Satisfying fire regulations for walls and ceilings in communal areas

Are you ready to upgrade your walls and ceilings? Or are you starting a new job completely? Either way, it’s time to think about fire safety. If you are undertaking a project that involves communal areas, there are certain regulations you need to adhere to, to ensure fire safety. It’s important that you protect yourself as well as any visitors, residents or employees.

In order to satisfy building regulations, you must take certain measures to subdue the spread of fire to other parts of the building. This also includes any adjoining buildings. In a building such as a block of flats, it’s important to keep fire contained as the damage can be incredibly severe.

Satisfying fire regulations for walls and ceilings in communal areas

As well as using methods such as installing fire doors, you can look to the paints and coatings you are using on your walls and ceilings. This is one more step towards fire safety and combined with other preventative methods, can help you to meet building regulations for your property.

British Standard Class 0 & Class 1

These two classifications you may have seen on the tins of various paints and coatings. One is part of a classification system which can be found in Fire Safety, Approved Document B. This document contains many other regulations, so be sure that you meet all regulations, not just your walls and ceilings. The other is a test classification found in BS476, part 7.

Explaining Class 1

To achieve Class 1 on your walls and ceilings, you must use a paint or coating that is designed to prevent the spread of flames on the surface. Class 1 is actually a test, which looks at the distance and time it takes for flames to spread across a surface. Therefore, you could achieve a Class 4 finish, which would be the lowest and least desirable classification. To achieve Class 1, you need a protective paint or coating which allows the least spread of fire in the shortest amount of time.

Explaining Class 0

Class 0 can be found in Approved Document B. This classification means you must first achieve a Class 1 finish on your walls and ceilings, as well as the appropriate results on a fire propagation test. A fire propagation test is used to test the level of heat given off a surface during a fire. This is to make sure the amount of heat given off during a fire is substantially reduced by a paint or coating.

Meeting classification

By using a system with a fire retardant coating and a flame retardant topcoat, you can achieve both classifications. Your Building Regulations Officer can help you to understand if you need to achieve a Class 0 or 1 finish, or both. Remember, this is only a step in meeting fire regulations, but not one that should be missed.