Recently we received a call from a building owner who was having trouble getting his vacant unit to pass a City Inspector’s Inspection for fire separation. The owner had already had two contractors in working on this job and it was still failing the inspection. Needless to say he was a little frustrated and unsure of what detail could possibly have been missed. So we went to look.
Below you will find pictures of the 3 key issues with the way the wall penetrations were protected and how we fixed them.
What we found:
Why this is incorrect:
- The trouble with having the cable against the pipe is that it is nearly impossible to truly seal that space between the two penetrations with any certainty of stopping fire.
- Collars are engineered to fit circular pipes; they are not designed to conform to odd shapes.
- In the second picture you can see the collar is placed around the pipe at an angle which is filled with fire caulk. The contractor framed the box to the wrong point in the piping and installed the collar in a way that compromises its effectiveness at stopping fire.
- Fire caulking around the collars defeats the purpose of the fire collar. As you can see in this video, once the collar is exposed to heat, the foam compound inside the collar expands which creates the fire block. You can guess that putting caulk around the collar slows down (or can stop) the collar from doing its’ job.
In a short time we were able to provide the owner with a plan and budget to make the required repairs. I could hear his relief when we told him that this wasn’t going to cost him thousands of dollars or much more time on his schedule.
How we fixed it:
Within a day’s labour and not too many extra materials, we had these few items fixed and called for another inspection. We attended the inspection on behalf of the owner and it passed! The owner can now go ahead with his plans for this unit.
Note: These solutions are based on fire regulations in our city. Please check your local requirements before installing your fire stop solutions.