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Posted By Graham Sargeant
I have come across a problem, I hope you can help me with. On an inspection of a building I have found some fire doors with intrumscent strips which have been painted over with gloss paint during redecoration, will this have an effect on the ability of the fire door to do its job in the event of a fire? Thanks in advance.
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Posted By Ken Taylor
The short answer will be 'Yes' in as much as this could form a fire path past the door. However as to the result in an actual fire condition, I do not have any experience in this matter and would suggest you try asking the question on the FireNet Fire Safety Forum: http://www.globalcrisisc...er.com/BBSFire/index.php
Needless to say, we need to emphasise that these should not be painted over (and neither should locks, window frames, light switches, smoke alarms, safety signs and a lot of other things that painters seem to feel need covering or rendering inoperable!).
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Posted By Andy Lightbody
Graham
I have had a similar problem to this and consulted with the Independent Fire Seal Association on the matter. There is no documented research into the position, however, their Technical representative was of the opinion that dependant on the type of seal then a film of paint would enhance the performance of the strip.
The sealed strips react to heat by disintegration of the surface coating and a thin layer of paint would increase the heating of the surface. Aluminium framed seals would take longer to heat up as the metal conducts the heat away from the seal.
In addition, obviously the more paint coats applied then the less effective would be the ability of the materials to react.
Painting of the strips can also impact on the cold smoke seals if present and shall preclude their effectiveness in preventing smoke transmission which is probably of more concern in the initial stages of the fire and ability to escape.
Regards
Andy
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Posted By Bill Elliott
And then again - according to a Fire Engineer colleague - the opposite is true. The paint forms a seal across the intumescent strip which, when heat is present acts as paint does when heat is applied, it blisters and hardens before it eventualy cracks or burns completely negating the desired effect.
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Posted By Andy Lightbody
BS 8214:1990 Code of Practice for Fire door assemblies of non-metallic leaves Section 4:26 states that 'there is no evidence to suggest that overpainting of heat activated seals has any detrimental effect on the ability of the seals to perform efficiently....It is recommended that overpainting be limited to a maximum of five coats of conventional oil bound paint or varnish'
The temperature required to cause bubbling of paint is more than sufficient to activate the seals before paint hardens therefore discounting the previous response
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Posted By allan wood
as a painter myself i can tell you from my own experience we are told not to get any paint on the fire strips,as they will need replacing at a cost to our company.
hope this helps.
regards
allan
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Posted By Graham Sargeant
Thanks to everyone for your replys, it looks like there are several schools of thought on this subject.
I think I will suggest to the owner of the building I inspected that they should make arrangments to avoid painting strips in future decoration, also to add the replacement of strips that have been painted into future maintenance plans, which shouldn't be too hard to implement.
Thanks all
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