Essential Services Your Fireproofing Contractor Must Offer to Ensure You're Up-to-Code

Fire safe­ty is no laugh­ing mat­ter. When a fire spreads inside a facil­i­ty, it can put people’s lives in dan­ger and do exten­sive, cost­ly dam­age to one’s assets. To min­i­mize these risks, reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies like the U.S. Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) have enact­ed strict codes for busi­ness­es to fol­low regard­ing fire safe­ty. Fail­ing to com­ply with these rules can result in major fines, facil­i­ty shut­downs, and oth­er legal penal­ties. So, for the sake of your people’s safe­ty and your busi­ness’ secu­ri­ty, you must take all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions relat­ed to fire pre­ven­tion. Fire­proof­ing con­trac­tors play a major role in these efforts, offer­ing sev­er­al ser­vices that aim to keep facil­i­ties up to code.

Let’s out­line some of the essen­tial ser­vices your fire­proof­ing con­trac­tor should offer to ensure you remain com­pli­ant with rel­e­vant regulations.

Essen­tial Ser­vices Your Fire­proof­ing Con­trac­tor Should Offer

Year­ly Fire Safe­ty Evaluations

Prop­er fire­proof­ing can only take place after a facil­i­ty has been thor­ough­ly inspect­ed and giv­en a fire safe­ty rat­ing. Today, com­mer­cial and indus­tri­al build­ings require annu­al fire code inspec­tions and repairs (if nec­es­sary) of any exposed fire­proof­ing to remain com­pli­ant. The fire­proof­ing con­trac­tor you hire for your facil­i­ty should have the resources and exper­tise to per­form these eval­u­a­tions and repairs at least once a year and on an as-need­ed basis.

Fire­proof Coat­ing Applications

Prop­er fire pre­ven­tion con­sists of two pri­ma­ry strate­gies: active fire pro­tec­tion and pas­sive fire pro­tec­tion. In this con­text, active mea­sures refer to man­u­al and auto­mat­ic mech­a­nisms that respond to a fire should one arise. Some exam­ples of active fire pro­tec­tion include tools like fire extin­guish­ers, smoke detec­tors, fire alarms, sprin­klers, etc. Pas­sive fire pro­tec­tion, on the oth­er hand, refers to pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures that con­sis­tent­ly work to slow the spread of fire inside a build­ing with­out any type of trig­ger. Fire­proof coat­ings are the pri­ma­ry exam­ple of pas­sive fire pro­tec­tion, mak­ing them vital com­po­nents of any up-to-code fire pre­ven­tion strategy.

Fire­proof coat­ings can be made from dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als and func­tion some­what dif­fer­ent­ly. The two main types of fire­proof coat­ings are cemen­ti­tious fire­proof­ing and intu­mes­cent fire­proof­ing. Cemen­ti­tious coat­ings are inher­ent­ly resis­tant to high tem­per­a­tures, pro­tect­ing the under­ly­ing sub­strate from dam­age and degra­da­tion dur­ing a fire. Intu­mes­cent paint, on the oth­er hand, trans­form when exposed to flames, expand­ing into a char­coal-like foam sub­stance to cre­ate a large buffer that keeps high tem­per­a­tures away from the pro­tect­ed sub­strate. A facil­i­ty might fea­ture both cemen­ti­tious and intu­mes­cent fire­proof­ing in dif­fer­ent areas. Fire­proof­ing con­trac­tors should be adept at apply­ing both types of fire­proof­ing to pro­vide the best safe­ty out­comes and keep a facil­i­ty compliant.

Fire­proof Patching

As effec­tive and durable as high-qual­i­ty fire­proof paint may be, it is not immune to dete­ri­o­ra­tion. Over time, even the strongest fire­proof coat­ings can peel away and/​or lose their effec­tive­ness, mak­ing it nec­es­sary to re-apply coat­ings or patch cer­tain sec­tions of a giv­en sur­face. Indeed, fire­proof patch­ing is an impor­tant ser­vice pro­vid­ed by the best fire­proof­ing con­trac­tors. Con­trac­tors must test these patch­ing com­pounds before apply­ing them and make sure they’re suit­able for the task at hand. Using unap­proved or improp­er coat­ings can cause com­pli­ance con­cerns, along with safe­ty risks and oth­er lia­bil­i­ties. In short, fire­proof patch­ing should match exist­ing coat­ings in type and thick­ness and adhere to rel­e­vant com­pli­ance standards.

Keep Your Facil­i­ty Free from Fires and Fines

With so many rules and reg­u­la­tions to fol­low, stay­ing up to date with all fire pre­ven­tion and safe­ty guide­lines can be chal­leng­ing with­out ded­i­cat­ed help. At Kaloutas, our fire­proof­ing ser­vices are designed with safe­ty, com­pli­ance, and effi­cien­cy in mind. We pro­vide our clients with thor­ough eval­u­a­tions, var­i­ous fire­proof­ing solu­tions, and quick-and-easy patch­ing ser­vices when called for. Our addi­tion­al ser­vices, includ­ing indus­tri­al clean­ing, con­tain­ment, and caulk­ing, also con­tribute to a safer, fire-resis­tant facility.

To learn more about us and all that we do, con­tact us online or give us a call at 978−532−1414 today!