How Fire Resistive Paints Can Protect Your Assets

No mat­ter how vig­i­lant you are, fire can strike any facil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly those that deal with com­bustible mate­ri­als, chem­i­cals, and sig­nif­i­cant ener­gy out­put. Should a fire start in your work­place, safe­ty should be your first pri­or­i­ty. Once your peo­ple are safe and sound, the state of your assets will nat­u­ral­ly be your next con­cern. Even a minor fire can do sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to your equip­ment, sur­faces, and struc­tur­al com­po­nents, which may neces­si­tate cost­ly repairs or entire replace­ments. The more you can do to pre­vent the worst effects fire has to offer, the better. 

Kaloutas can help you do just that with our tra­di­tion­al fire­proof­ing ser­vices (i.e. cemen­ti­tious fire­proof­ing) and intu­mes­cent coat­ings. Here’s how fire resis­tive intu­mes­cent paint, in par­tic­u­lar, can pro­tect your assets.

The Ben­e­fits of Fire­proof­ing Assets

Cre­ates a Buffer Between Equip­ment and High Temperatures

All pro­tec­tive coat­ings are meant to seal a par­tic­u­lar sur­face from var­i­ous threats, such as mois­ture, oxi­da­tion, impact, and so on. Fire­proof paint, how­ev­er, is specif­i­cal­ly designed to shield the under­ly­ing mate­r­i­al from intense flames that might cause it to crack, melt, explode, or oth­er­wise break down. With­out this spe­cial­ized buffer, your assets are vul­ner­a­ble to extreme heat. By coat­ing par­tic­u­lar assets with fire resis­tive paint, those high tem­per­a­tures can’t get as close to the sub­strate and there­fore can­not do as much dam­age. Even com­po­nents con­sid­ered fire­proof, such as steel beams, can be affect­ed by fire. Though they won’t melt and fall apart right away, dam­age from fire can inter­fere with their integri­ty, which com­pro­mis­es the resilien­cy of your entire build­ing. Even if a sur­face that’s pro­tect­ed by fire resis­tive paint gets dam­aged dur­ing a fire, you most like­ly won’t need to dish out as much on repairs as you would otherwise. 

Offers Flex­i­bil­i­ty for Max­i­mum Coverage

Fire resis­tive paint isn’t the only fire­proof­ing option avail­able. That said, it is one of the most ver­sa­tile. Unlike rigid fire­proof board insu­la­tion or tra­di­tion­al cemen­ti­tious fire­proof­ing, fire resis­tive coat­ings can be applied to vir­tu­al­ly any sur­face (save for those in envi­ron­ments with high lev­els of ambi­ent mois­ture). Whether you wish to pro­tect hard­wood, plas­ter­board, met­al, brick, stone, etc., fire resis­tive paints can eas­i­ly cov­er every inch of the sur­face in ques­tion via spray­ing or tra­di­tion­al paint­ing methods.

Can Be Applied Over Non-Fire­proof Coatings

Where­as cer­tain fire­proof­ing mate­ri­als require the sub­strate to be bare before appli­ca­tion, most fire resis­tive paint prod­ucts can eas­i­ly and effec­tive­ly be installed direct­ly over pre­vi­ous coat­ings — even if the old coat­ing isn’t resis­tant to fire. This might seem like a minor detail, but in truth, it’s a major time saver when you con­sid­er what it takes to com­plete­ly remove old coat­ings to make way for new ones. By facil­i­tat­ing fire­proof­ing in this way, you might be more com­pelled to coat more of your assets with fire resis­tive paint, sav­ing you time and mon­ey in the long run.

Gives First Respon­ders More Time to Act

All com­mer­cial fire­proof­ing efforts are in no small part meant to extend the win­dow of time which is crit­i­cal for occu­pants to safe­ly evac­u­ate the premis­es and fire­fight­ers to quell the flames. When prop­er­ly applied, fire resis­tive paint slows the growth and spread of fire, reduces the fire’s inten­si­ty, and reduces the amount of smoke pro­duced by a fire. In doing so, you can help keep your peo­ple safe and ensure first respon­ders can more effec­tive­ly extin­guish a fire so your assets under­go min­i­mal dam­age. This means less down­time get­ting your build­ing up and run­ning again as well as min­i­mal lia­bil­i­ty issues for your people.

Helps Pre­vent Struc­tur­al Collapse

Aside from your peo­ple, your build­ing is most like­ly your busi­ness’ great­est asset of all. If a fire grows too quick­ly, it can utter­ly destroy a prop­er­ty, even one that is oth­er­wise struc­tural­ly sound and in good con­di­tion. A total struc­tur­al col­lapse isn’t only dan­ger­ous — it’s also poten­tial­ly the most expen­sive and dev­as­tat­ing blow to your busi­ness imag­in­able, even if you’re well-insured. Coat­ing your struc­tur­al com­po­nents with fire resis­tive paint and/​or intu­mes­cent fire pro­tec­tive coat­ings help your build­ing retain its struc­tur­al integri­ty dur­ing a fire. This means you can avoid being uproot­ed for an extend­ed peri­od of time and forced to incur expen­sive con­struc­tion and repairs.

In short, fire resis­tive paint pro­tects your assets by shield­ing almost any struc­tur­al com­po­nent from intense heat, facil­i­tat­ing the fire­proof­ing process over­all, giv­ing occu­pants and first respon­ders more time to act, and pre­vent­ing a total col­lapse. Fail­ing to pro­tect your busi­ness from fires is a major lia­bil­i­ty — Kaloutas will make sure you don’t burn out through our cus­tom fire­proof­ing offerings.

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