Within the family of security glazing, fire-rated glazing is not the first thing to come to mind and yet it is essential and even mandatory in some establishments.
Safeguard yourself against fire
In public-facing establishments, such as hospitals, schools, town halls etc, standards are increasingly changing and it is becoming a requirement to have fire-rated glazing fitted.
Indeed, if a fire starts, everyone must be able to get out safely via zones where the fire will be unable to spread. That is the primary role of fire-rated glazing
Figures on fires are striking (see infographic opposite). In France there are dozens of fires every day, killing hundreds of people a year. It is easy to see the importance of preventing or delaying the spread of the fire when you are aware that every minute counts.
Protect yourself from fire thanks to glazing
According to standard EN 357 there are 3 classes of resistance required for glazing:
- Class E: integrity against flames, smoke and hot gasses. “Heat” can be felt on the other side of the glazing
- Class EW: integrity and radiation control.
- Class EI: integrity and thermal insulation. No “heat” can be felt on the other side of the glazing.
We often here the word “firewall” in everyday language but we need to distinguish between two different categories: fire resistant, which correspond to classes E, EW and EI (see above) and fire protective, which correspond to class EI.
The fire resistance of fire-rated glazing is based on three fundamental criteria:
- Length of time: depending on the type of performance of the glass, delaying the fire or preventing it from reaching the protected room.
- Thermal insulation: limiting the transfer of thermal radiation
- Mechanical stability: classification according to EN 12600
This fire-rated glazing has the advantage of being multi-functional and can be sandblasted silkscreen printed, laminated (transparent, opal, coloured) and can also meet particular requirements such as attack-resistance, sound insulation etc.
LFire-rated glazing is classified with ranges of joinery (wood, steel, aluminium) in the benchmark testing certificates.
Customise your glazing
The composition of glazing will differ according to its future application.
Indeed, fire-rated glazing can be used on the interior or exterior of buildings and, in the latter case, in most cases double glazing is preferred to add thermal, security, solar control features.
Fire resistant and fire protective glazing in stock
For the last 25 years VIT has stocked Pyrobelite (E) and Pyrobel (EI) products, with a wide range of certification for four-sided or two-sided (without vertical frames) wooden, steel or aluminium framing.
You will find our technical documents and reports on our fire-rated glazing page:
