Fire Protecting Steel Framed Car Parks with Intumescent Coatings

For fire protection coatings the environmental extremes encountered in car parks, and other open sided buildings, mean that it is often not possible to have a one size fits all solution to the specification. Particularly onerous for intumescent products are open deck car parks and underground car parks where water, road salt and grit can cause conditions that are very severe.

In common with most structures that require a coating specification, steel frame car parks are often defined in terms of a corrosivity environment in accordance with ISO 12944/EN 16623. The challenge is that these are broad based categories which do not really consider the specific requirement of intumescent fire protection coatings. Despite this ISO 12944/EN 16623 could better define the actual environment encountered in different types of car park and similar open structures, if more consideration were given to the parts of the standard that deal with issues such as local micro-environments and special cases.