Building fires are responsible for a number of tragedies every year and sometimes, even adhering to all the fire safety regulations isn’t enough to stop them from happening with 100% assurance. Therefore, it only makes sense that we take all the possible precautions to not only reduce the chances of a building fire from ever starting, but the necessary preventive measures to also reduce or limit the impact of a fire if it does start. On that note, here are five benefits of choosing fire proof paint for commercial and residential buildings.
1. Limiting the Spreading of Fire
One of the most dangerous properties of fire is that it continues to spread and fire-retardant paints can stop that from happening. Depending on the product in question, the layer of paint can either emit gases that inhibit fire or form a protective layer of char that will slow down the spread and damage. If the paint only forms a char layer for protecting what’s underneath, it’s known as intumescent paint or fire-resistant paint. On the other hand, a paint that releases flame-weakening gases on reaching a certain degree of temperature would be classified as fire-retardant. The perfect fire-repelling paint will likely form a char to delay the fire-damage and emit gases to weaken it at the same time.
2. They Protect What’s Underneath
As explained earlier, a layer of char is formed by the intumescent paint on coming in contact with excessive temperatures to protect building materials. This protection time can last anywhere between 30-minutes to 120-minutes, depending on the intensity of the fire and the particular product in use.
3. Fire-Retardant Paint Can be Applied to a Variety of Building Materials
Almost all building materials like softwood, hardwood, fibreboards, chipboards, brick, stone, plasterboard, melamine-faced sheets, concrete, and all the metallic parts can be coated with fire-repelling paint for better protection and building safety.
4. Your Choices are Not Limited Either
Sacrificing décor over functionality is not a choice that you have to make with fire-retardant paints since they offer a variety of finishes to match with your interior and exterior design elements, just like regular paint. This means that it is very likely that you will be able to get a finish in silk, eggshell, gloss, matt, metallic and clear, to name a few.
5. You can Even Paint Over Old Non-Retardant Paints
It is perfectly possible to paint over old, regular paint with a new coat of flame-retardant paint and that won’t affect your new paint’s fire-insulation properties in any way. However, it is important to note that the new layers are thick enough to do the job if required.
Note that while flame-retardant paints are extremely effective in delaying the spread or the damage caused by fire, they can only do so for a limited time and the protection offered will not be effective after that. Nevertheless, the extra few minutes which fire-retardant paints provide most often are the difference between life and death, in the case of a fire emergency.
