Posted By Nathan Pobre, Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Commercial building codes have been modified to require the construction of more energy-efficient buildings. Improvements to the building envelope, using continuous insulation solutions incorporating polyisocyanurate (or Polyiso) insulation, have played a major role in mainstreaming high-performance construction practices. To meet the demands of today’s buildings, architectural and design professionals must balance energy efficiency with whole building performance considerations, including fire safety. All construction materials, including foam plastics materials such as polyiso insulation, must provide a suitable margin of fire safety. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 285 fire test is a large-scale wall assembly test used to determine the potential for flame spread from one story of a building to another through the exterior wall. With respect to wall assemblies in Type I-IV Construction, understanding and properly implementing NFPA 285 is a critical component for designing a compliant, high-performance building envelope.
To learn more about NFPA 285, check out this free webinar which can help you:
1. Understand the development history of the NFPA 285 standard fire test procedure for exterior wall assemblies containing combustible materials.
2. Identify the NFPA 285 related requirements in the 2012 and 2015 editions of the International Building Code.
3. Explain how engineering analysis of NFPA 285 test assemblies may be used to specify alternative materials.
4. Determine how Polyiso insulation can be used as an integral component of NFPA 285 tested and compliant wall assemblies.
Tags: building codes buildings energy efficiency insulation NFPA 285 Polyiso Type I-IV walls