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What are the fire protection classes for floor coverings according to EN 13501?

COBA Europe > Buying Guide Hub > What are the fire protection classes for floor coverings according to EN 13501?

What is EN13501?

EN 13501 is the European fire protection standard. It differs from the German fire protection standard DIN 4102 in the test criteria. Both classifications are still used, but only EN 13501 is used for a building material approved after 2001. Floor coverings are subdivided into an extra class in EN 13501 and given the suffix ‘fl’ (for flooring).

What are fire protection classes?

Fire protection classes help to classify materials according to their fire behaviour when it comes to reaction to fire classification. In principle, there are 4 levels that must be observed; non-combustible, flame retardant, normal flammability and easily flammable. This applies to both the classification according to EN 13501 and the conventional DIN 4102.

What are the different fire protection classes?

These are the 4 different fire protection classes:

non-combustible
flame retardant
normal flammability
easily flammable

DIN 4102, which described the fire protection classes for Germany until 2001 and was widely used in all of Europe, and EN 13501, which is now the European standard, use the same four main classes. However, the tests differ between the two standards in the way they are carried out. In addition, the test procedure according to EN 13501 has been extended to include criteria such as smoke development and dripping behaviour. Smoke development is indicated with the abbreviation ‘s’ (for smoke) and dripping behaviour with the abbreviation ‘d’ (for droplets).

Former fire protection classification to DIN 4102-1

Fire protection to DIN 4102-1
Non-combustible building materials	A1
Non-combustible building materials	A2
Combustible building materials
Flame-retardant building materials	B1
Normal flammability	B2
Easy inflammable	B3

Fire protection classification to EN 13501-1

Fire protection classification for a floor covering according to EN 13501-1
Non-combustible	A1_fl
Non-combustible	A2_fl– s1
Flame-retardant	B_fl – s1
Flame-retardant	C_fl – s1
Normal flammability	A2_fl – s2
	B_fl – s2
	C_fl – s2
	D_fl – s1
	D_fl – s2
	E_fl
Easy inflammable	F_fl

Which fire protection class must be complied with?

Your fire protection officer can give you the best advice on which fire protection class must be complied with for the various floor coverings used at your company. It is not possible to make a general statement on this, as many different factors have to be taken into account.

For many areas with public footfall, such as hotels, theatres, public facilities or cinemas, there are often increased requirements for fire behaviour and normally a floor covering with the requirement of class Cfl – s1 according to EN 13501-1 is required.