From a fire perspective EPS insulation has characteristics that makes it inflammable and can cause fast fire spread which is aggravating for the fire and rescue services. Reports from fire and rescue operations related to both EPS insulation and construction sites of buildings, show that fires most often are related to faults in protecting combustible materials during hot works such as welding. A case study was performed with the purpose to investigate flaws during handling and installation of EPS insulation at four construction sites. The project consisted of field studies with interviews with respective site managers and a supplier of façade systems. Interviews were also conducted with the fire and rescue services to obtain a deeper understanding for the problems of fire rescue operations during fires with large quantities of EPS insulation and the risks from using combustible insulation in modern building technology. The study showed that fire safety measurements were not taken during handling and installation of EPS insulation in particular. EPS insulation was only looked at from an economical perspective which resulted in large quantities of insulation stored at the construction sites and in scaffolds prior to installation. It was concluded that handling and installation of EPS insulation was inadequate from a construction site fire safety point of view. Furthermore irregularities and lack of thoroughly made inspections of insulation of façade installations show that there are a lot of uncertainty regarding the fire safety of a façade with combustible insulation. Suggestions to limit fires in combustible insulations, increase quality of the construction of facades as well as raise awareness of fire hazards during planning and construction of buildings were made.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mdh-28459 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Lindholm, Lars |
| Publisher | Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för ekonomi, samhälle och teknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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