Fire-Resistant Paint – Fire is one of the most dangerous and deadly forces that we encounter in daily life. To address this hazard, the governments of most counties, cities, and states have implemented strict fire safety regulations.
These laws and ordinances vary by location, but all of them are designed to protect human life, improve the response time of fire departments, and contain or extinguish fires before they become too large.
They also provide for adequate fire protection resources like fire hydrants, and their requirements typically include provisions designed to keep fire from spreading to adjacent buildings. Click here for the Best-Selling Fire Safety Products.
For public buildings like offices, churches, stores, and warehouses, codes require alarm systems, sprinklers, and regular inspections, but there is always room for innovations that can provide further protection that further protects life and property.
One such development is fire-resistant paint. For decades, paint was not considered a significant part of the fire protection system in a building, but that has changed. Fire-resistant coatings can play an important part in reducing the fire danger in a home, factory, warehouse, or any other large commercial structure. Here are five ways that it helps.
Protection of Key Components
The greatest danger of a fire is its rapid growth. Fire expands at an exponential rate; in other words, if it doubles in size in five minutes, it will be four times larger in another five minutes, sixteen times larger in the next five, and so on.
As a fire spreads, it damages the things that are meant to protect lives and property. In a commercial setting, this could include things like doors and sprinkler pipes. The longer they can go before giving in to the fire, the better the chances that they will help people escape, limit fire spread, or protect important contents in the building.
Fire-resistant paint can be applied to these important parts of the building to reduce the chances that the fire will damage important features like the alarm system, sprinklers, exit routes, and fire escapes.
Containment of Fire
One of the first steps you should take when you encounter a fire is to determine whether you can attempt to put it out or whether you just need to escape and let the fire department take care of it. Fire-resistant paint actually creates some middle ground. When a fire can’t be extinguished by the building’s occupants, the next best option is to contain it. Limiting fire spread greatly reduces damage and makes it easier for firefighters to extinguish the fire before the building is destroyed.
Fire-resistant paint can help protect walls, doors, and door frames from a growing fire. As it pushes toward them, the protected components of the building will withstand the heat and remain intact. This will keep the fire on one side of the door or wall, giving firefighters a better chance to finish off the fire before it moves beyond its area of origin.
Pinpoint Protection
Sprinklers are very effective at suppressing fire in the areas where their water lands, but they do have their limitations. The arrangement of contents inside the building can deflect water away from its intended targets, allowing a fire to grow unchecked. As a result, the value of the sprinkler is, for lack of a better word, watered down.
Fire-resistant paint is literally targeted directly to the areas where it needs to work. If you have shelving in a warehouse that needs protection from fire, using this specialized paint on it will help it avoid fire damage no matter if there are cartons, forklifts, or pallets in the way. In the home, where sprinkler systems are rarely in use, the treated areas will have a degree of fire protection in spite of the absence of other interventions. If the surface has been painted, it has been protected.
Protection of Flammable Materials
Most building fires start with a fire in the building’s contents. Somebody leaves a candle burning too close to the drapes, catching them on fire. As the drapes burn, they drop embers onto the couch, which then ignites. The contents of the room continue to catch fire until they generate enough heat to ignite structural components like wall studs and ceiling joists.
This progression can be dramatically slowed with the use of fire-resistant paint. Furniture, doors, steps, trim, and windows made of wood, vinyl, and other flammable materials can be coated with fire-resistant paint, reducing their flammability and not only limiting fire spread but also protecting the items themselves, helping more of your valuable items survive the fire.
Retardance vs. Resistance
We’ve seen the term “fire-retardant” in many applications. You may have seen it on the news as planes dropped clouds of pink powder on a wildfire, or you may have read it on the label on a child’s pajamas. Fire-retardant materials do not readily burn, and it’s certainly beneficial to have fire-retardant paint in a building as opposed to paint that does burn and can make a fire worse. Fire-retardant paint at least lets the building hold its own against the fire.
Fire-resistant paint takes it a step further. Instead of simply holding the fire at bay, this special paint actually works to combat the fire. As it reaches high temperatures, the paint begins to release chemical compounds that reduce the intensity of the fire. The result is less damage to the building and improved conditions for people trying to escape.
Innovations in the construction and safety industries continue to make our world safer, right down to the buildings where we live and work. There was a time when a product like fire-resistant paint would have been considered a dream, but today it’s a reality.
In a building where alarm systems are in place and all occupants know their escape routes, fire-resistant paint can be an excellent addition to the safety system. Coupled with good safety habits, the use of other protective measures like smoke detectors, and quality construction, fire-resistant paint has the power to help protect property and save lives better than those steps alone.