Exterior / Interior Fire Rated Timber

Timber refers to the wood of cut trees and prepared for the construction industry. There are two main types of timber, hardwood and softwood. These terms are not an indication of the hardness of particular timbers. There are many hardwoods that are softer and lighter than some softwoods. Softwoods come from coniferious (cone-bearing) trees such as pines, spruces and Douglas fir. The hardwoods are from the broadleaf trees such as eucalypts, balsa and oaks.

Timber has been successfully used to construct fire-safe buildings in the United States, Canada and Europe for more than a century. And now with Flame Safe XT exterior fire retardant timbers there is more good reason to utilize heavy timber construction techniques. When exposed to elevated temperatues the mechanical properties of Flame Safe's flame retardant timber offer significant advantages over other structural alternatives:

●In a fire, Flame Safe's fire retardant treated (FRT) timber forms a self insulating char layer, (intumescence) which provides protection for the unburned portion.

● Flame Safe's FRT timber, colums, and beams do not expand appreciatively when heated and retain a substantial amount of strength when exposed to extreme temperature levels and flame that commonly occur in building fires.

● Flame Safe's fire treated wood, lumber and timbers are superior to steel members . Even thought steel is often defined as non-combustible, when steel structural members are exposed to extreme heat in a fire steel weakens dramatically as the temperature climbs above 450° F and retains only 10% of it's strength at about 1380° F. The average building fire temperatures range from 1290 °F to 1650° F. Unprotected steel structures will fail at these tempertures leading to catastrophic collapse of the building.

NO BUILDING MATERIAL IS FIREPROOF; the goal of the Flame Safe Companies is to provide the best fire resistant materials and products available to enable designers, architects and engineers to perfect the most effecient method to design code compliant fire rated assemblies for a project at the lowest possiblible cost.