How to Fireproof Wood and Steel with Little Downtime

Most indus­tri­al facil­i­ties are com­posed of var­i­ous mate­ri­als to opti­mize integri­ty and safe­ty. Steel is typ­i­cal­ly used for struc­tur­al sup­port, wood and con­crete for addi­tion­al sup­port and fram­ing To main­tain the over­all integri­ty of your facil­i­ty, each of these essen­tial mate­ri­als requires prop­er pro­tec­tion from dif­fer­ent threats. Fire threat­ens your prop­er­ty per­haps more than any oth­er force and can eas­i­ly eat through wood. When allowed to burn long and hot enough, severe fires can even weak­en steel beams. 

Prop­er indus­tri­al fire­proof­ing must be applied to your facility’s var­i­ous com­po­nents to ensure the safe­ty of your peo­ple and min­i­mize the dam­age done to your assets. If you’ve got a lot of ground to cov­er, how­ev­er, a com­plete fire­proof­ing project may inter­fere with your reg­u­lar oper­a­tions, forc­ing you to tem­porar­i­ly shut down. At Kaloutas, we under­stand that this sus­pen­sion can be a sig­nif­i­cant bur­den and, in some cas­es, an impos­si­bil­i­ty, which is why all of our ser­vices are designed to reduce down­time while still pro­vid­ing opti­mal out­comes. Here’s how we fire­proof wood and steel with­out get­ting in the way.

Intu­mes­cent and Cemen­ti­tious Fire­proof­ing for Steel

Steel fea­tures can be effi­cient­ly pro­tect­ed from flames via both intu­mes­cent and cemen­ti­tious coat­ings. Intu­mes­cent coat­ings are applied like any oth­er type of paint. How­ev­er, when exposed to high heat, these coat­ings under­go a chem­i­cal reac­tion that caus­es them to rapid­ly expand into a foamy sub­stance that insu­lates the under­ly­ing steel. Cemen­ti­tious coat­ings don’t trans­form in the case of fire but still offer light­weight and long-term fire pro­tec­tion. Both types of fire pro­tec­tion spray for steel struc­tures such as deck­ing, brac­ing, and I‑beams are high­ly durable, quick to install, and don’t cause delays in any sur­round­ing ser­vices or operations.

Intu­mes­cent Fire Pro­tec­tive Coat­ings and Class A Fire Retar­dant Paint for Wood

Intu­mes­cent fire­proof paint is also com­mon­ly used to pro­tect wood­en fea­tures like ply­wood sheath­ing, inte­ri­or car­pen­try, fram­ing, struc­tur­al lum­ber, light­weight joists, and so on. Kaloutas also offers oth­er types of Class A fire-resis­tive coat­ings for wood­en mate­ri­als depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion. Despite the mate­r­i­al and spa­tial dif­fer­ences between steel and wood, our approach to fire­proof­ing remains the same: use the right prod­ucts for the job and apply them with the most effi­cient method­ol­o­gy avail­able (which is often spray application).

Effi­cient Fire­proof Patching

While Kaloutas makes a strong effort not to inter­fere with your stan­dard oper­a­tions dur­ing fire­proof­ing, a com­plete fire­proof­ing project can take some time, even with the most effi­cient process­es. As such, once your facil­i­ty is prop­er­ly fire­proofed, it’s impor­tant to main­tain these coat­ings and invest in touch-ups when need­ed. Doing so will both ensure the ongo­ing safe­ty of your facil­i­ty and pre­vent fur­ther down­time — this is pre­cise­ly what our fire­proof patch­ing ser­vices are designed for. Rather than wait until your entire build­ing needs new fire­proof­ing, our teams will come in peri­od­i­cal­ly or as need­ed to quick­ly repair any dam­aged or worn down fire­proof­ing, so no down­time is incurred.

Kaloutas takes safe­ty seri­ous­ly, and we also respect your oper­a­tional needs. Let us help you pro­tect your facil­i­ty from flames and oth­er threats with­out inter­fer­ence. To learn more about us and all that we do, con­tact us online or give us a call at 978−532−1414 today.