Mr Roofer

I was alerted to a “competitor” web site by a customer yesterday. This web site, leaving aside the very poor grammar, claimed to be BBA accredited and even shows a picture of a van proudly displaying the BBA logo on their home page. They even claim “BBA 25 year approved system”. All lies I am afraid, the company in question is not BBA accredited in any shape or form and certainly has no rights to claim any reference to the BBA.

This led me to think about con men and rogue traders. If a company cannot be honest in their advertising then clearly no consumer should have any faith in using that company, what other lies are they trying to get you to swallow? But how does a consumer evaluate and establish who are the con men and rogue traders? It seems help is at hand; contact Local Trading Standards if you are at all suspicious of a trader. Also, check web sites like http:// www.blagger.com and http://www.vetted.com/ to see if anyone else has raised concern about the company in question.

And always speak to existing customers of the company, ask for 10 or more references of the last 10 jobs completed, not the usual 2 or 3 because even rogue traders are astute enough to ensure that their brother and uncle will give a good reference. It becomes harder to manufacturer references the more there are and the more recent, ask for the last 10 rolling jobs completed as the references you take up. If you do not get this (all Rooftherm customers get this, we automatically ask each customer if they are happy to act as a reference, we have not had one customer refuse) or the company refuses claiming rubbish about data protection and so on then you already have your answer.

It seems our articles are upsetting some of our competitive neighbours. We received out of the blue an email yesterday from a distributor marketing Dow Chemical’s Froth Pak system. This email threatens legal action against us for mentioning the fact that Dow Chemical’s Froth Pak polyurethane spray kit are not fire rated. We quote below from Dow’s own web site on their frequently asked questions page on Froth Pak:

http://www.dow.com/buildingproducts/frothpak/faq.htm#faq15

“Is FROTH-PAK fire rated?
No. FROTH-PAK is not a fire rated foam. “

and

“Is FROTH-PAK flammable?
Cured FROTH-PAK foam itself is NOT flammable, but it is combustible. The foam will burn if exposed to sparks or flames, and it will present a fire hazard if exposed to temperatures above 240°F. See Fire Rating Issues.”

and

“Warning: The foam produced by FROTH-PAK is organic and combustible and may constitute a fire hazard. Do not expose foam to flame or temperatures above 240°F (116°C).”

Our article can be found at:
Roof Insulation - a Spray Foam DIY Proposition?

We would welcome any comments from anyone who thinks we have misinformed. Seriously.

Apparently this distributor wrote to claim that the Froth Pak kits they supplied were B2 fire rated. There is no mention of B2 ratings on Dow’s web site in relation to Froth Pak’s. To be fair to the distributor, they did send us a copy of the laboratory reports (German) they had supporting the fact that the chemical they were supplying was B2 rated but the report itself did not specifically mention anywhere “Dow Froth Pak”. It did make a reference to the word as a trade name “134A Froth”. Presumably they are the same thing?

The B2 fire rating is used mainly on continental Europe and is originally a German standard. As we understand it, the German B2 fire rating standard is equivalent to rating Class E BS EN11925-2 in the UK which describes materials meeting this requirement as moderately flammable. The test itself is no where near as stringent as a BS Class 1 fire test. British Standard class 1 has been become over the years the de facto standard for the polyurethane spray foam industry in the UK. But more to the point, BS 476 part 6/7 under current building regulations can only be met by class 0 and 1 materials. In other words, a B2 rated product does not meet this requirement. We are also at a loss to understand why a distributor to the UK market would obtain a German laboratory B2 rating. It appears to us that if you are marketing to the UK building industry then you would use UK standards, e.g. BS EN11925-2. Such testing is done by the Building Research Establishment at relatively little cost and the fire certificate would carry a UK standard.

Our advice is very simple. We do not believe that a B2 or Class E rated polyurethane has any place in the roof of a building due to the increased fire risk hazard and it certainly has no place in a public building under current Building Regulations. And the vast majority of the UK spray foam polyurethane industry supports this view. The insurance industry generally has a hard time accepting anything less than Class 1; they have no intention of seeing their profits go up in smoke! Try obtaining insurance on a building where B2 rated materials have been used and you’ll likely be disappointed. The solution to us is simple, supply the UK market with Class 1 rated kits. We believe there are a number of such rated kits coming onto the UK market. Perhaps we should become a distributor of Class 1 kits ourselves?!