Why do these standards exist?

The need for a harmonised set of regulatory standards in relation to fire curtains is a necessity to ensure that all products meet a clearly outlined list of safety requirements. The standards mean that those selling or buying products such as fire curtains, can be absolutely sure that their products are fit for purpose. Many companies do not currently adhere to these new certificates, and will be continuing to sell products that do not in fact meet the new legal requirements.

Thanks to all those who attended my webinar last week on the design considerations when integrating smoke and fire curtains into a building. The webinar is now available as a recording, which you can watch at any time.

Smoke and fire curtains are usually controlled (either individually or in groups) by a zone control panel. The curtains are allowed to fall automatically under the influence of gravity when the power is lost, which can happen in a fire or during a simple power cut. However if there is an electricity outage where there is no emergency, this can be a nuisance, and it can be prevented by using either a local Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) or a Battery Back-Up (BBU).

First of all, don’t misunderstand my objective here. I think better regulation of fire industry construction products is a good thing. A standard that requires relevant testing of fire safety products is of absolute benefit – providing the testing requirements are based on empirical evidence of the products in fire situations.

I received some excellent questions during the Q&A section during the recent webinar that I presented. Here you can see my answers to these questions, slightly edited for clarity.

In the UK, as with the rest of the EU, smoke curtains have to comply with the EN 12101-1 Product Standard. 

The Standard specifies the maximum amount of smoke leakage at the edges of a smoke curtain in order to ensure that any openings only allow small amounts of smoke to pass the curtain. However any smoke which passes the curtain through such a gap is likely to be mixed with the unpolluted air on the protected side of the curtain and thus is unlikely to represent a significant threat to people.

At the design stage it is necessary to pay attention to the detailing of side guides and bottom bars for smoke and fire curtains.

A properly designed and installed fire curtain will deploy time and time again without any problem. BS 8524-1 includes a reliability test where the curtain is cycle tested to prove reliability of operation over an extended period.

What can go wrong? Excess pressure differences

However, it is quite possible for a fire curtain to stick if subjected to excess pressure differences or air velocities while it is deploying. The problem is that the pressure or velocity pushes the fabric and its end guides against one side of the side guide rail and the resulting additional friction can overcome the gravitational force and stop the curtain in its tracks.

At our recent webinar on smoke and fire curtains, I received a large number of excellent questions during the Q&A section. Here you can see my answers to these questions, slightly edited for clarity. 

There is also a recording of the webinar available. Watching the recorded version will still enable you to claim CPD points.

Following on from our previous blog covering specifying fire curtains, we now turn to automatic controls for smoke and fire curtains.

Again we’ve been seeing lots of long-winded specifications calling for quite sophisticated control functions and features, mentioning potentially confusing features such as ‘epicyclic gearbox retarders’ which seem to be very specific to certain manufacturers rather than being an application or project requirement. These kinds of specifications may well be over complicating matters and potentially could build in reliability issues as well as increasing capital and maintenance costs unnecessarily. 

Fire curtains: what they do. As an alternative to bulky fire shutters or doors, a fire curtain is designed to seal off an opening between two areas, deploying when there is a fire to prevent that fire from spreading from one area to another. It operates automatically when connected to a suitable control system and when it has been installed and commissioned correctly.

Specifying: why level of integrity should come first. With the above in mind, arguably the most important aspect of specifying a fire curtain is deciding what level of integrity is actually required to maintain compartmentation between the two areas to be protected. So, the critical consideration should be, does the fire curtain need to provide 30, 60, 120 or 180 minutes integrity?

Join me on Friday 27th Febuary 2015 at 12:30 GMT, as I present a free CPD webinar on the design considerations when integrating smoke and fire curtains into a building. 

Fire curtains seal off an area which is on fire, thereby preventing fire from moving from one area to another. Smoke curtains prevent the passage of smoke.