Here we post articles of latest happenings at Interact, as well as news of interest.
Although on this occasion winning the award was just out of their grasp, the Interact entry for Passive Fire Innovation of the Year ticked all the boxes:
Ahead of the London Build show we’re attending in a few weeks, we want to talk to you about sustainability. How does it apply to the construction industry and in particular to the manufacturing of passive fire materials?
With well over 20 years experience in the intumescent fire protection industry we’ve had the opportunity to see the long term results of using cast epoxy intumescent in contrast to thin film intumescent from a practical and aesthetic frame of reference. Below we present anecdotal evidence for our findings.
The completion of this project 10 years ago saw the visualisation of the designers come to fruition.
There maybe a misunderstanding of the terminology “AD-HOC” in the construction industry particularly when it comes to testing and in this case fire testing to structural steel.
What happened to the Cast Epoxy fire protection after a severe flooding of Hebden Bridge Library in 2012? The answer may surprise you.
Interact Structural Fire protection – Easy-Over Solutions:
In order to mitigate some of the costs of manufacture and installation, Interact have designed a system of manufacture which does not require the casting to be split. The casting can be installed onto the rod without any adhesive and no further fitting.
This hotel, in a mixed use development in the West End of Edinburgh, is not four years old and already the thin film intumescent is falling off. Unless developers are prepared to carry out the required maintenance schedule this is what you can get even if it is external grade intumescent.
Designers may fear using suspension rods as part of the feature of their project because of the new testing regulations. You could speculate that there will be no interest from raw materials manufacturers of intumescent epoxy to fire test to this new standard. You could speculate that the testing bar has been raised unreasonably so to deter interest. Interact, with their partners Akzo Nobel were the only companies to test specifically some years ago. Interact has since tested again in anticipation of the impending BS EN 13381-10 and is currently negotiating to retest now that BS EN 13381-10 entered into law on 20 June 2020.
