Fire Rated Glazed Screens and Glass Partitions

Fire rated glazed screens and glass partitions are framed glass walls, tested together with their frames as one assembly, that hold back fire and smoke for a classified period while still letting daylight through. BDF Architectural supplies and installs fire rated screens and partitions in aluminium and steel for offices, corridors, stairwells, lobbies and public areas, installing across London and the South East and supplying projects across the UK. They keep fire compartmentation in place without turning a corridor or lobby into a solid, windowless box.

The terms overlap. A fire rated screen usually means a fixed run of glazing within a wall, often with a door set into it, such as a lobby screen at the top of a stair. A fire rated partition is normally a full-height glazed wall that divides one space from another, such as an office from a corridor. Both are tested and classified in the same way, and what matters for compliance is the classification and the tested scope of the system, not what the drawing calls it. A fire rated window, by contrast, is an individual window set into a wall, often an external one, and is covered on our Fire Rated Windows page.

A glazed partition is not the same as a solid fire rated partition wall, such as a plasterboard stud wall, which is built by a drylining contractor to its own tested specification. Where a glazed screen sits within a solid wall, the screen's test evidence also sets which types of wall it can be fixed into and how the gap around the frame is sealed, and the wall itself needs the fire resistance the fire strategy requires.

Glazed screens are tested to EN 1364-1 and classified to BS EN 13501-2 as E (integrity), EW (integrity with limited radiation) or EI (integrity and insulation), followed by the period in minutes, commonly 30 or 60; longer periods such as 90 or 120 minutes need a system tested to that period at the sizes required. Integrity-only glazing stops flames and hot gases but lets heat through; EW also limits the heat radiated through the glass; insulating glazing keeps the protected side cool enough for people to pass close by, which matters beside escape routes. The classification and period for each screen are set by the project's fire strategy, and we confirm them at technical review against the chosen system's test evidence.

Fire rated partitions can be framed in aluminium or steel; timber-framed fire rated screens are tested as their own systems, and the screens we supply are aluminium or steel. Aluminium fire rated screens and partitions give slim, powder-coated sightlines that can match the office fit-out, windows or curtain walling around them, where the system has test evidence for the classification and sizes needed. Steel is stiffer for its size, which helps keep frames slim on larger or taller screens. For steel we supply Jansen Janisol 2 partitions, thermally insulated and tested to EI30, and Jansen-Economy 50 and 60 for slim steel partition configurations.

Typical uses include stair and lift lobby screens, corridor partitions on protected escape routes, glazed office fronts and meeting rooms on a compartment line, and screens between a shared reception and the rest of a building. In residential buildings they are used in the common corridors and stair lobbies of blocks of flats, and inside a flat or house where a glazed partition forms part of a protected hallway or stair. The fire strategy sets where fire rated glazing is needed and the classification each screen needs, and the screens are designed around it. Not every internal glazed screen needs a fire rating: one that is not on a compartment line or protected escape route may use standard glazing, which still has to meet the safety glazing rules for critical locations.

Most screens include doors. A door in a fire rated screen is a fire doorset tested to EN 1634, and in the UK doors are still often described by the British Standard shorthand FD30 or FD60: a door that keeps its integrity for 30 or 60 minutes, with an S suffix where smoke control is also needed. The door and the screen each need test evidence, and so does the way they are combined, so we design the doors and the screen in matching frame systems as one package. Locks, closers and any panic or emergency exit devices are chosen with the doorset rather than added later. Vision panels in fire doors, whether rectangular or circular porthole panels, follow the same rule: the glass and the way it is glazed must be within the door's test evidence.

A fire rating belongs to the tested assembly, not to the glass alone. The frame, glass type, glazing beads, intumescent seals, gaskets and fixings were tested together, and the classification only holds within the sizes, glass types and configuration covered by the test evidence. That is why cuttable fire rated glass, which can be cut to size from larger sheets rather than ordered as fixed-size units, does not remove the need to stay within a tested system: a pane cut to fit still has to be glazed into a frame, with beads and seals, that has been tested with that glass at that size. We check each screen against the system's test evidence before anything is ordered.

Glass size and weight are the practical limits. Each system's test evidence sets maximum pane sizes for each classification, and insulating (EI) fire glass, built up from layers of glass and interlayers that foam in a fire, is thicker and heavier than integrity-only glass, which affects frame size, handling and installation. Floor-to-ceiling glazing is usually achieved by dividing the screen with transoms or mullions where a single pane would exceed the tested size.

Fire performance can sit alongside other requirements. Meeting rooms and offices often need an acoustic rating as well, and doors in the screen can take security hardware and access control. A fire rated partition can be single or double glazed, but the glass build-up used must be one covered by the test evidence. Each extra requirement is checked against the same test evidence, so adding one does not undermine the fire classification.

We install fire rated screens and partitions across London and the South East, including Surrey, Berkshire, Essex and Kent, and supply to projects elsewhere in the UK, with aluminium profiles CNC machined and fabricated in our 60,000 sq ft West Drayton facility. To price, send plans and elevations, the screen and door schedules with sizes, the fire strategy or the classification needed for each screen and door, any acoustic or security requirements, and programme dates.