Fire Separations (Fire Stopping, Fire Doors, Fire/Smoke Dampers)

Almost all buildings require fire separations, these fire separation often exist between floors or separate hazardous areas of a building from common egress and exit paths. Fire Separations also exist to protect certain vulnerable occupancies such as individual suites, detention areas, nursing homes/care facilities and hospitals.

Many fires, especially those in buildings that are not protected by sprinklers will spread beyond the point of origin, through damaged fire separations and cause substantial fire damage or worse, cause loss of life to occupants remote from the fire.  Where a building does not meet the fire code, the responsibility and legal liability falls on the building owner.

How PLC Can Help

Fire separations are required to be maintained during the life of the building. Fire separations damage tends to occur during building occupancy. In such situations, if the fire separation(s) are not adequately repaired then the necessary protection to provide fire resistance will not be provided as per the requirements of the fire code.

PLC staff can identify the required fire separations within a building through design drawings and/or site inspections. We can inspect those separations to determine their fire resistance rating and completeness and give recommendations to what repairs are needed for the fire separation(s) to meet code requirements.

PLC has successfully performed such large-scale inspections in schools, nursing homes/care facilities, and detention centers, as well as limited area inspections in various other building types and uses.