Does Intumescent Cable Coating Work?
Here’s the story…
Fire protection saves lives. At 4:21pm a fire alarm was raised in the No. 1 Tertiary Crushing Building (TCB 1) substation and alarmed at the facility security gate.
The Emergency Services Officer and Shift Electrician investigated the alarm and found thick smoke coming from the 440V motor lead centre No. 6 (MLC6) which is located towards the southern end of the substation. The smoke was too thick for the electrician to determine where to isolate MLC6. The building was evacuated.
The fire brigade, relevant supervision and management were contacted. Significant damage was sustained to MLC6. However, cabling directly above the MLC was protected with CharCoat CC Cable Coating. This acted successfully to prevent the fire from spreading to cabling in an overhead tray, which would have spread to other areas.
The same facility has now adopted a policy of passive fire protection over active fire protection (sprinklers, gas, etc.). This is due to the excessive maintenance costs associated with active systems. Instead of paying over $248,400.00 a year in maintenance costs, they are only paying for the coating of cables with CharCoat CC and the rectification of their penetration seals with CharCoat Firestop Products. This cost is usually under $50,000.00 for this facility. Quite the saving!
Why CharCoat CC Cable Coating Works
It was clear that the fire damage was contained to a few centimeters above the cable gland due to the installed FM and IEC rated “CharCoat CC Coating”. In recent years CharCoat Passive Fire Protection has been through several fires and has proven beyond a doubt that it can perform. Because CharCoat CC is applied to the cable gland as well as the cable, the facilities sometimes don’t even have to re-cable after fires.
They install a junction box and are back online within 1 to 2 hours. Downtime is kept to a minimum, which means no loss of production, assets, people, and no loss of sales. It’s fairly straightforward to rectify or replace machinery; it’s not so easy to restore a client base.
Why use CharCoat Passive Fire Protection?
A small fire in the wrong area can cost a Power Station or smelter up to and greater than $1.4 million per day in lost revenue. This figure does not include rectification. Don’t let this happen to you!
CharCoat CC Cable Coating as well as the CharCoat Firestop Products can provide any solution required for the protection of electrical cables from fire.
