Hi All,

Im in need of some advice on wall linings and surface spread of flame. We have a project where the proposal is to line the walls with carpet, which I belive fall under the requirments of B2?

In terms of the class the material should achieve, it will placed in a common area within the building, so im of the opion that Euro class B will suffice as a minmum standard but welcome your thoughts on this? 

Thanks

DJ

Question for architect or designer not H&S practitioners

Lots of current debate regarding material fire resistance classification what is/should be suitable and even how it is tested

Year ago I had to assess the suitability of carpet being installed on narrow corridor walls (from floor to dado rail) in a west end Hotel in London, Management were fed up with scuff marks caused by husekeeping staff's trollies and clients suitcases and believed carpet would cushion any impact and hide any damage

My advice is be very careful when considering floor coverings on walls. Some test standards will give you the impression that a material is inherently fire resisting, but in fact the test methodology relates to testing samples on a horizontal level (where one would expect to find a floor covering/carpet). As you can imagine, most thin or sheet type materials react differently when hung vertically and fire is applied 

One test (cant remember which one off the top of my head) used a 'hot nut' test. This involved a heated up piece of metal of a certain size being placed in the centre of a sample of carpet for a set time. The material passess the test if fire spread or creep was limited to a certain distance from the nut. Of course, a more relevant test for the application we are considering would have been to place the hot nut against a vertically positioned carpet square, but that test did not exist

And then there's the question of how the carpet will be fixed. Some adhesives are extraordanairy flammable when being applied and remain combustible when set

This hotel decided against carpet wall covering in the end