Exceptional fire protection from Knauf Insulation

The lightweight and slim construction of Knauf Insulation’s Rocksilk® FireTech Slab has led SIG plc to specify 4,500m2 of the insulation, to upgrade the fire performance of a basement car park in Ireland.

The two-storey car park in Dublin is constructed of steel beams and columns, which includes an innovative car lifting stacker system. Michael Neill, National Technical Manager at SIG plc in Ireland, commented: “We required an insulation product that could provide one-hours fire protection and could also be installed while the car park remained in use. The sound of the installation had to be kept to a minimum, in order to not disturb occupiers within the adjoining residential and commercial buildings.”

“After consulting with insulation experts at Knauf Insulation’s Technical Support Team, we opted for Rocksilk® FireTech Slab in 25mm. This product was ideal for the project as it was lightweight, easy to handle and provided the fire protection we required. The 25mm thickness also left us room to install aluminium cladding, as between some of the steel beams, columns and services of the building we only had a 40mm clearance.”

Knauf Insulation’s Rocksilk® FireTech Slab is a high density, resilient and non-combustible rock mineral wool slab, that provides exceptional fire protection for a wide variety of structural steel columns and beams.

Des Forde, General Manager at J S McCarthy, the installers on this project, said: “Knauf Insulation’s Rocksilk® FireTech Slab is a very user friendly product which makes it easy to install. We were also able to just use hand tools, which helped us to keep noise to a minimum while the installation took place. We combined Rocksilk® with 0.9mm stucco aluminium cladding in exposed areas and around the columns so that the services could be mounted and to give impact resistance on the columns.  

“Even though we had to install the insulation around awkward ducting and piping, it was still completed relatively quickly due to Rocksilk® FireTech Slab’s easy handling. In fact, we managed to install and complete the entire project in just 18 weeks – eight weeks ahead of schedule – with minimal disruption to the people who used the car park on a daily basis.”