Mineral wool-what you don’t know can hurt you

Have you ever looked closely at firestop details for rated joints?  Most of them will have a compression requirement and this is something that is often not well understood and I want to help with that.  First, I want you to understand why the compression requirements are so important. When it comes to fire stop in rated joints, when mineral wool is NOT required, you can bet it’s going to be a small gap, so the risk of fire coming from one side of the rated assembly to the other is rather limited is rather limited, provided you have protected that joint with a fire tested assembly.  

When the gaps are larger the fire risk is increased and so the firestop applications will be dramatically different. Mineral wool is going to be a critical element and as you can imagine if it is critical, then getting it right will be important, but keep in mind, if you are learning about firestop who is typically teaching you?   

The firestop manufacturers?  So it makes sense they will focus on their products. Not that this is at all a bad thing, but what happens is;  that if your training focuses on firestop products, you are inclined to think that the firestop products are the most important part of the assembly.  

Guess What… 

When you are dealing with larger joints, the mineral wool is the work horse of your firestop application. Getting this right is going to be important. By “right” we are talking about five critical elements. That we will talk more about this week.  

I hope you will join me, and I hope you will chime in with your thoughts.