
Flammability - the burning issue
Out of all the technical standards that fabrics have to meet, we’d always argue that flammability performance is the most important due to its crucial safety implications in the event of a fire. Unfortunately, there is no single flammability standard for upholstery or vertical surface fabrics adopted as the norm throughout the world, and the plethora of different standards in force internationally reflects the different ways of approaching the whole flammability issue.
We try and make it easy for you to understand, at a glance, the flammability performance of our fabrics by using the icons below. These can be seen on the front of our fabric swatch cards, and on product pages of our website.
Let’s take a look at our new Aspect range, as this is an example of a fabric with superior FR performance. Aspect is a subtle mélange, textured fabric with a 75% Trevira CS Flame retardant polyester, 25% Polyester composition. It meets European flammability standards B1 (Germany), ÖNorm (Austria), Classe Uno (Italy), and Low Hazard (cigarette and match). If used over CMHR 50kg foam it achieves Medium Hazard (UK).
Other standards we cover include the French tests NF D 60-013 AM18 and NF P 92 507 M1, and several vertical tests such as variants of BS 476 and the new Single Burning Item BS EN 13501. We always advise you to consult the technical specification area of our swatch card or our website to establish the standards a fabric being specified currently meets.