Mezzanine Fire Regulations You Need to Know About

When it comes to your mezzanine flooring, it’s important that you are fully aware of the fire safety regulations surrounding it and your obligations relating to those regulations. In this article, the team at Rack Storage Systems are going to run through the various fire safety regulations around your mezzanine flooring.

Criteria

Firstly, let’s establish that not all mezzanine floors need to be fire rated; only those that meet certain criteria. Generally, all offices on a mezzanine floor will need fire protection, but other floors that will need to follow the fire regulations are:

If the area of the mezzanine floor exceeds 400m2
If any edge of the floor exceeds 20m
If the mezzanine floor is more than 50% of the size of the room it’s installed in
If more than 3 people are likely to be working on the mezzanine floor at any one time

If your mezzanine flooring is to be used for anything other than storage, it’s going to be subject to these fire safety regulations, so if this is relevant to your premises, it’s important you follow them.

Building regulations

Any suspended ceilings situated above mezzanine flooring is subject to fire protection regulations. Fire rated tiles must be used for the ceiling, with a rating of one hour. Fire-rated fascia and column casings (also with a rating of one hour) are required, with the former protecting the edges of the mezzanine flooring against fire, and the latter protecting the steel work of the columns.

Taking the correct measures will afford you more adequate protection – at least 30 minutes of resistance for the mezzanine area – the fire rated ceiling will help to ensure that the ceiling is not damaged by fire, too.

These steps can be the difference between your premises suffering minimal damage and being catastrophically affected by a fire, so it’s important your mezzanine flooring meets relevant regulations.

Rack Storage Systems are proud to provide the highest quality new and used mezzanine flooring solutions for customers around the UK. Accredited by CFA, CE and UKAS, our products meet all relevant rules and regulations. We also supply fire rated suspended ceilings, mezzanine staircases and components for your flooring, so you can be sure we’ve got everything you need.

For more information, please get in touch with us today and we’ll be happy to help.