Fire Retardant Fabric

When looking more into the qualities of the fabrics I have selected so far it would appear that not all conform to the fire regulations with in a pub. The fabrics put into a pub not only need to be suitable for heavy domestic and commercial use but they also need to be fire retardant. This is because in the unfortunate event of a fire the establishment and all its content don’t immediately go up in flames. By making sure the fabrics and furnishings are fire retardant means that if there was a fire the items wouldn’t immediately burn giving the people inside longer to get out but also giving the fire fighters time to save the building. This is because with the right protection the fire would not sweep through the building as fast. So it is very important being a commercial building that the right fabrics are put in place.

Fire retardant fabrics aren’t necessarily the nicest fabrics around. They aren’t very pliable and the patterns are using quite dark and boring. The fabrics I have chosen if used in the final scheme need to be treated. There are two ways of doing so:

-       One would be to treat the fabrics with a fire retardant solution. The only problem with this is that it can alter the shade of the fabric so a sample would need to be done first to check how it would react

-       Second option would be to use an interlining that is made especially to conform to Fire regulations.

I have found two companies that could do either or both of these solutions. The first is the company I have sourced some of the samples from and that is Terrysfabrics.co.uk. They will fire retard fabric at a cost of £3.99 per metre. There is a catch. The minimum amount of fabric required to do this is 20 metres. As I would be using a variety of fabrics I would not reach such amounts in any one fabric. Terrysfabrics.co.uk also offer a fire retardant interlining at £4.99 to go under any chosen fabric.

The second company I have found is based in Oxforshire. Their website is Gablesflameretarding.co.uk. The fabric gets sent to them, they treat it and send it back, so postage costs would need to be estimated and factored in to the price of the fabrics. For light to medium fabrics there is a charge of £1.96 (ex vat) and for heavy fabric it is £2.20 (ex vat).

Using the Passion Velvet fabric at a cost of £16.99 per metre from Terrysfabrics.co.uk I will now work out some costing’s.  As the minimum requirement for their treatment is 20 metres this option is out. If I were to use their interlining at a cost of £4.99 that would then effectively make the cost of using Passion Velvet  £21.98, which is quite a jump.  However if I were to send this fabric to Gablesflameretarding.co.uk it would be a much cheaper even if is was classed as a heavy fabric. Including vat it would work out as £2.64 per metre to protect the fabric, adding that to the original price of the fabric makes fire retarding Passion velvet  £19.63. So although there is only a maximum saving of  £2.35 per a metre before reduction of p&p when using large quantities of fabrics this will add up to be quite a saving. Leaving more of the budget for other items.