How FOD Containment Must Be Implemented During Fireproofing Services

There’s an inher­ent risk in per­form­ing any facil­i­ty ren­o­va­tion or repair – occu­pants and con­trac­tors may be exposed to harm­ful sub­stances, falling objects, haz­ardous tools or equip­ment, and so on. There’s also the risk of for­eign object debris (or ​“FOD” for short, which can also stand for ​“for­eign object dam­age”), a pri­ma­ry con­cern for the aero­space and vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries. FOD refers to mate­ri­als that wind up where they shouldn’t be, putting peo­ple, assets, and/​or oper­a­tions at risk. Indus­tri­al facil­i­ties must invest in FOD con­tain­ment to mit­i­gate these risks, espe­cial­ly when oth­er projects are under­ways, such as fire­proof­ing.

Here we’ll dis­cuss what FOD con­tain­ment is all about, how it relates to fire­proof­ing, and how FOD con­tain­ment must be imple­ment­ed dur­ing fire­proof­ing.

What to Know About FOD Con­tain­ment in Fireproofing\

What Does FOD Con­tain­ment Entail?

As its name sug­gests, FOD con­tain­ment is aimed at keep­ing for­eign objects enclosed in a giv­en space so as to not leak out into oth­er areas of the facil­i­ty. These con­tain­ment efforts are cru­cial, as they help pre­vent even the small­est, sneaki­est of mate­ri­als from exit­ing an estab­lished work zone and wreak­ing hav­oc. The most com­mon method for con­tain­ment involves strate­gi­cal­ly plac­ing durable, tight-fit­ting tarps around a work area’s perime­ter and ensur­ing no gaps or holes are present. At Kaloutas, we used floor-to-ceil­ing asbestos-grade fire-retar­dant plas­tic for FOD con­tain­ment. We can then move these tem­po­rary walls as need­ed, encap­su­lat­ing our work as we move through a giv­en facility.

In addi­tion to con­tain­ing for­eign debris, FOD con­tain­ment also blocks dust, muf­fles sound, and removes visu­al dis­trac­tions both ways so work­ers on either side of the bar­ri­er can stay pro­duc­tive and safe.

What Does Fire­proof­ing Have to Do with FOD?

Fire­proof­ing is an essen­tial ser­vice for any facil­i­ty, pro­tect­ing peo­ple, assets, and struc­tures from the dev­as­tat­ing effects of flames. fire­proof­ingire­proof­ing is designed to max­i­mize work­place safe­ty, but as pro­fes­sion­al installers, main­tain­ing health safe­ty through­out the instal­la­tion process is also a pri­ma­ry focus.

For pro­fes­sion­al fire­proof paint installers, per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment includ­ing gloves, masks, and gog­gles are required. For those in prox­i­mal spaces, pro­fes­sion­al installers uti­lize dif­fer­ent con­tain­ment strate­gies to min­i­mize any expo­sure. While some prod­ucts have strong scents, most prod­ucts are water-based and con­tain­ment is a stan­dard oper­at­ing pro­ce­dure dur­ing instal­la­tion. Dry- and wet-mix mate­ri­als are dry pri­or to mix­ing, so dust is the biggest con­cern. But with con­tain­ment (and air flow con­trol in some sce­nar­ios) inde­pen­dent onsite air qual­i­ty stud­ies spe­cif­ic to fire­proof­ing instal­la­tion have result­ed in data well below any OSHA thresh­old or safe­ty concern.

Prop­er FOD con­tain­ment dur­ing fire­proof­ing pre­vents sprayed fire­proof­ing par­ti­cles from exit­ing the estab­lished work zone, main­tain­ing bet­ter air qual­i­ty through­out the rest of the facil­i­ty through­out the project. FOD con­tain­ment dur­ing fire­proof­ing also reduces the risk of oth­er fire­proof mate­ri­als (e.g., spray cans, dust, treat­ed fibers, dry­wall, etc.) from caus­ing prob­lems in your facility.

Keep­ing Your Fire­proof­ing Project Contained

In decid­ing how and where to prop­er­ly install firestop­ping and meet­ing inspec­tion require­ments for your build­ing, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er the installer. For new projects, firestop­ping is often per­formed by the trade (plumber, elec­tri­cian, HVAC, etc.). In ren­o­va­tions and repairs, this falls on the facil­i­ty team or some­one will­ing to do the work. In nei­ther of these cas­es are the results guar­an­teed to be effec­tive or code-com­pli­ant. The best idea is to have a qual­i­fied installer, prefer­ably with an inspector’s report, to per­form the instal­la­tion so you are con­fi­dent the exe­cu­tion is done cor­rect­ly, adhere to manufacturer’s spec­i­fi­ca­tions, and pass any future inspections.

The experts at Kaloutas will thor­ough­ly assess a facil­i­ty and its needs before get­ting start­ed – from there, we’ll install high-qual­i­ty con­tain­ment bar­ri­ers around the estab­lished site before fire­proof­ing rel­e­vant sur­faces. Once that sec­tion is com­plete, we’ll move the con­tained area else­where and get to fire­proof­ing that sec­tion. Mean­while, your facil­i­ty can oper­ate as nor­mal. Kaloutas boasts a No Work Stop­page guar­an­tee and mul­ti­ser­vice reper­toire, mean­ing you only have to imple­ment one con­trac­tor onboard­ing, one walk­through, and one con­tract when work­ing with us.

To learn more about us and all that we do for your facil­i­ty in MA, RI, or NH, con­tact us online or give us a call at 978−532−1414 today.