Fire Stopping

[The Colonel]

Ladies and gents

A little help and guidance if you wouldn't mind. I am looking for some reasonably simple down to earth guidance on fire stopping, its standards and inspection periods etc.
Not just for myself but something that I can pass onto the Responsible Person for their use and guidance, also to convince them that they can't just get an aerosol can of foam to fill holes etc.

I am coming across increasing problems with lack of fire stopping and no ongoing inspection of existing stopping.

Had a recent experience where a premise that I was due to assess had a fire in an electrical control gear cabinet two days before my visit. Their L1 alarm system picked up the smoke from the fire but not at first in the room of origin. The initial pick up was in a room on the floor directly below the fire with a second detector operating in the room of origin afterwards. On examination the ducting taking the cables from the cabinet passes through the concrete floor without any fire stopping. that was the start of a fire stopping nightmare in a 7 storey building.

Any info that I could access would be most welcome as googling is doing me no good.

[Tom W]

I would give the people at the ASFP a call. They will be able to provide you with everything you need.

[Davo]

Colonel

ASFP do indeed have a very good guide, the PFP best practice guide, free to download.
Also Envirograph catalogue shows what is possible



davo

[The Colonel]

Cheers gents will have a look at ASFP

[kurnal]

Was this an old building or a recent one Colonel?

I like you am finding this commonplace, and particularly in new buildings. I have long held the view that the demise of the Clerk of Works to check the standards of workmanship and installations of new buildings is the nub of the problem, these days there is nobody to co-ordinate and monitor standards by a myriad of sub contractors many of whom in looking only at their own part of the job undermine the work of others, electricians and fire stopping being a case in point.

My worst fears of the state of building control were confirmed on Tuesday at the FIA CPD day when the speaker from the NHBC said that they only visit site when invited at specific stages, that many completion certificates are issued without visiting site and it is not their job to check standards of workmanship.

I have a fire test certificate for one of the expanding foams you refer to. The certificate is used in marketing to justify fire resistance claims  of up to two hours if used to seal a maximum 10mm gap.

On reading the test details carefully the gap tested was actually filled with mineral fibre and just capped with expanding foam. The foam fell out at 83 minutes but the MINERAL FIBRE held up for two hours.

A pass certificate was issued for the composite of foam and fibre and now being used by the foam manufacturer to market their product for up to two hours fire resistance.

[CivvyFSO]

Kurnal makes a valid point. The companies pushing their magic foams as 2 hour fire resistant rarely make it clear how they manage to achieve 2 hours in the test. In Kurnals example a load of porridge may have done the job of sealing a 10mm hole long enough to achieve a level of fire resistance.

I might stuff a 5mm dia 2m long hole with potatoes and subject it to the BS476 test. I might then be able to market potatoes as having fire resistance and sell them to dodgy risk assessors. Grow your own fire resistance!

[The Colonel]

Kurnal

The building was a grade 1 listed premise with about 600 rooms and galleries over 7 floors and basements. The best example were new electrical cables discovered on the top floor (5th) that went to the sub basement via very neatly drilled holes in all floors (75mm) without a hint of stopping. Some fire stopping had been undertaken about 13 years ago and done correctly with Certs along side and still intact but in the mean time no maintenance or inspection and numerous new problems. One solution by the building manager was to buy a number of tubes of intumescent mastic and give them to one of the maintenance staff to fill the holes, without any knowledge. By the time I finish writing up their assessment I may need a new identify and safe house because I believe the remedial work is going to cost tens of thousands, especially when they take into account the neglected fire doors..

I also agree with you there is no one supervising or checking new builds. This year I was asked to undertake assessments on two brand new 5 storey blocks of flats, so new some of the builders were still working in the grounds. On parking underneath part of the 1st floor of the one block I was greeted by plastic soil pipes about 2m above the car that had the popular cream poly foam as stopping, the soil pipes went straight into a bathroom in the flats. Further investigation into the service shafts revealed no stopping where services pass out and the internal walls of the shafts full of holes and missing plasterboard. Each shaft had a dry riser outlet in place which looked good from the landing but on the inside you could put your fingers through the gaps. The question was asked, has this been signed off? oh yes and handed over to the housing association. What a mess it was almost criminal.

The can of foam picked up at one assessment recently has a Din number on it and indicated that it is suitable for gaps 10mm - 50mm but no other instruction as to the correct filling of the gap, just important that you hold the can upside down.