In light of the terrible tragedies we witnessed in 2017, have you ever wondered how long you would have to escape from a burning building? Well we have.
At Shiel Developments, we are always looking to offer more than your average construction company. Nothing is more important to us than ensuring the homes and workplaces we build are as safe as they can be. At Shiel we believe in fitting non-flammable materials that don’t just meet building standards, but comprehensively outperform them.
One area that has recently attracted a lot of interest is cabling and what happens to it in a fire, especially as the modern home, office, school, college, or workplace contains so much of it.
Standard PVC cabling when it catches fire – either through an electrical fault or in a severe fire – emits toxic halogen fumes along with a thick black smoke. And it is those fumes and the thickness of smoke that are the prime cause of people succumbing to a fire - more so than from the flames.
Although PVC cabling is still in widespread use, at Shiel we install cabling that’s safer. We use flame retardant, low smoke halogen free (LSHF) cable which considerably reduces the amount of toxic and corrosive gas emitted when it catches fire. And if it does burn, an LSHF cable also gives off much lower density smoke than PVC cabling, so it’s easier to see through and make an escape.
“The cabling we use is based on that used in nuclear power stations”
Low smoke halogen free cabling is already in use where large electrical currents are carried in public places deemed high risk, such as on the railways (especially through tunnels), in the nuclear industry and on aircraft and submarines.
Even though there’s no legal requirement to install LSHF cable in British homes or general workplace at present, we are proud to do so as all the tests show it is less likely to overload, less likely to catch fire and if it does, it will not emit the level of poisonous gasses that traditional PVC cable generates.
It’s another way that you will get higher standards as standard with a Shiel home or workplace.