Fire Boarding and Passive Fire Protection

Some walls and ceilings need to do more than divide a space or provide a smooth surface. They need to hold back fire for a defined period, giving people time to escape and slowing how fast a fire can spread through a building. That’s the job fire-rated boarding and passive fire protection systems are built to do.

What fire boarding involves

Fire-rated plasterboard, sometimes called fireline board, is manufactured with glass fibres and other additives that help it stay intact for longer when exposed to fire, compared with standard plasterboard which can fail and fall away relatively quickly. On its own, though, the board is only one part of a fire-rated system. Achieving a genuine period of fire resistance depends on the right combination of board thickness, sometimes multiple layers, correct fixing centres, and properly detailed joints and junctions. A fire-rated board fitted the wrong way doesn’t deliver a fire-rated wall.

Typical places this matters in a domestic setting include integral garages next to habitable rooms, party walls between semi-detached or terraced properties, structures enclosing escape routes such as stairwells, and ceilings below loft conversions. Structural steel beams and columns are also commonly encased in fire board as a way of protecting their load-bearing capacity in a fire, a method known as passive fire protection.

How the job typically runs

The specific fire rating needed for a wall, ceiling or steel element is established first, since this determines the board specification and the build-up required. One layer might suffice in some situations, while others call for two or more layers of board with staggered joints. Boards are fixed at the correct spacing with the specified fixings, and joints are treated to maintain the system’s fire performance rather than just its appearance. Once complete, the surface is typically skimmed or otherwise finished, so a fire-rated wall generally looks no different from any other plastered wall once the room is decorated.

What to expect

Fire boarding work often forms part of a wider renovation, extension or loft conversion project rather than standing alone, and it’s frequently tied to building regulations requirements, particularly around escape routes and separating structures in converted properties. Getting the detail right matters more here than in most plastering work, since the whole point of the system is to perform correctly if it’s ever actually tested by a fire.

Coverage

Fire boarding and passive fire protection work is carried out across Bradford and the surrounding towns, for domestic conversions, extensions and general refurbishment work where fire-rated construction is needed.