Most of our clients have large facilities; nearly all of the private sector ones require use of firestopping from a single source.
This color coding idea is a great idea! We should specify a red face on rated gypboard, red primer on rated hollow metal, red tint for rated glass, and red fireproofing. George, I’m sure you can get red hardware for us. To make it really easy for the code people, we should print code comments in red, and code pages on red paper.
Hmm, could we do the same sort of thing for, say plumbing, using blue?
There are official colors for pipes, etc. I don’t remember if it is a government standard, military perhaps, but I do vaguely remember a project where we had to color code the plumbing.
I cant connect to the link so I will just respond to the 3-line post below. Okay, I have to be picky. Firestop or any sealant is not rated (ours, or our competitors). So, I would not ever put in your specs the statement / phrase fire rated sealant. Designers need to be accurate or confusion gets worse on down the line.
As far as the color of the firestop sealant, it would be okay to put in your specs to get approval by the Fire Marshall prior to installing. However, I have a few comments about this.
I would presume the Fire Marshall on a project had an issue with a firestop sealant other than red. If this is the case, they probably need to be educated because not all firestop products are red. They need to be promoting a proper firestop system, and this should be stated as well in your specifications.
I could see a potential problem with getting an approval by an inspector prior to ordering and installing a product. Inspectors are typically not quick to make a decision and have a lot of projects going on and my not be readily available to choose a sealant color.
I think the better approach, if the firestop sealant color is something other than red, is to have the contractor have the packaging and UL systems available to show the inspector.
Thanks for the correction & clarifications, Lynn, STI, and others. Point on “fire rated sealant” well taken; I should have known better. Assemblies are tested and rated, not products. Good suggestions.
Has anyone ever successfully re-educated a Fire Marshall. In my experience, what they want, they are going to get, especially in the final weeks of construction. Just isn’t worth arguing with them.
In SFL the Fire Marshall is god…what he wants he gets, so even though I appreciate Ron’s advice about using the term FCO, I’ve been advised by my clients (usually the Architect) to use their official title, Fire Marshal aka the “Fire God” or on a rare occasion the “Fire Goddess”. And re-education is out of the question unless you want to wait 90 days for a C.O.
Oddly AHJs have, on rare occasions, been known to listen, especially when documentation was readily available to show them that they’re not breaking new ground.
As George pointed out, FCIA is a great resource. Anyone who is not on first-name basis with Bill McHugh should correct that ASAP. He’s an incredible resource and has good rapport with AHJs.
As to ‘red’, be careful what you ask for. In the Mid-Atlantic region it has not been uncommon for ‘drywall subs’ to mix red Jello (I’m not kidding) into their ‘mud’ to fill gaps that were supposed to receive rated penetration or joint firestop assemblies. I managed to educate a fire code official by showing him that once. Amazing how well he listened. Not a bad person, just an old dog learning new ways to be tricked.
I used to limit FM or UL certified firestop installers to hospitals, nursing homes, dormitories, high-rise residential and hospitality projects (projects where people were staying overnight or not particularly ambulatory) but I am strongly leaning towards making it a universal rule on my projects.
Passive fire protection is no joke. Too many sprinkler recalls, questionable water availability during emergencies, and other concerns abound when relying on active fire protection. Passive fire protection can last someone’s lifetime. It’s there when you need it if it’s done right and is not the place to cut corners.
Okay Lynn so when I see a reference for “Fire Rated Gypsum Drywall” on a manufacturer’s website or data sheet that product does not actually exist - is that correct?
For Example, I randomly chose CertainTeed: http://www.certainteed.com/learning-center/gypsum/?qid=124
Just like any product or material, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you stand a piece of fire-rated gypsum drywall in the middle of a room and apply fire, it will resist for a period of time, but will burn. And if it is standing alone, the fire will go around it. Any material will resist for a period of time (some periods may not be measurable by the human eye, but still). If you are going to use the product in a system, with other materials that will also resist for the same period of time, creating an impenetrable wall that cannot be circumvented, then the fire cannot go around, but must go through. And that’s your fire resistant system.
And my trusted adviser was referring only to products that compete with Hilti, not all products in the world. So there. (grin)
FM or UL certified firestop installers is a great idea, but we have one UL certified installer and two FM certified installers in five states, and one of them has both UL and FM. Between them, I doubt they could do all the work. And then, for public sector work, there’s that sole-sourcing issue…
“have the contractor have the packaging and UL systems available to show the inspector”
Well, maybe. Ken mentioned the red Jello trick, and I have heard of painters keeping empty cans so they can prove they applied the specified amount of paint. For those who lie about what they did, fabricating evidence and writing bogus certification letters is not a problem.
We use faith-based specifications, we assume that a licensed designer makes the right decisions, we trust manufacturers to ship product that meets their own specifications, we rely on installers to follow manufacturers’ instructions, we assume shop drawings are not doctored, and so on. Unless we want to take on the chain-of-evidence approach LEED uses, we must rely on everyone to do the right thing, and even chain-of-evidence can be tricked.
Note that 2013 IBC now requires field QC inspection of fire stopping systems. If you read the referenced ASTM standards, there is a whole host of requirements, e.g., verification of materials against const docs, submittals, test reports, etc.
I think this goes a long way in addressing many of the above installation concerns.
I assume you mean the 2012 IBC (there is no 2013 IBC), and the special inspections only apply to high rise buildings and building assigned to Risk Category III or IV per Table 1604.5.