Fire Stopping
Fire Stopping
Fire compartmentation including fire stopping is a legal requirement under the fire safety Order 2005 and works in conjunction with risk factors such as,
building construction, occupancy type, travel distances, building regulations, protecting escape routes, number of floors and protected staircases .
Fire stopping is best defined as the sealing of any openings to prevent fire (including smoke and heat) from passing through multiple building compartments. The spread of a fire is contained by creating fire resisting compartments, which subdivide the building (vertically and horizontally).
Building structures must ensure that any openings and gaps are fire stopped to restrict both lateral and vertical fire spread.
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The Definition of Fire Stopping
A fire-stop is a fire protection system made of various components used to seal openings and joints in fire-resistance rated wall or floor assemblies. For penetrating cables, these can also be called Multi Cable Transits (MCTs). Fire-stops are designed to restore the continuous fire-resistance of wall or floor assemblies, impeding the spread of fire by filling the openings in them with fire-resistant materials.
A fire-stop or fire-stopping is a form of passive fire protection that is used to seal around openings and between joints in a fire-resistance-rated wall or floor assembly. Fire-stops are designed to maintain the fireproofing of a wall or floor assembly allowing it to impede the spread of fire and smoke.
Fire-stops prevent unprotected horizontal and vertical penetrations in a fire-resistance-rated wall or floor assembly from creating a route by which fire and smoke can spread that would otherwise have been fire resisting construction, e.g. where a pipe passes through a firewall.
Fire stopping is also to seal around gaps between fire resisting constructions, e.g. the linear gap between a wall and the floor above, in order for construction to form a complete barrier to fire and smoke spread.
Ultimately the selection and correct installation of a fire stop can potentially save people’s lives. It is therefore a decision that should involve qualified parties to ensure effective fire stopping solutions are specified. All buildings are different, and it is important to consider, not just the product you require, but also the environment and situation into which it is being installed. Each construction situation can be different, so simply using the same fire-stop you have used on a previous build may not be the answer.
With the huge range of fire protection products that are now required by building regulations, it can be difficult to understand which ones you need. The simple answer is, all of them. A functional fire-stop system is only made when a combination of products are all working together. Without the use of one single product, the rest of the fireproofing system could fail.
High Quality Fire Stop Specialists
Every ‘service’ passing through fire resistant building elements will react in a different way during a fire, so there is no single solution or product that will protect all services.
To ensure a wall or partition will provide the required fire performance, specifiers should consider:
- Electrical, mechanical, and structural penetrations.
- Un-penetrated openings (such as openings for future use).
- Re-entries of existing fire-stops.
- Control or sway joints in fire-resistance-rated wall or floor assemblies.
- Junctions between fire-resistance-rated wall or floor assemblies.
- Head-of-wall (HOW) joints, where non-load-bearing wall assemblies meet floor assemblies.
Services must be tested in accordance with the test methods set out in appropriate standards. Tests are carried out in accordance with the general principles of BS 476: Part 20: 1987 or BS EN 1366-3: 2004 and BS EN 1366-4: 2006.
General Information of Fire Stopping
We work in partnership with our clients, architects, contractors and building inspectors to ensure that we provide appropriate, cost-effective, fully designed and engineered fire stopping systems, tailored to each building.
We install both vertical and horizontal fire-stops through floors and walls, and these are primarily used to seal penetrations, formed for the passage of services such as drainage, pipes, cables etc.
Our systems range from simple joint and gap sealing to more complex movement or expansion joints. We also provide systems for the protection of mechanical and electrical services penetrating through walls and floors, with structural and load bearing options available for service risers and shafts.
We actively involve fire-stopping manufacturers in Quality Assurance procedures and training, to ensure site-specific systems are designed and installed within the scope of relevant fire tests. All fire stopping systems are fully accredited and comply with the specified fire strategy and Part B building regulations.
As part of our commitment to achieving the highest possible safety standards at all our customers sites, we have in-house technical compliance auditors, who monitor and report on our installation work. These internal audits are over and above those provided by the certification bodies, giving you greater peace of mind about passive fire protection compliance at your premises.
We not only provide cost effect, price sensitive products and services but we also include our fire safety consultancy department, which has in depth knowledge and practical experience in dealing with real building fires and how these could rapidly spread and use their knowledge and experience to determine where fire compartments should be situated and then we carry out an audit to check these fire compartments are imperforate across the whole of these structures.