The safety and comfort of a building’s occupants should always get the highest priority on a construction project, especially on a high rise building. Cast Iron has an A1 fire rating, that is non-combustible and will not contribute at any stage to a fire. For descriptions of the fire rating definitions, please see the download of the full submittal document.

Halifax Soil

By adding a paint coating into the system, the stated fire rating, under the current regulations, is not able to remain as A1 under the current provisions of BS EN 877. Independent, third party fire tests undertaken by BRE (Building Research Establishment) on a Halifax Soil system resulted in a classification of A2-s1, d0. This indicates that while the material that forms the majority of the products is non-combustible, the coatings may create a small amount of smoke but there will be no flaming droplets emitted from the casting. The rating A2-s1, d0 is the best rating currently possible for systems complying with BS EN 877:1999 +A1:2006 (incorporating corrigendum 2008).

Halifax Drain

The requirements for below ground products to have increased resistance to chemical attack means that the Halifax Drain products have thicker coatings than those in the Halifax Soil range. This increased paint thickness means that the coating forms a larger proportion of the whole product which results in it being a more significant contribution to a fire but remains ‘low risk’. As a result of different coatings used in production, our BBA approved products have a rating of B-S1, d0 while the BSI approved products have a rating of A2-S1, d0. The definitions for each fire classification are shown in the submittal document.

Steel Couplings

Our Stainless-Steel couplings have been independently fire tested by MPA NRW in Dortmund, Germany. The results of these tests showed that, when used to join Cast Iron pipes conforming to EN877, they achieved a rating of F90. This is a German rating and is not related to the ratings in Section 2.2. This rating means that the product will survive in a fire for 90 minutes before it fails.