Construction Fire Testing

Construction fire testing services

Warringtonfire’s team of engaged experts offer a wide variety of services to the construction industry, one of the ways we support this sector is through our construction fire testing capabilities.

Our laboratories in High Wycombe and Warrington are UKAS accredited, our Australian laboratory is NATA accredited and our Gent laboratory is BELAC accredited.

Among other things, for construction fire testing we test building materials according to national, European and International standards.

Our construction fire testing is mainly to flammability standards with some smoke density according to:

UK standards

• BS 476 Part 4 Non-combustibility
• BS 476 Part 7 Spread of flame (Click here to see a short video on the test)

European Specification EN 13501-1: Reaction to fire

• EN ISO 1182 Non-combustibility
• EN ISO 1716 Bomb calorimeter
• EN 13823 Single burning item (SBI) (Click here to see a short video on the test)
• EN ISO 11925 Ignitability
• EN ISO 9239-1 Radiant panel test for floorings (Click here to see a short video on the test)
• EN 13820 organic content
• EN 15725 and CEN/TS 15117: Extended application of test results (EXAP)
• Calorimetry prediction software

Australian standards

• AS ISO 9705, ISO 9705-1: Determines the fire hazard properties of internal wall and ceiling linings. These full-scale tests are typically used for the purposes of determining group number classifications in accordance with Australian Standard AS 5637.1:2015.
• AS/NZS 3837, ISO 5660-1: Commonly known as cone calorimetry tests, these bench-scale tests are used to determine various reaction to fire properties of a material including heat release, mass loss and smoke toxicity.
• AS 1530.1, ISO 1182: Determines combustibility of a material. AS 1530.1 is referenced in the Australian National Construction Code (NCC) as the only test methodology to determine combustibility.
• BS 8414, AS 5113: Determines the fire performance of external cladding systems. The full-scale test simulates a fire breaking out of a window and exposing a cladding system to a severe fire.
• ISO 1716: Determines the gross heat of combustion (calorific value) of a material.
• ASTM D5630: Determines the ash content (eg inorganic residues such as antiblock, reinforcements, mineral fillers, etc) in plastics.
• AS 1530.2: Determines the flammability of flexible membranes and woven materials (eg sarking).
• AS 1530.3: Determines the early fire hazard properties of a material. It sets out a test method for the assessment of building materials and components according to their tendency to ignite, propagate flame, release heat after ignition and release smoke.
• ISO 9239.1: Determines the critical heat flux (CHF), also commonly known as the critical radiant flux (CRF) in the National Construction Code. The test is used to assess the wind-opposing behaviours and spread of flame of horizontally mounted floorings exposed to a heat flux gradient. This test method is applicable to all types of floorings (eg textile carpet, cork, wood, rubber).
• ISO 13785-1
• ISO 13785-2
• NFPA 274 and equivalent ISO, ASTM and EN standards

French standards NF P 92-507

• NF P 92-501 Epiradiateur
• NF P 92-503 Bruleur electric
• NF P 92-504 Flame spread
• NF P 92-505 Dripping-test  

International ISO standards

• ISO 5560 (Click here to see a short video on the test)
• ISO 9705