Cable openings

Fire Safety Pillows & Fire Stop Barriers

Some openings need to stay openable. A cable tray in a data room will be changed again next year, and a solid mortar seal just means someone will break it.

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Mineral wool packed around services in a shaft opening — **Openings you can re-open**The next cable pull takes minutes, and the seal goes back exactly as tested.

UL Listed

Armacell fire stop systems

CBRI

CBRI Certified

Ameetuff mortar & coatings

NBC
IV

NBC Part-IV

Documented to the standard

✓

Photographed

Before, during and after

In one paragraph

What it actually is.

Fire safety pillows are intumescent-filled bags packed into large cable and pipe openings. They expand under heat to block fire and smoke, and because they can be lifted out and put back, the opening stays usable. There is no wet work and no cure time, so a riser can be sealed and back in service the same day.

There is a practical problem in every building with a live IT or electrical estate: the openings that most need sealing are the ones that most need re-opening. Seal them hard and the next cable pull becomes a demolition job, so people avoid it or hack through and never tell anybody. Pillows solve the human problem as much as the fire one. Combined with a fire stop barrier coating over long HT and LT cable runs, they cover the two paths that cause the most trouble in hospitals, data centres and large offices — the vertical riser and the horizontal tray that runs the length of a floor.

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Fire Safety Pillows and Fire Stop Barriers — Simfy Firesys

Detail

Why pillows, not mortar, in these places

The opening stays usableLift them out, pull the cable, pack them back. The seal is restored in minutes rather than being patched with something unrated.

No wet work, no dryingNothing to cure. In a live server room or theatre corridor, that matters more than the material cost.

They adapt to a changing bundleCable counts change. Pillows re-pack around a different bundle in a way a cast seal cannot.

They still need to be packed properlyThis is where they go wrong. Loosely thrown in, they leave gaps. Correct packing density is part of the tested system, not a suggestion.

On site

Fire stop barrier coating on cable runs

HT and LT cable runsA coating over the cable run that slows flame spreading along the cable sheath itself.

Long horizontal traysThe path that carries fire the length of a floor above the ceiling, where nobody sees it happening.

Riser entries and exitsWhere a tray enters a shaft — a junction that combines both problems and usually gets half-treated.

FAQ

Questions we get asked about this

Are fire pillows as good as a mortar seal?For the openings they are tested for, yes. They are not a cheaper substitute for mortar on a large structural shaft opening — they are the correct product for openings that must be re-entered.

How often should pillows be checked?Whenever cables change, and otherwise as part of your annual passive fire walk. The failure mode is human: someone removes them and does not put them back.

Can we re-pack them ourselves after a cable pull?Your team can, if they are shown how the packing density works and it is recorded afterwards. We are happy to walk your FM team through it — an unphotographed re-pack is the usual weak point.

Do pillows work with mixed cables and pipes?It depends on the tested system for that combination. Some mixes need a different approach. We check the detail rather than assuming.