“With nearly 1 in 4 construction workers older than 55, retirements will continue to whittle away at the construction workforce,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Many of these older construction workers are also the most productive, refining their skills over time.”¹¹ The number of construction laborers, the most entry-level occupational title, has accounted for nearly four out of every ten new construction workers since 2012. Meanwhile, the number of skilled workers has grown at a much slower pace or, in the case of certain occupations like carpenter, declined.¹² By late 2021, project owners were reporting that up to 25 percent of material deliveries to sites were either late or incomplete.¹³ In project execution, the combination of higher hourly rates, premiums and incentives, and overtime payments was resulting in overall labor costs as much as double those from pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, difficulty accessing skilled and experienced people was leading some owners to report project delays related to issues around the quality and productivity of on-site work.

The construction industry will need to attract an estimated 501,000 additional workers on top of the normal pace of hiring in 2024 to meet the demand for labor, according to a proprietary model developed by Associated Builders and Contractors.¹⁴ The outlook for adding skilled workers is not promising. States like Wyoming, Mississippi, and Virginia have 46 to 49 available workers for every 100 open jobs, according to the US Chamber of Commerce.¹⁵

Skilled labor shortages and the need to look after the well-being of installers are influencing change in fire-rated glass. Glass that can accomplish significant weight savings empowers architects and contractors with increased customization options and easier installation that requires less personnel. Fire-resistive glazing manufacturers are offering solutions with fewer panes of glass and thinner assemblies that still achieve higher ratings.

Application Scenario: Resolving Labor Shortages with Lighter Glass
The design team renovating a passenger waiting area at a regional airport is confronting the reality of skilled labor shortages. Rather than delaying the project and paying extra to bring in out-of-state installation teams needed for heavy multi-chamber fire-resistive glass, the general contractor and architects are evaluating all the fire-resistive glazing options available. By assessing the advanced technologies on the market, a product that achieves the required fire-resistive rating with a single chamber and just two lites of glass that weighs 31% less than competing systems is selected. It can be installed easily with fewer people. The lighter system also has a tolerance of temperature ranges from -40°F to +140°F and uses strong tempered glass. Worry-free transport from the manufacturer with easier handling and faster installation will help the project stay on budget and on schedule.

POLICY AND SUSTAINABILITY TRENDS DRIVING FIRE-RATED GLAZING CHANGE

There is an undeniable necessity for fire-resistive glazing that can meet increasingly stringent standards and acquire points under various sustainable and environmental certification programs. Fortunately, there are many resources available to aid architects and design professionals in product evaluation.

Assessing Product and Material Transparency

Product and material transparency is necessary to verify whether fire glass will meet product selection standards. Product transparency and certifications are essential building blocks for whole-building certification.

An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a third-party verified and registered document that communicates transparent and comparable information about the total life-cycle environmental impacts of products. Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) are used to provide information on a number of environmental impacts related to the manufacture of the product, including global warming potential, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and ozone creation. The document can be based on one product or a collection of products that are functionally equivalent. The data included within an EPD describes, at a minimum, the product’s performance characteristics, provides a description of the product’s manufacturing processes, lays out calculation criteria, and discloses environmental impacts from raw material supply, transport, and manufacturing life-cycle stages. Obtaining an EPD is an important information and assessment tool. EPDs allow products to earn points toward green building rating systems. Many rating systems (LEED V4 and beyond), standards (ASHRAE 189.1), green building codes (IgCC), and specific customers require the submission of EPDs for products delivered to the project site. An EPD will satisfy companies and organizations with sustainable supply chain requirements and allow a project team to understand a product’s embodied carbon or Global Warming Potential (GWP). EPDs also allow design professionals to review and select products that show continuous environmental improvement and to verify environmental attributes claimed by the manufacturer. Specifiers can encourage the transparent disclosure of environmental impacts by requiring the submission of EPDs in their bid packages.

The Health Product Declaration (HPD) Open Standard is a process for the accurate, reliable, and consistent reporting of product contents and associated health information. HPDs describe product contents and associated health information and are focused on the chemical composition of materials. The Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC) that oversees HPDs was created and is run by a coalition of building industry architects, designers, and consultants. The organization focuses on building performance through transparency, openness, and innovation in the practices of reporting, disclosing, specifying, and selecting building products.

Certain manufacturers may provide further product documentation, such as a Declare Label from the International Living Future Institute™. Manufacturers voluntarily disclose product information on Declare labels, which are designed to provide clear information to specifiers and consumers. These labels report all product ingredients and use a simple color code system to flag chemicals of concern. ILFI designed Declare to facilitate identification of Red List-free materials and establish a transparency-driven ingredients label and product database. A Declare Label can be thought of as a “nutrition label” for the building industry to identify the ingredients contained in a product. It discloses all ingredients that make up 100 ppm or more of the final product, by weight. It also screens product ingredients against the ILFI Materials Red List, which is a chemical guide that calls out chemicals of concern with descriptions and links to additional information. The Red List contains the worst-in-class materials that are prevalent in the building industry. The chemicals on the Red List are singled out for polluting the environment, causing bio-accumulation up the food chain until they reach toxic concentrations, and for harming construction and factory workers. Responsible manufacturers are taking major steps to eliminate Red List chemicals from their manufacturing processes. Beyond ingredients, Declare provides further information on a product’s final assembly locations, life expectancy, end-of-life options, and overall compliance with relevant requirements of the Living Building Challenge (LBC).

Assessing Carbon Measurements

A product or material’s carbon footprint is calculated from two contributing stages: operational carbon and embodied carbon. Operational carbon refers to the carbon emitted during the in-use phase of building and includes the use, management, and maintenance of the product, as well as energy and water consumption. Embodied carbon represents the carbon emissions released during the lifecycle of a building material, from the extraction of the raw materials needed to produce it to processing and disposal of waste at the end of its useful life. Between 65% and 85% of total embodied carbon emissions are produced during the product phase–raw material acquisition, supply, transport, and manufacturing. Largely overlooked historically, embodied carbon emissions account for around 11 percent of all carbon emissions worldwide.¹⁶ Calculating a product’s embodied carbon represents a new challenge for the built environment. The World Green Building Council estimates that the built sector is responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions. Adding together embodied carbon and operational carbon gives the total or whole-life carbon footprint of a product or material.

Just as an EPD creates better product transparency, there are tools that facilitate comparison of building emissions at both the construction material and project scale. The EC3 Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator allows owners and green building certification programs to assess supply chain emissions. The tool sets embodied carbon limits and reductions, establishing an optimum embodied carbon level and highlighting available reductions for a project. The Athena Sustainable Materials Institute Impact Estimator, first released in 2002, provides a cradle-to-grave life cycle inventory profile for an entire building. Users enter basic design information, such as bay size and loads, and the software calculates the bill of materials and the associated environmental impacts. Athena is a whole-building LCA tool that can be used to explore the environmental footprint of different material choices and core-and-shell options. This software can model over 1200 structural and envelope assembly combinations for quick and easy comparison and can be uploaded through Building Information Modeling (BIM).

Fortunately for design teams navigating fire-rated glazing selection, there are many additional resources available to aid in product evaluation. The Mindful Materials, with its Common Materials Framework, is a coalition-built framework designed to organize and align sustainability data so that it can be consistent across platforms, pledges, and organizations. The Sustainable Minds Transparency Catalog provides help by simplifying the delivery of product transparency information. Products are organized by CSI category, offering the ability to compare information by manufacturer.

Photo courtesy of Vetrotech Saint-Gobain North America

The most significant innovation developed to meet the combination of market trends is the introduction of fire-resistive glass with a single intumescent chamber and just two pieces of glass for all ratings.

CREATING A MARKET SOLUTION WITH ADVANCED FIRE-GLAZING TECHNOLOGY

The combined forces of code, market trends, and sustainable materials are driving significant innovation in fire-glazing technology. One of the most significant advances is the introduction of fire-resistive glass with a single intumescent chamber and just two lites of glass for all ratings. This technology provides a fire-resistive glass with a single foaming interlayer chamber with two lites of tempered safety glass that is sealed to be completely moisture resistant. The chamber is filled with an environmentally friendly and transparent chemical mixture based on U-stable alkali silicate, which reacts in the event of fire. This intumescent middle layer expands as an opaque foam, limiting heat transmission by compartmentalizing the fire and reducing panic by blocking the view of the affected areas. This product satisfies the highest demands of fire protection while offering robust handling and UV stability, with numerous configurations available. The glass can then be set in a complete line of code-compliant, fire-rated assemblies including smoke barriers and fire-rated doors. These system solutions bring together approved framing, doors, and glazing for an all-in-one fire-rated barrier, satisfying UL 263 and ASTM E119 standards for wall assemblies and UL 10 C standards for door assemblies, for up to 120-minute fire-rated partition capability.

Using the unique interlayer also makes new fire-resistive single-chamber glass products clearer, lighter, and more sustainable than any other fire-resistive glass on the market. Aesthetically, the thinner makeup of the new glass, at 37mm versus 51 mm, allows for several design advantages. These include enhanced visible light transmittance (VLT) – with the single chamber product having a VLT of up to 90%, versus 82% for conventional systems. They also allow for a clearer maximum exposed area: 44.9 ft2 versus 30.1 ft2. This maximizes views uninterrupted by framing.

For laborers and installers, this new single chamber fire-resistive glazing is lighter than existing technology by as much as 31%, with a weight of 12.1 lb/ft, as opposed to 20.9 lb/ft at 120-minute ratings. The lighter weight and thinner glass makeup are designed to make an installer’s job less physically stressful. Worry-free transport with easier handling and faster installation helps projects stay on budget and on schedule.

Meeting Sustainability Requirements

In addition to increasing clarity and reducing weight, single-chamber fire-resistive glass with just two lites for all performance ratings is revolutionary for its sustainable properties. Embodied carbon represents carbon emissions released during the lifecycle of a building material, and between 65% and 85% of total embodied carbon emissions are produced during the product phase – raw material acquisition, supply, and transport and manufacturing. Because new fire-resistive glass products with a single chamber require less glass in production than existing technologies, their embodied carbon is up to 35% less for a 120-minute product, versus a multi-chamber or multi-laminate product with the same rating. Knock-down or cut-to-size products reduce waste generation during construction. Verified EPDs, as well as HPDs, ensure maximum transparency throughout its life cycle.

Glazing options for single-chamber fire-resistive glass include enhanced thermal insulation and double or triple-glazed insulated units and incorporate solar control or low-emissivity coatings. This allows light to enter the building while reducing or eliminating solar radiation and solar heat gain. In turn, this can reduce a building’s heating and cooling load and can reduce dependence on electricity for lighting. Additionally, the larger spans of glass facilitated by the new technology enable daylighting without compromising occupant safety. Allowing natural light into a space creates a high level of visible light transfer and provides a connection to the outdoors to increase occupant productivity and health.

Achieving Certification with Fire-Resistive Glazing

Fire-resistive glass with a single-chamber foaming interlayer and two lites of glass for all performance classifications can earn project points under various green building certifications.

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is the world’s most widely used green building program, created by USGBC as a leadership standard defining best practices for healthy, high-performing green buildings.