Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
Insulation supplier Celotex has stopped sales of five of its polyisocyanurate rigid foam board based products following the failure of one products to achieve a Class 0 fire rating.
The latest product lines to be pulled, which are used for wall, floor and pitched roof insulation are Celotex FR5000, Celotex CG5000, Celotex CF5000 and Celotex SL5000. They all share the same PIR insulation core and facer.
The 5000 ranges not affected are Celotex FI5000 and Celotex GD5000, which are not marketed or sold as Class 0 rated. Sales of the company’s RS5000 rigid foam board had already been suspended on 23 June, following the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June.
The Saint-Gobain-owned firm said in statement: “We are recommending to our distributors that they do not sell existing stock in this period and we shall collect any relevant 5000 series products in its original packaging and will credit customers seeking to return such product with the purchase price with no restocking charge, regardless of when the product was supplied to the customer.”
“We recognise that this decision could have some practical implications for some of our customers for which we apologise. We hope in the present circumstances that customers will understand the reasons behind our decision.”
The firm said that in 2011 a sample of its PIR 5000 product range (FR5000) was tested under Parts 6 and 7 of BS 476 and achieved a Class 0 fire rating. It applied the 2011 test results in relation to Celotex RS5000, Celotex CG5000, Celotex CF5000 and Celotex SL5000. In April 2017, Celotex sent a sample of RS5000 for independent tests.
“We were surprised when we learned, in August 2017, that while this sample continues to meet the standard for Class 1, the sample did not achieve a Class 0 rating. We do not currently know why the RS5000 sample did not achieve a Class 0 rating in these later tests, given the results from 2011 and we are investigating this. In light of this test result and the desire to act responsibly, we believe it is right to temporarily suspend supply of these 5000 ranges.”
