Fire Rating

stertman

I was just curious as to what the fire rating for a typical house is?

What impact do materials have on this.

For example if the builder used a thinner ceiling slab.
Or electrician didn't protect spots etc.

Many thanks

Poor Uncle Tom

There is not any mechanism in place, that I an aware of, that will give a rating to an overall house. The individual elements or components that go to make up the house have ratings, eg., a door set can have say a 30/60/90 etc fire rating designation.

Essentialy this means the integrity of the structure of the door set will remain intact for the designated period while under attack by fire.

M cebee

you can fit 'fire rated' spots anyhow .not that expensive

civdef

A typical house would be required to have 30 minutes fire resistance for elements of structure (floors & loadbearing walls principally). This is increased to 60 minutes for separating (party) walls.

Generally speaking, masonry construction will easily achieve this as long as the work is properly carried out with respect to firestopping etc. Timber frame constuction needs a lot more care and attention to get right - my own opinion is that many houses built in recent years fall below the required standard.

stertman

Thanks

So is there any rating in particular that I should be going for? The house has a suspended ceiling and hollowcore, which should be pretty good in terms of ratings.

But we have noted that the slabs used are thin, would this impact any rating. Or perhaps the better question is should I be concerned about fire ratings?

Many Thanks

No6

If you have hollowcore then you are not relying on the plasterboard slabs for fire resistance so your floor should be fine, a concrete floor is normally rated at 1 hr fire resistance but all the holes are fire stopped which may not be the case in a domestic situation. If your house is a standard two story house I would be fairly sure you have no fire doors either (they are not required by the regs in a 2 story house) so essentially your stairs is a very large hole in your 1 hr floor!! I recently did a three story house and when i insisted on firedoors on to the stairs at all levels the builder nearly had a fit. He had build an identical house next door for himself to sell which i wasn't supervising with no fire doors at all oops.:D

M cebee

does the fire alarm system have to be upgraded to LD1(all rooms)
if fire doors are fitted
i assume it prob does

rodred

M cebee wrote: »

you can fit 'fire rated' spots anyhow .not that expensive

can this be done in a new 2 story build? i am looking at fitting
spots downstairs in the kitchen and living room, but am not sure
it you have to use fire hoods etc?
can anyone tell me if this is the case?

thanks
Rob