The main task of fire-retardant coatings is to combat fires by stopping them spreading. If the surface to be coated is wood, a material of extraordinary beauty that is normally chosen to enhance an environment, fire-retardant coatings must not only protect against fire but also guarantee an excellent aesthetic finish. It is this need to satisfy both standard requirements and aesthetic and functional ones that has led Sayerlack’s research into the formulation and creation of fire-retardant coatings.
Public buildings, discos, dance halls, credit institutes, airports and railway stations, hotel complexes, trade fairs, conference halls, shops, schools, nurseries, auditoriums, theatres, cinemas and museums, hospitals, gyms, fitness centres, churches and any civil building over 24 m high are all required to be fire-retardant. So why choose wood? The way wooden load-bearing structures behave in a fire is fundamental in terms of passive protection and very different to metal. In the event of a fire, the temperature in a closed environment reaches several hundred degrees. This causes metal, an excellent conductor of heat, to lose all its mechanical resistance, which results in the structure collapsing. Wood, a bad conductor, not only does not collapse, but the flames and heat create a carbonised layer on the surface of the structure that stops combustion spreading to the inside. When heated, intumescent coatings increase these protective layers by causing them to swell by several centimetres. This is why engineering and architectural works are increasingly made of wood.
Sayerlack has created clear and pigmented, waterborne and solvent-based fire-retardant coating systems. With Class 1 certifications (Italy), BS 476 part 7 (UK), M1 (France), European Standard – Walls and Floors, MED Standard (Naval).
The TO clear gloss fire retardant coating system fills superbly, spreads well and has great transparency as well as satisfying the Class 1 requirements stipulated for the British standard BS 476 Part 7. The TO abbreviation indicates a coating system that can be spray-applied in quantities of 720 g/m2 on sanded wood. The system consists of a clear polyurethane sealant coat with excellent surface wettability, elasticity and adherence, two coats of clear red-ox polyester fire retardant basecoat that is superbly transparent, spreads well and is easy to sand, and a buffable, clear, gloss, acrylic-polyurethane, two-part topcoat that has great transparency and spreads well.
This combination of three products makes the coating system a valid solution for ensuring that wooden furniture and flat surfaces are fire retardant, but also have a full, high gloss finish that highlights the natural grain of the wood. Sayerlack: first-class protection for the design sector.
