Summary
The “Fire Resistant Retrofit” assembly provides a durable and fire-resistant solution for retrofits. This assembly was approached as if there was only an exterior retrofit being performed on an existing home renovation from the mid-twentieth century, and can be closely compared to constructing the “Exterior Mineral Wool Tier 3” assembly, with 2” extra mineral wool, and no structural framing.
This video highlights the key features of the assembly.
Advantages:
- Wrapping the exterior of the wall assembly with insulation reduces the amount of thermal bridging through the wood structural framing members.
- Mineral wool has fire-resistant qualities, making this assembly useful for areas with fire requirements.
- Other rigid insulation types can be used if needed such as XPS or EPS if a fire-resistant assembly is not needed.
- Retrofitting an existing home saves waste and new construction costs.
Disadvantages:
- Some materials could not be found at a common hardware or building supply store and needed to be custom-ordered.
- Self-tapping screws were required to attach the strapping to the clips, which sometimes made fastening the strapping difficult.
- Not all cladding systems can be accommodated with this exact assembly. For example, if stucco were to be installed, there would need to be a sheathing layer to the exterior of the rainscreen or other accommodations made
Image from: p.11, High Performance Wall Assembly Project Summary Report
Taking a deeper dive
Read the full report from SAIT to take a closer look at:
- Wall assembly drawings, sections and details
- Photos of construction
- Constructability and affordability analysis
- Effective thermal resistance calculations
- Comparison charts with other walls in the ENBIX library
Click here to see the energy modelling results for this assembly. The total energy consumption was reduced by 29.74% from the pre-retrofit existing baseline home. Read our blog on the energy modelling of the ENBIX wall library here to understand a bit more of the story.
The assemblies are also modelled in 3D by Beyond Code and are best viewed from a computer. Click on the links for the 3D models below.
Fire Resistant Retrofit:
- Window Detail
- Exterior Wall – Electrical Penetration Detail
- Exterior Wall – Duct Penetration Detail
- Foundation Detail
- Roof Detail
The rest of the ENBIX wall library is also available as 3D models here.
