Service penetrations: match the system to the actual service, opening and separating element.

You do not need to know the fire-stopping product before you contact us. Start with what passes through the wall or floor, what the building element is, what has been raised as a defect, and what records you already have.

Electrical penetrations can involve single cables, bundles, conduits, cable trays, busways and combinations that change over the life of the building. A detail that suits one cable arrangement does not automatically suit another, and adding services later can move the opening outside the evidence that supported the original installation.

Plastic and metal pipes fail in opposite directions, so they are protected in opposite ways. A plastic pipe softens and burns away, leaving an open hole through the element — which is what a collar is for. It closes on heat and crushes the pipe shut. A metal pipe does the reverse: it stays where it is and conducts heat through to the unexposed face, so the detail usually calls for insulation over a set length either side instead.

A collar is not a generic part. The pipe material, outside diameter, wall thickness, the element it passes through, the orientation and the fixings are all part of the tested configuration, and a collar sized for one pipe is not evidence for another. The two faults we find most often are a collar fixed with fewer anchors than the system requires, and a gap left behind the collar where nobody could see it.

A mechanical penetration is anything the mechanical trade puts through a fire-rated wall or floor: pipes, insulated services, small ducts and their supports. We seal all of them. Fire dampers and fire-resisting duct systems are work we also do — see Duct Protection & Dampers for those.

Wall penetrations depend on the wall system as much as the service. Lightweight partitions, masonry and other fire-resisting constructions do not accept the same details by default. Wall thickness, framing or masonry condition, lining layers and the opening all form part of the review.

Service openings in fire-resisting elements are dealt with through the National Construction Code and the test and assessment framework it references. FRS works from the project requirement and the evidence for the actual penetration system, rather than treating a product label or a standard number as the answer.

Worth naming the two documents people confuse. AS 1530.4 is the fire test. AS 4072.1 is what you do with the result — it covers the materials, components and methods used to protect service penetrations and control joints in separating elements required to have an FRL, and the conditions under which a tested prototype can be relied on for the thing actually built. It is the link between a test report in a folder and a hole in a wall.

One thing worth knowing right now: which NCC edition applies in WA depends on when the permit application was made, and more than one edition can be in play during a transition. That is why we ask what the project documents say rather than assuming a version.