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Why use Interact Fire Solutions?
Nobody in the passive fire protection industry understands the properties and potential of epoxy intumescent better than Interact.
The company produces its own cast product in the West Midlands using base material supplied by one of four manufacturers with different specifications (the selection of the specific epoxy intumescent depending on the particular application). Quality and consistency of the product is therefore assured.
Specific benefits
There are several benefits associated with using Interact:
* the company is entirely independent and can therefore offer impartial
advice
* it provides the best possible solution because it is not limited to one supplier
* it does not bulk sell and only supplies to order
* it has the expertise to advise the optimum thickness of coating required
(thus avoiding any unnecessary overspend)
* it can maintain material specification and so minimise conflict of warranty
* it regulates a select number of highly-trained subcontractors on an approved
list (all operatives are individually checked in addition to the company’s
own credentials)
* it provides a quality management service to eliminate problems (all work
is overseen with regular site visits, direct liaison with the contractors and
sub-contractors, and detailed reporting)
* Interact’s quality commitment extends to free advice to architects
under the RIBA CPD network provider scheme.
Training Programme
All operatives are subject to the following:
* a 30 minute presentation, on or off-site, explaining the installation
process
* on-site demonstrations of key procedures for each job
* individual certification and registration on Interact’s database
* audit of personnel for each new contract (re-testing and new training as
necessary)
System Integrity
When you use Interact Fire Solutions (and cast epoxy intumescent products like Interactive Columns) you can be sure that the integrity of the fire protection system the company has been responsible for putting in place will remain intact.
A phrase that is much bandied about (and often misused); here is an accurate definition:
‘The integrity of a system in fire protection refers to that system’s ability to meet stated fire resistance criteria whatever its circumstances and location. If the uprightness and character for which the system was designed is breached, then the integrity of the system is destroyed. Similarly, the heat transference must be resisted by the insulation properties offered by the system if that is a requirement.’
Subject to the raw material manufacturer’s warranty, Interact guarantees the fire protection it provides will fulfill all these criteria. In practice, other systems and contractors (or sub-contractors) all too often fail to meet such exacting standards.
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| There is often the temptation, when using thin-film intumescent, to fill the space between the column and the outer casing with insulation… however this breaches the integrity of the fire protection. |
With alternative solutions, integrity can be breached, for example, if a piece of timber is applied to a column that has been boarded—or painted with thin-film intumescent. In both cases, but more so with the intumescent (and specially with 120 minute protection), the system integrity is deemed to be breached due to the damage to the insulation caused by the resistance offered by the secondary cladding support structure.
For normal intumescents, this is a particularly dangerous thing as the thin film will ‘gas’, thus rendering that part of the system ineffective with heat transferred to the metal column underneath.
With Interact’s cast epoxy intumescent product, and Interactive Columns in particular, this kind of problem is totally eliminated.
Note that because of the expansion rate of thin-film intumescent (x 50 – 75), secondary cladding must be installed with a clear space between the intumescent coating of the steel and the inside of the cladding (typically, 50 mm of space for every 1 mm of thin film).
The destructive potential of thin-film intumescent ‘gassing’ if sufficient, uninterrupted space is not allowed for is illustrated by this structural example: