Fire Door Glazing

[Jeffrey Craig]

I'm inspecting fire doors and some of the doors are very old and the glass does not have a label on it as it should according to NFPA 80. Is it necessary to label them or is there a grand father clause? and how would I find the fire rating on a non-labeled piece of glass?

 

[cda]

Welcome!!

Did you also email Lori??

 

[Jeffrey Craig]

Not yet I was just getting to that, thank you

 

[cda]

Not yet I was just getting to that, thank you

Good, sometimes she is working harder than hard, so may take a day or two for reply.

 

[LGreene]

I'm working on a response to Jeff's email, and I'll post it here too. Thanks for connecting us Charles!

 

[LGreene]

Here's what I sent to Jeff:

Section 4.2.2 of NFPA 80-2016 says, “New fire protection–rated and fire resistance–rated glazing shall be marked in accordance with Table 4.2.2, and such marking shall be permanently affixed.” The 1999 edition of 80 says, “Each individual glazing unit shall be identified with a label. The label shall be visible after installation.” The 1970 edition says “Only labeled wired glass shall be used.”

With that said, it was not common practice to have labels on each individual piece of glass in a fire door until the exemption for wired glass went away. Even though safety glazing has been in the building codes since the late 1970’s, wired glass in fire doors was exempt from the safety glazing requirements until the 2003/2006 IBC. The exemption was partially removed in the 2003 edition and completely removed in the 2006 edition (there’s more info here: http://idighardware.com/2013/04/breaking-tradition-may-2013/).

When traditional wired glass was acceptable, the individual pieces of glass were cut out of a big sheet of glass, and there were no labels on the individual pieces. If the doors you’re inspecting were installed prior to adoption of the 2003/2006 IBC (depending on the occupancy type), existing wired glass is probably ok because it meets the requirements for fire protection and was not required to be impact resistant.

If the existing doors have glazing that is not wired glass, the glass should be marked with information about the fire resistance and the impact resistance. If it’s not, my guess is that it is just laminated glass and probably not listed for use in a fire door assembly.

 

[cda]

Here's what I sent to Jeff:

Section 4.2.2 of NFPA 80-2016 says, “New fire protection–rated and fire resistance–rated glazing shall be marked in accordance with Table 4.2.2, and such marking shall be permanently affixed.” The 1999 edition of 80 says, “Each individual glazing unit shall be identified with a label. The label shall be visible after installation.” The 1970 edition says “Only labeled wired glass shall be used.”

With that said, it was not common practice to have labels on each individual piece of glass in a fire door until the exemption for wired glass went away. Even though safety glazing has been in the building codes since the late 1970’s, wired glass in fire doors was exempt from the safety glazing requirements until the 2003/2006 IBC. The exemption was partially removed in the 2003 edition and completely removed in the 2006 edition (there’s more info here: http://idighardware.com/2013/04/breaking-tradition-may-2013/).

When traditional wired glass was acceptable, the individual pieces of glass were cut out of a big sheet of glass, and there were no labels on the individual pieces. If the doors you’re inspecting were installed prior to adoption of the 2003/2006 IBC (depending on the occupancy type), existing wired glass is probably ok because it meets the requirements for fire protection and was not required to be impact resistant.

If the existing doors have glazing that is not wired glass, the glass should be marked with information about the fire resistance and the impact resistance. If it’s not, my guess is that it is just laminated glass and probably not listed for use in a fire door assembly.

Ok my guesses were::



From NFPA 80 commentary::


"""""It is not practical to expect that existing installations meet all of the criteria of NFPA 80 every time a new edition of the standard is issued. Those installations that were existing prior to the effective date of the document are not held to the requirements in the standard, """"""""

AND:



Maybe 2013???



http://idighardware.com/2016/01/decoded-fire-protection-rated-vs-fire-resistance-rated-assemblies-march-2016/