Modern engineers and contractors are constantly looking for ways to create safer buildings and structures for their clients and future occupants. If you are looking for new ways to protect your building materials, consider learning more about fire-resistant materials and solutions. Keep reading to discover the three best ways to make wood more fire resistant.
Fire-Retardant Wood
Fire-retardant wood goes through a special treatment process to withstand heat and reduce the spread of flames. All fire-retardant wood starts out as kiln-dried, untreated plywood. Then, the manufacturer uses a pressurized system to infuse the wood with fire-resistant chemicals. To meet fire code and manufacturer standards, the process must completely infuse the wood.
This treatment leads to lumber that is chemically enhanced and tested to withstand flames. However, this demanding creation and treatment process can make fire retardant wood difficult to obtain and less accessible than some other fire-resistant methods.
Fire-Retardant Panels
Fire retardant panels are another way builders and manufacturers reinforce wood to be more fire resistant. Common examples of fire-resistant panels are gypsum boards and magnesia boards, which both have fire-resistant properties. Builders and contractors apply these boards over lumber and wood planks to prevent fire from accessing a building’s vulnerable structural materials.
Fire-Resistant Wood Coatings
Finally, one of the most versatile and affordable ways to make wood more fire-resistant is to apply a coating such as intumescent paint. These paints help prevent the spread of flames from consuming a building’s structural materials.
Intumescent paints protect wood by releasing a layer of chemical foam that swells and insulates the wood around it. This layer chars and slows the spread of fire so that the wood underneath does not sustain as much damage.
If you are looking for more ways to protect your building materials and meet fire code regulations, remember these ways to make wood more fire resistant. And if the information on intumescent paints and fire coatings has piqued your interest, learn more about non-combustible paint for wood and other materials here at Firefree Coatings, Inc.
