today we're looking at fire hoods
so Gordon why in recent times have fire hoods becoming more and more prevalent well this
is something we've looked at a lot on the channel particularly with regards to down lights but what
is driving that attention at the moment is the fact that the way we built buildings has changed
lots of people using engineered timber now and although the regulations have remained
the same builders such as that and the NHBC particular attention to what's going in the
ceiling and making sure is not just compliant to the regulations but has been perfectly matched and
tested exactly with the type of timber structure that the building's been constructed from so you
could find now you're going down to that online retailer with click and collect service and you're
going to go and buy yourself a fire hood i think you've got one just there gordon let's have a
little look at it yeah now when most people think of fires yeah you think of this it's a bit like a
camping trip you've got a tent and i'd suggest trying to get square things into round halls
is always a bit of a challenge and we've yeah kind of we tried this and and gave up thankfully
our friends at Tenmat have this brilliant solution here which we're going to test out
in some of the scenarios that you're likely to encounter so scenario so it can be a case that you
can buy a decorative down light maybe specified by the architect that isn't fire-rated. yeah
that's probably the most common scenario here's i've got one here um so a lot of fittings coming
from Europe you know beautifully designed and this is a nice recess down light very compact dimensions
but obviously the way they build structures across in Europe often vastly different from us so they
don't tend to worry about fire ratings the same way we do so this fitting is going to have to
have a fire hood and that becomes the problem of the electrician so we're going to have to fit one
and the problem on this one is this is tiny this is only 50 millimeter cut out right and
you ain't going to get the tent in there luckily well this Tenmat one here are you suggesting
we're going to get that through a 50mm hole yeah okay so let's have a quick closer inspection of it
so it's is it 150 mil wide yeah it's 150 ml wide but we'll go through a 50 millimeter hole okay
let's have a little look gary you had a little trial on this i did so there's only one way to
really test it is to do it one take footage so this is my first attempt with the 10 matte fire
hood in order to fit one of these 50 mil recess down lights for the first time so let's have a
look at that footage so we've got it all cut and ready to go we've prepared the cables so i took
my fire hood okay i had my cables pass through one of the holes we'll come back to those holes
later on in the presentation so i positioned my cables in and now it's a case of just squashing
it up one side and the other bit like a swiss roll gordon well you didn't you didn't waste your time
watching Great British Bake Off for that gary dab hand at that a little bit of twisting as i
go and you'll see just a little squeeze and twist squeeze and twist and we've popped it
through and then i just used my finger just to open it out so hold on to the two rods
we'll talk about positioning those rods as well later on so i just hold on to the rod stop it
falling over and just use my finger to flick it out and you can comfortably see quite quickly
how i've managed to settle that in the ceiling which i can't see okay in order that it's in
a nice position so let's just pause for a minute there because what gary's actually doing although
he may not realize it is he's actually future proofing the ceiling because houses themselves
last for an incredibly long time where lighting goes through various trends technology changes
but by putting the fire hood in should the light fitting be changing in the future the
homeowner or the electrician who comes along next isn't necessarily concerned about what the ceiling
makeup has done and then that opens up lots of other options so it's easy to change perhaps a
color perhaps you want to go for a fitting that's no fire rating whatsoever or you may even save a
bit of money on the initial purchase of the light fitting that's going in there so now requires me
i've made the connections um i've poked those back into the ceiling so i'm now going to trim
back the pieces of steel which will hook under the light fitting in order to hold the fire hood above
securely in position so just trim those back remember this is the first time i've done it i'm
just going to just check they're in position it's quite important i get those hooked into position
before i introduce this 50 mil down light so yep holding it into position here comes the down light
push it into as i would normally just making sure i catch hold of the little metal straps that are
now going to be pinned against the back of the light fitting and the plasterboard ceiling gordon
there we go so there it is it's in position and that's the first time i'd ever done it so if
you look at the left hand side you see the hood is firmly in position and there's my down line
wow that was yeah yeah i don't know it was surprising it wasn't back to myself perhaps
yeah it was really simple to fit yeah and we were we were yeah we were concerned because
we say we have memories of fitting these and how much of a challenge there can be
but yeah that was simple and to get that through a 50 millimeter hall that is a fantastic solution
for that for that scenario that a lot of people see now one thing gary i did notice
yeah uh if you bring the camera in you'll see the symbol right okay on some down lights
okay that symbol suggesting that insulation should be placed above it yeah and then the one thing
that struck me on these covers themselves is these look yeah you would think this could be insulation
okay that's where these obviously have ventilation halls in and when i asked ten about this they've
done extensive tests with the Lighting Industry Association to make sure that these match the heat
build-up requirements right of obviously various lighting styles mostly we're talking about LED but
they even did that back in the days when we used to have halogen and hid lamps yeah so that's um
yeah so this doesn't cause a problem with heat buildup okay that's good that's a good one to
cover so that was me fitting one for a 50 mil hole for a light fitting that wasn't far rated if you
just take hold of the fitting just pull that out just let's show how i put that bar through the top
okay so you've slotted that through yeah there's two little holes in the very top yeah and you
pull it all the way down that's nestle's in there and yeah you can see now it's these little pieces
here that i pinned against the back of the light fitting and that's the little bit maybe that's the
bit that you've got to get really used to doing so i think as i as i did i did three and you'll
see those in a minute i just i got a little bit better at trimming them to the right length and
one time i was slightly too long which was fine i just dropped the light fitting down just trimmed
them back held it perfectly so if you want to see what the back look like these are the three
when i finished all three gordon and you can see how the fire hoods are sitting nicely upright
held firmly into position yeah and you're unlikely to knock they'll say if someone did have the floor
up above it you're not going to sort of knock them off the top so if you get a draft that's
been a problem in the past people close the doors and all the down light covers pop out
not with these they they sit snugly into position another scenario could be that you've got the old
can type with the tungsten halogen fittings in gordon and you want to take those down
okay so you're suggesting a fitting that's already fire rated absolutely you remove it
from the ceiling yeah and obviously that hole is going to be there and there is some fittings
now that you can put up cover those holes up that perhaps give you a different light pattern
there are so these ones are quite popular down lights out and this is a sort of a lead panel
yes flush to the ceiling it's got this quite useful bracket that clips into the existing hole
yeah but obviously that hole is also a hole in the fire barrier it is so of course as you you
make the nice adjustment of putting that in and covering the hole up so no decoration needed the
fitting itself isn't fire rated so of course you have to make a fire barrier behind it yeah and
obviously, this is where these step in again bring back the fire hood and yeah you've had you've had
to go one of these yeah again a one crack go at it so to start with i took down the old
halogen one so i pulled that out the ceiling revealing that hole and then i'm gonna have a
go at fitting this um modern replacement okay so pulled that one out as we normally do nice
and gently actually connecting the new fitting gordon okay so you perform your swiss roll again
yeah i'm using the 200 mil one this time slightly bigger than before the hole is slightly bigger and
it's about 63 mil hole cables are through the hole in the side i'm just going to push that up exactly
the same process as before as i go i'll just give it a little gentle twist just take your time at
this stage and once i'm through i'm just going to put my finger in as i did before just to open
that out so now we can see that whatever we put underneath it this new fitting we've got a fire
barrier above it Gordon yeah and the way these work is obviously when they when they get heat uh
they're just basically off flames they'll they'll expand to fill that hole and and intermission
seal i think is the technical word for it and obviously maintain the fire barrier for that
30 or 60 minutes that's required in the building regulations yeah and again this was the first time
i'd fit one of these okay um i would suggest that i got used to the bracket as i got further into
the video i would suggest so i used the the actual bracket itself that's um now clipped into the hole
to pin down uh the arms that come down from the hood so those steel rods that come down actually
i've pinned them under that bracket which held it really securely so they're yeah okay so they look
like copper yes they don't actually plated steel we think so yes and then they'll hold them into
position so now what i'm gonna do is just trim those back but they are wedged under that bracket
nice and firmly um before obviously i obviously got to push it back up so again that's the one
thing i would suggest is you just take your time and care with those because they are holding that
hood firmly above and it was just a simple case of clicking my light fitting back into position
so yeah again i mean that was one take that was the first time i've done it i used the 200 mil one
the most you know fiddle was on the light fitting again that was down to never having
done one before but the hood second one i've done okay yeah probably fourth one because i did the
three down lights that was the fourth one i'd done i'm i'm pretty comfortable now yeah so if
you need gary to pop along to your side and fit your fire hoods for you he's available to do that
i am 100 available to do that so that's that's not a problem at all we've also got a an even larger
one exactly the same process when you're using those yeah so you might use that possibly on uh
some speakers ceiling speakers perhaps could be there obviously there are much bigger downlights
you can get now they're coming to market but yeah that's that yeah another good solution there
um the other scenario i'm thinking of obviously there's a lot of existing downlights on the market
that have a full complement of fire ratings they do but may not necessarily be approved for those
latest eye joists yeah so the the engineered timber joists so the industry is going through
a transitional period as they're getting their light fittings checked against the new engineering
joists and every manufacturer of those so in the meantime you might find the lights you've
chosen your brand new property okay your new build couldn't get signed off by the NHBC yeah so they
have the fire rating yeah for an existing timber structure but haven't had the required tests for
that new ceiling so in that scenario you may have to still fit a fire hood and that's where some
of these larger ones may come in because they're gonna have to fit it over the top of an existing
fire rate of fitting so let me just clarify that so i could have a fire um rated down right yeah
that hasn't been passed under engineering joists to get around it simply just fit one of the fire
hood so double it then don't we yeah that's it and that that is that has happened quite a bit
recently because these regulations are quite fluid yeah and there's lots of different ceiling systems
out there in the market and they're an easy fit so there's nothing to stop you
going and just popping those in and you get it released then by the uh the builder who could
release that property and actually be sold rather than being held while we're waiting for and that's
what we found with that with Tenmat they have done uh an extensive amount of testing on this
product range so there are yes lots of downlight covers out there in the market some a bit like
the tent yeah they may not have approval for these new type of ceiling structures as well oh right
okay so again i've got it covered yeah and i would say from this product yeah it's not just covered Gary
there's a bit of a pun there covered in terms of regulations fantastic range to suit lots of
down lights in the scenarios that you're likely to face as always here at efix we're interested
in your comments have you fitted these type of hoods from Tenmat before what's your experience
on fitment have you fitted some of the other ones on the market and we'd love to hear what you think
about those as well all those comments below and we'll try and get back to as many as we can