Fire safety covered

The STA spearheads the highest levels of health and safety in the use of structural timber with significant investment in research and testing.

Working with industry stakeholders including the HSE and Building Control, we are committed to fire testing to mitigate the risk of fire in the use of structural timber and have over 20 different configurations of timber frame to both 30 mins and 60 min fire resistance for buildings in use, all completed to E1365 – part 1 2012.

We have invested in testing for details around wall to floor junctions along with testing for cavity barriers and have produced a comprehensive guide to the correct installation of cavity barriers.

To support fire testing further, we have invested over £300k in development of the Fire Research Pattern Book vol 1. This guide provides clarity of performance on different timber frame systems, supporting specifiers in confirming fire resilience of different systems and their suitability

In addition, the STA has contributed over £500k to the mass timber sector to research compartment fire testing that established best practice for mass timber specifications.