Putting your building compliance and safety in someone else’s hands is not just important,but critical to getting it right. Ensuring your buildings are compliant, both now and into the future, will form an important part in your overall fire strategy.
Established in 2006, DoorMasters is one of the leading passive fire protection specialists in UAE, supplying a comprehensive range of Passive Fire Protection Products, installation and compliance services to public and private sector organizations across the country.
Providing bespoke solutions for our clients, and developing the most comprehensive range of built-in passive fire protection services in the market, DoorMasters makes your buildings compliant now, and maintains this for the future.
From planning to post-installation, DoorMasters provides a one-stop solution, encompassing a breadth of products, and tackling the majority of passive fire-related issues.
Fire safety is a major concern for all who are responsible for the design and specification of new buildings. The causes of fire are varied and unpredictable, and often outside the control of the designer. What can be controlled, however, is the effect of fire once it has started. The control of fire within a building is normally affected by a combination of active and passive fire protection systems.
Passive fire protection is designed into the structure of the building, so that if fire breaks out, it is contained within a fire compartment, surrounded by fire-resistive walls and floors. For the walls and floors to maintain their fire-resistance, every opening, penetration and joint must be sealed against the escape of fire and smoke
The materials used to form the seals must not only fill all gaps at the time of
construction, but also, in the event of fire, expand to close any further gaps formed by melted components. These intumescent fire seals, if properly installed, can help prevent fire escaping from a compartment for a rating period of up to four hours. This time period can prove vital in allowing occupants to escape, and fire-fighters to control the fire
Fire stopping through-penetrations and joints in fire-rated assemblies can be a complicated process. To do the job correctly and cost-effectively, it may be best to call on a specialty contractor that knows the building code requirements inside and out.
Fire stopping is a method of passive fire protection that helps contain fire and toxic gases to the area of origin by sealing around service penetrations or construction joints in fire-rated walls or floors. To help prevent the rapid spread of fire within a building, certain walls and floors are required to meet
a specific fire resistance rating (i.e., the period of time during which a building component has been tested to confine or compartmentalize a fire, or continue to perform a structural function). Compartmentation limits the spread of fire, allows time for the fire to be extinguished, and provides evacuation paths for people in the building.
The code mandated fire resistance of walls and floors must be maintained, despite the fact gaps will be needed in those assemblies for joints and for building services such as water, power, data and ventilation. A properly selected and installed firestop system can restore the full fire resistance rating
of the underlying assembly while providing the needed functionality of the joint or service penetration.
A firestop system is a tested combination of the substrate (wall or floor),
penetrating item or items, opening size, annular space and materials used to seal or protect the opening. To evaluate compliance with building code requirements, systems typically are tested by independent third-party test labs. Successfully passing the test means a firestop system is “listed” and the materials used in these systems generally are marked as “classified. “Several factors can affect
the performance of a firestop system, all of which can be determined by examining the submitted system drawings. If a detail does not match the tested system requirements (e.g., pipe diameter and type, hole size, floor thickness, annular space), the installer must be able to find another tested system that matches the field application, or request and obtain a custom solution from the firestop material manufacturer. Finding appropriate systems can be somewhat daunting, as there are currently more than 7,000 tested systems for various applications.
Typically, firestop system installation is left up to the individual trades that make the holes in the fire-rated construction. However, inspections show this can increase the likelihood of deficiencies that later need to be corrected. To help resolve this problem, construction teams increasingly are turning to the use of professional firestop installers/contractors.
A professional firestop installer:
* Has a better understanding of tested systems;
* Allows individual trades to focus on their areas of expertise;
* Helps ensure one-source continuity and system compatibility for all firestop applications;
* Promotes hassle-free inspection by officials who know and trust professional firestop
installers;
* Provides single contractor accountability for all firestop applications;
* Documents all installed fire stops, depending on the agreed-to scope of work; and
* Increases confidence that all fire stopping is completed correctly the first time.