Bexar County

Federal installations, healthcare, and distribution. Military and federal aviation work carries Unified Facilities Criteria on top of NFPA, which Rush designs to, and the aviation side brings NFPA 409 hangar classification with it, where the difference between overhead-only protection and full foam-water deluge is decided by the group determination.

UFC military criteria
NFPA 409 hangars
Healthcare
Distribution

El Paso

West Texas

Cross-border logistics and manufacturing warehousing at scale, plus federal work. High-piled storage dominates, and the water supply in outlying industrial parks is frequently the limiting factor. Tanks and pumps are routine here, and they belong in the design from the first sketch instead of after a failed calculation.

High-piled storage
Tanks & pumps
Federal work
Manufacturing

Waco, Temple & Killeen

I-35 corridor

The corridor between Dallas and Austin is absorbing distribution and manufacturing that outgrew both metros, alongside expanding healthcare and federal installation work. Jurisdictions here are smaller and more likely to route plans to the State Fire Marshal's Office, which means a different submittal package and a different timeline than a big-city permit.

Distribution
SFMO submittal
Healthcare
Federal work

Lubbock & Amarillo

Texas Panhandle & South Plains

Agricultural processing, cold storage, healthcare, and university construction. Water supply is the constant constraint. Municipal capacity in these markets often can't carry a storage building's demand, so tank-and-pump arrangements and careful demand management are the normal answer here.

Ag processing
Cold storage
Water supply analysis
University

Corpus Christi & the Coastal Bend

South Texas

Energy export, port, and industrial construction. Flammable liquid storage and process areas mean NFPA 30, foam systems, and deluge protection, frequently under a carrier's standards in addition to the code. Coastal environments also make material and corrosion decisions part of the design from the start.

NFPA 30
Foam systems
Port & industrial
Corrosion considerations

Code & review

How Texas projects get reviewed.

The design is only half the job. Knowing who reviews it, against which adopted edition, and what the submittal has to contain is what keeps a project on schedule.

General guidance, current as of 2026. Requirements change and local amendments vary. Confirm the governing authority for your specific project.

01
Licensing runs through the State Fire Marshal at TDI
The State Fire Marshal's Office, inside the Texas Department of Insurance, licenses fire sprinkler contractors and Responsible Managing Employees and adopts NFPA 13, 13R, 13D, and 25 by reference under 28 TAC Chapter 34. Installation stays with a licensed Texas sprinkler contractor; Rush provides the engineered design, calculations, and seal behind it.
02
Who reviews your plans depends on where you build
Commercial sprinkler plans are reviewed either by the SFMO in Austin or by a local authority that handles its own review, which the major metros generally do. Which one applies changes the submittal package, the fee structure, and the review timeline, so it's worth settling before drawings are packaged.
03
Scale changes the water supply question
Texas builds big, and big buildings outrun municipal supply faster than most people expect. Bulk distribution, cold storage, and data centers routinely need a fire pump, a storage tank, or both. Establishing the available supply against the demand the storage arrangement actually creates is the design decision that determines whether the rest of the project is straightforward or painful.

What we design here

The full scope of Rush services is available on Texas projects:

Other licensed states

Projects that cross state lines get one engineer and one set of design logic on both sides.

Start a project

Have a Texas project that needs a fire protection design?

Send drawings, a scope, or a deadline, and reach the engineer directly. You'll get a straight answer on timeline and fit.