And welcome everybody this afternoon to a session on behalf of EuropaCabel. We're talking about choice in cable fire safety, making the right choice, making an educated choice. And what we're particularly going to be talking about is the differences between PVC cables, which is a more traditional, well understood cable type, and a more modern type, low smoke halogen free type, which, and they have their differences and their benefits. So, just trying to move on to the next slide. So, we called it making the right choice because it will be down to the designer and the installer, the specifier to make the choice. Sometimes this choice is also driven by local regulation. And I think I would like to emphasize at the beginning that you must always look for your local regulations in whichever territory you're designing and installing an installation. And they may may not be the same as other territories. So, this is one area where we can't provide a pan-European set of rules because it will vary from case to case. So, a little bit about initially about EuropaCabel, then I'll go into the scope, briefly describe the cable types, material types, have a look at some historic fires. and their impact on regulations, then talk about smoke, which is the main issue we're going to be talking about today. Can you see through it, the visibility of it, its toxicity, how it can affect escape, and how it can affect firefighting. And then we can go on and talk about the construction products regulation, CPR, the classifications of cables there. And then look at the other longer term benefits of using the newer type of cable instead of the PVC cable. And I'll summarize by looking again at the local regulation aspects. So, you'll be familiar with many of these manufacturers and suppliers. This is the membership of EuropaCabel. And we, you know, you know, the organization represents a wide range of European cable manufacturers from the largest to the smallest across all different types of cable, from optical fibers to the very, very high voltage transmission cables. And also covers cable accessories. And the particular issues at the moment for the cable industry is looking at decarbonization across Europe, the increasing digitalization of the IT system, communications, looking at making Europe safer, which is the bottom left-hand corner there, where we see the CPR coming in. And finally, in the longer term, we're looking at sustainability, how we can ensure that products put onto the market have good credentials for a long-term sustainable future. So, what I want to talk about initially is the scope of the typical sort of applications here. We're not talking about single occupancy houses or other similar dwellings. Again, unless local regulations provide, we're talking about larger buildings, public buildings like schools, hospitals, shopping centers, etc. Where there are lots of people, likely to be lots of people. And it also could apply to larger residential buildings, apartment blocks, care homes, student accommodation, for example, where there will be multiple people and escape could be an issue in the event of a fire. It also stretches into transport infrastructure, such as railway stations, airports, tunnels, etc. And then finally, higher risk installations where the resilience of the installation is an important factor, such as data centers, control rooms, power plants, etc. So, again, these are the more specialist applications where there will be installation design of a bespoke nature. Sometimes, sometimes often linking into wider aspects of building design, such as fire engineering of the building, looking at the escape routes and all those sort of aspects. So, that's where this point about what type of cable should you be using comes in in particular. And the sort of cable applications we're talking about. Generally, we're talking about higher densities of cables, where you've got multiple cables in one place. For example, a suspended ladder or basket running down a corridor with multiple cables in them, and where they're likely to be exposed to fire. They could be exposed to fire. They could be exposed to fire. They could be above a suspended ceiling, for example. But if a cable is plastered into a wall, it is less likely to become involved in a fire. And you must remember, of course, that most cables do not start fires, but cables do get involved in fires. So, it's how the cable performs in a fire that is impacting upon the cable, rather than the cable being the origin of the fire itself. I'm also not talking in particular here about fire-resistant cables. Those are used for safety circuits or emergency supplies. Those also tend to be using the modern types of materials. Those also tend to be using the modern types of materials, and they sometimes have very different materials used. We're talking mainly here about regular power distribution, final circuit wiring, and also communication cables. So, the power distribution, I mean larger cables that are taking power from a switchroom into circuit distribution boards elsewhere in the building. And it could include cables coming into the building. And it could include cables coming into the building from elsewhere. The final circuit wiring coming from a distribution board out to the uses, the sockets, the equipment, and lighting, for example. And communication cables from server rooms, etc., out to where it is being used in the building. And, of course, all of these are used in various different applications, like retail, where you've got a combination of power and communications, for example. So, coming on to the material types now. Polyvinyl chloride, PVC, is a very long-standing material. It's been in use for cables for, well over 50 years, and is used for both insulation, and also the sheathing, or as the Americans would call it, the jacket on these cables. And in terms of its fire performance, it is very good. It is not quite self-extinguishing, but the fire spread in the cable tends to be good. It will pass the whole cable single flame test. Almost all cable standards now make reference to this EN 6033212 test. This happens to be the same test that is used as a basic test for the CPR system as well. So, these are very well-established cables, very widely used, very suited to single circuits, cables running in ones and twos, in final circuit wiring, very widely used in many buildings for power sockets, for example. Moving on to the new types of cable, I'm calling them low smoke halogen free, but they are often called by all sorts of different other names. Some of them may be brands, trademarks. So, sometimes you may see them called LSH, LSF, etc. So, just be aware that these things do come with different descriptors. So, lower hazard cables, etc. But the key thing about them is that they are made of different materials. They don't contain PVC. They don't contain other materials or other polymers that contain acidic forming gases. i.e. largely, i.e. largely about halogens. And there are additional tests that are applied to these cables to demonstrate that they're compliant with that description. And those are the tests that are conducted on the actual materials themselves. These are generally for the acidic gases. And they could now include tests for halogens. And also, on the whole cable, there is a test for smoke emission. And that's conducted in a three-meter cubed room and looks at the visibility through the smoke. How dense is the smoke. How dense is the smoke. And the standards set quite high requirements for low smoke. And these cables also generally would comply with the single flame test. Some of them may also be tested to other tests, including the larger CPR tests. And it may be also the IEC ladder tests. So, depending on the cable standard. And of course, in each territory, you may have a lot of national standards, local standards, as well as harmonized standards across Europe. So, different tests, different specifications may apply depending on the cable standard. But fundamentally, the major difference between these is the lack of acidic gas formation and the low smoke nature of the low smoke halogen-free types. And I've got a couple of, you know, one other factor with this is that PVC is well known for being a very flexible material and very robust. And I've got a couple of examples. This is a PVC cable. Really quite flexible. And here's the low smoke equivalent. It's a bit stiffer. So, you tend to find that this material is a bit stiffer. Nominally, they look the same. And they perform the same electrically, etc. But the handling of the cable is maybe slightly different. We go back to the presentation. Thank you, Curtis. So, let's move along to a few. Why would we want to have low smoke cables? Let's go back to a few fires. Unfortunately, fire regulation is something that's driven by disasters. And we've had quite a few of them over the years. And unfortunately, they recur from time to time. And, you know, some examples are the Kings Cross Underground Station fire in the UK, where the whole idea of burning materials in public places became an issue. The Mont Blanc Tunnel fire. And all of these led to greater regulations for tunnels and underground. We've had the Grenfell fire in the UK. Terrible fire. And that's exposed to a lot of shortcomings in a number of areas. And looking particularly, you know, where cables did become involved, the fire at Dusseldorf Airport in 1996. Although the fire started from hot work and it spread into polystyrene insulation, cables did become involved in the fire because in an airport, of course, there's a lot of electrical systems. other systems. And this also revealed that in these sort of environments, you really do want to cut down on the amount of smoke emitted. And, you know, don't forget heritage loss. We had the terrible fire in Notre Dame Cathedral. It's nice to see it now rebuilt. No fatalities, but a very, very strong historic building loss. So where you want to prevent heritage buildings from the effects of smoke and flame. Again, going to a better performing product will give you advantages. So on smoke emission, the low smoke type cables, they do emit much lowered levels of smoke. And the advantage of this, it maintains visibility during the fire. It reduces the risk and the impact of smoke inhalation. And it's important for looking at evacuation scenarios. Now, PVC cable, although it performs reasonably well, it does produce when it's burning a significant amount of dense smoke. And this can add to all the other smoke that's in the building as a part of the fire, reducing visibility and in principle could hinder evacuation efforts. And later in the fire, and rescue efforts if the fire brigades have to go in to take action. So this is the main area. So visibility, the ability of the occupants to see easily. If a person may be in a public building, they may be not familiar with the building. They will need to be able to see emergency escape signs, maybe at tens of meters distance. And if there's a thick layer of smoke, that is going to be affected. Toxicity, the components of smoke can have quite a detrimental effect on occupants. And depending on what's in the smoke. And depending on what's in the smoke, this can have a greater or lesser effect. Now, taking these together, this can affect the ability to escape. So you've got fires will start in a random place. And the combination of the visibility, you know, can they see where to go? And the toxicity, are they going to be affected? Can that reduce their ability to escape? And likewise, with looking at the firefighting aspects, the ease of rescue? Can the fire brigade see people where they are? And can they get in and do the necessary firefighting? So it could delay or hinder the effect of firefighting process also. So visibility. So visibility. Often it's difficult to identify where exits are, particularly in public buildings where people are unfamiliar. So what people tend to do in a fire is retrace the route they came in by, which may not be the best route out in the event of an emergency. So keeping good visibility. So keeping good visibility to the emergency exits. Also, people tend to look around to gather their families, for example. They will wait until they've found people before they try to make an escape. And the more, the better the visibility, the quicker this can be done before people can start escaping. And of course, if a building is full of smoke, in a fire, navigating the building does become difficult. So the advantages of a low smoke halogen free type cable for visibility, reduce smoke production compared to PVC cables. The smoke is pretty light gray and less dense compared to quite black smoke from a PVC type of cable. The light transmittance, and remember the test, the light transmitting the effect that's involved in this cube room involves light transmittance. You get better visibility in the affected area. The lighting can have a better effect. It doesn't go so dark so quickly. And it can help occupants locate exits quickly. So again, it reduces panic, promotes orderly evacuations, and it's critical for safe, timely evacuation. So you'll probably find that if a fire engineer is designing a building. If a fire engineer is designing a building and is looking at aspects of escape, they'll be wanting to assure themselves that whatever's burning in the building is not going to impact on things like visibility. Now toxicity, this is another aspect of anything that's burning. So remember, we're not just talking about cables burning here. We're talking about other components in the inner way of a fire. You'll never going to face. If it's in a fire where you have a fire, but you'll get all sorts of different gases in a fire. So you'll get all sorts of different gases in a fire. Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen chloride and other halogen gases, cyanide, formaldehyde, organic carbons, et cetera. And the impact of this is immediate coughing. If you take a breath of this sort of toxic smoke from a fire of any nature, you'll start to cough, Your eyes will water. You won't be able to see very easily. And this stops people moving. So if you're coughing and spluttering, you're not going to be able to effectively escape. Now, of course, this means if you can keep below the smoke, generally the smoke is in a layer at the top of a room. That is much better. The more aggressive the smoke is, the more effect it's going to have. So what tends to happen in fires, people tend to die in fires from longer term carbon monoxide poisoning, but they're knocked down by the aggressive irritant smoke in the early stages. So you want to avoid people getting a breath of irritant smoke and some of the acid gases such as hydrogen chloride can have a particular effect. So the longer term, you know, if somebody is knocked on the floor unconscious or in difficulties, the carbon monoxide will then be the thing that may affect their issues of fatality. And almost any exposure to smoke will require prompt medical treatment. The other aspects of some aspects of the smoke is that it can be quite corrosive as well. So it's not just bad for your health. Acidic gases such as hydrogen chloride have a corrosive effect on things like electronics and electrics and related equipment. So one thing to remember about things like hydrogen chloride, they dissolve readily in water. So they will dissolve in the water in your lungs. They will dissolve on water that's come from the fire. And you will get acidic layers on anything that's exposed. And this can have corrosive effects, particularly on things like microelectronics. So you really do want to keep them away from acidic gases or minimize the amount of acidic gases that they get exposed to. So in terms of equipment, they may no longer function. They'll have a shorter lifespan. Cleaning of them will be very difficult. And you'll probably be talking about a significantly larger cost of replacement rather than simply brushing off a bit of smoke or dust. And of course, if you are having to replace or repair equipment, you'll have longer interruption times. So a facility such as a data center may be taken offline. For a longer period. So a facility such as a data center may be taken offline. It is going to be taken offline. It is going to be taken offline. And of course, it is going to spread it in the building and increase the overall risk of the fire. So again, the benefits of a low smoke halogen free type cable, it will have reduced fire propagation, reduced smoke production, lower toxicity. And on the left there you see a photograph of a cable ladder test where the flame has been applied to the these cables, they are rather these are power distribution cables, but it's not really had much effect during the test. They've survived very well, it hasn't spread up the ladder at all almost, and so that will be a very good example of low fire spread. Coming on to the economic impact, we talked about the effects on people. There will be obviously for building operators, there will be by using a better quality of product, and this would apply to cables just as any other product used in the building. You'll reduce any impact on health and safety, so hopefully you'll reduce fatalities and injuries, reduce the damage, physical damage to the building, and also the business interruption aspects of the fire. So as we've said, acidic gases can have a detrimental effect on equipment, and it'll minimize the recovery time after a fire. Now from an insurance point of view, this would clearly offer a better risk rating if the building's going to perform better. So as a part of an integrated risk management program, looking at the materials a building is made of, or the materials of products going into the building, such as a cable, they probably will offer a better risk profile, and overall would attract lower insurance. premiums premiums, and that can have a long-term benefit for operators of a building. So recurrent savings over the life of a facility. And the other aspect there is that by using a better quality product, you're prepared for any increasing regulatory requirements that could come in in further years. So if you put a better product in now, it may satisfy future requirements that haven't yet become legal requirements. I think we'll leave that there. And this comes into also environmental and corporate responsibilities aspects. This is increasingly important in today's business landscape, looking at sustainability, the long-term aspects of the cable. So by choosing a low-smoke halogen-free cable, you're demonstrating environmental and the long-term aspects of the cable. You're demonstrating environmental stewardship, well-being of employees, customers, visitors, etc. So they do not, you know, these products don't contain or release as many harmful materials as other types of cable do. I think I've covered all of that. In terms of durability, fire regulations are set locally around Europe in European countries, and it may even be more local than that in regions, for example. The European Construction Products Regulation doesn't set fire regulations. All it provides is a set of classifications that can be referred to. Not all countries make reference to CPR classification. Certainly the UK does not. Certainly the UK does not. Others will choose to set their local requirements at different levels. And it may be different levels for different applications. So whenever you're making a choice of cable, you really have to look at what are the local requirements, the legal requirements first, and then say, well, we've used the minimum, but is there a benefit in using a slightly better classification of product? A better performing product as well. So these may be picked up in installation standards such as local wiring codes. They may recommend or even specify particular types of cable or classes of performance. And there may be application specific standards for special buildings such as hospitals or schools. Again, these are likely to be local or schools. Again, these are likely to be local or country-based requirements. We can't claim to be experts on all of this. You need to become expert in your local area if you're in this field. And so regulations, they may refer to CPR classifications. They may not. Now, PVC cables are well known for being quite durable. They're generally good. They may have a well known for being quite reliable. They may have a lot of industrial applications. They may have a long track record of good performance. And they're commonly used in a lot of domestic or industrial settings. And they can be very suitable in buried applications in the ground. as well. So PVC cables are a good base level of cables to use. For the low smoke halogen free type cables, as I've mentioned already, they are highly durable, but they're slightly less flexible than PVC cables. They have been designed specifically with fire safety in mind. They don't have any halogens in, and they're well suited to indoor uses where the effects of fire would be the most problematic. But depending on the type of cable, it may not perform as well in certain extremely harsh environments. Some compounds, compound types may not do well, for example, in the presence of water. But the cable standards and the manufacturers in particular will be able to advise on the most suitable material for the application. And so they do, they will have better reaction to fire performance and resistance to things like mechanical stress. So again, just to remind, we've covered that already, I think. Going on to the CPR classifications, what you're likely to see from these different cables. If your local specification or the specification you're working to is requiring a high class of performance, such as B2CA or CCA, this will steer specifiers towards using the low smoke halogen free type of cables. And particularly if the subclasses of smoke performance and acidic gas production are asking for S1A, S1B or A1, for example, really only the low smoke halogen free type of cables are likely to be able to achieve that level of performance. And with PVC cables are likely to be able to achieve these higher performing classes, particularly on the smoke and acid. Whereas if you're looking at a lower level of performance, DCA and ECA, for example, PVC cables should be easily readily able to achieve those classes. But also, so would the low smoke halogen free cables. So there's still a choice at that lower level of required performance. So the particular applications that are well suited to the use of low smoke halogen free cables are things like public buildings, as I mentioned at the beginning, schools, the hospitals, airports, etc. It does minimize the amount of smoke and acid gas, facilitates safer evacuations, residential buildings where a lot of people may be sleeping. And these are often recommended in multi-story residential buildings, or even in low rise multi-occupancy buildings like a care home, for example. They will enhance fire safety. They will enhance fire safety and they will help protect the residents from smoke inhalation and the corrosive gases. Now in transport infrastructure, in certain European and international regulations, for example, in railway tunnels, a higher performance of a higher CPR class performance of cable is mandated in longer tunnels. And many underground stations and metro operators. And many underground stations and metro operators, they're also now mandating the use of these type of cables in those applications. And looking at other high risk areas, such as data centers, where you've got a very high density of cabling, many standards and codes are now also making reference to higher classes of cables. CPR performance, which would, which would, which would, which would, which would, again, steer you towards using a low smoke halogen free type of cable. So I'll try and draw that to a close now in some conclusions. What will a low smoke halogen free cable give you compared to a more traditional PVC type? It will provide enhanced safety performance. They will meet higher class performance, higher safety standards. And this could, this could, this could, this could compliance. If, if, if compliance is required, it can help you avoid regulations, which impose fines and penalties or rework to strip out product and replace it. For example, it can help reduce your damage and maintenance costs, long term financial benefits. through better insurance risk. And so hopefully, perhaps a slightly higher initial investment. But offset by longer term savings and additional safety. And we are seeing increased, excuse me, increased adoption of these cable types across Europe, as people can see the benefits, particularly looking at the fire safety aspects. So if you want to find out more information, please go to the Europa Carble CPR guidance site. This has a range of sources on there, including information on certain local requirements as well, depending on the country. And from that point, I'll wind up the presentation. And we can move on to dealing with a few questions. So thank you. So, let's have a look in. So, so, James Bevis asks, is it correct that LSF, low smoke and fume, is not the same as LSOH, low smoke, zero halogen? Does LSF contain halogen? Well, unfortunately, some of these terms are, well, none of the terms, these terms really are very tightly defined. So people have used different approaches to making different kinds of PVC cable with slightly better fire performance and better smoke performance than others. And some manufacturers have described these as low smoke and fume, LSF. This is not the same as low smoke halogen free. And the key thing to check here is, has the cable passed a smoke emission and an acid gas or halogens test? If it hasn't, it is not a low smoke halogen free type cable. So be very careful sometimes of just going on these three or four letter labels. Do look for the cable standard specification. Do look for the cable standard specification and do make sure that the cable has passed a smoke and acidic gases or halogens test. Will we get the presentation later? Yes, I hope so. We can get a PDF out to people who want to see it. James Stevenson, LSF was referenced an alternative term. Yes, well, this is, as I described earlier, sometimes people have used to describe a reduced or modified PVC material, but that's still unlikely to pass the smoke emission and the acidic gases tests. So do be quite careful there with buying a cable purely on the basis of these descriptors. So always look for the cable standard and also always look for the, the, the smoke and acid tests. So if you're looking at a data sheet, so it's the 61034 test for smoke and the 60754 test for acid. Those are the ones you need to be looking for. How much more expensive? I can't really comment on, on that. The, the more these cables are used, the greater the volumes. and the better the likelihood of good pricing. Obviously, in the very, very early days when these products were just introduced, they're likely to be more expensive. But go and ask, go and talk to your cable distributor about that. I can't really comment. But I'll leave it there. So certification, Mara Cossary asks for what about the certification for use in marine environmental installation where these cables are already compulsory? Well, that's a good thing. Again, as I described earlier, depending on the sector or the application, these products may already be mandated. And obviously, from a manufacturer's point of view, we tend to recommend people use a third-party certified product. And of course, if it's made to a cable standard that makes reference to the smoke and acid tests, that should be part of the certification process. So that should be familiar. That information should be available as part of the certification declaration. Luis Camono asks, is there a comparison between these cables, namely between temperature and vibration, which is more resistant? Now, another factor I haven't mentioned, actually, for the low smoke halogen-free type of cables, they tend to be able to be used. In many cases, in many cases, at a higher conductor temperature. So a PVC cable, for example, might typically be rated at 70 degrees C, whereas a low smoke halogen-free type of cable might be rated at 90 degrees C. So in theory, they could be run slightly hotter. Obviously, you don't really want to be running a cable at its maximum temperature, but they do tend to have a slightly better temperature rating. In terms of vibration. In terms of vibration, I've got no information on that, but that may be something we can follow up. Right, next, is it valid the elevators lift cables are excluded by EC mandate? Ah, this is from Vladimir Meljnik. This is a comment on the scope of the construction products regulation. Certain products regulation. Certain products are excluded from that, I think, including products to do with elevators and lifts. Hopefully, the elevator and lift requirements will reflect what is needed. You can still perform a CPR type of classification on these cables. You can still test them using these tests, even if you can't make a CPR declaration for them because they're out of scope. So it is possible to do comparative testing. What's the lifespan of these cables? Are they comparable to PVC? Well, obviously, PVC has been around a longer time than these newer material types. As far as we can tell, they have as good a lifespan as a PVC cable. It will depend, obviously, on how much the cable is loaded, how much it's exposed to UV and all these other environmental factors that can affect the lifespan of a cable. But there's nothing to suggest that these cables have any shorter lifespan than any other kind of cable. I'm sure I know Mahoney was asking, again, approximate difference in cost. I'm afraid, sorry, I don't really have that information, but I'm sure a cable wholesaler will be able to provide that information. And you can probably Google it, I suspect it would be a first pass there. David Pritchard asks, should we still move to LHF even if the cables are mainly installed in trunking and conduit? Well, depends on that. That's an argument. Do you really need to go for a better material if a cable is completely enclosed and not able to be affected by fire? Well, of course, conduit. I think in many cases, the cables will always have to come out of the conduit and trunking at one end and go into other terminations, for example. So you might find it difficult to do that. So while over the length of the cable, it might be in a conduit, it will always come out at the other end. And hence potentially be exposed to fire there. What consultation do you have with fire service? Are they aware of the work you're undertaking? Oh, yes, they are. Europa Kabul has done an exercise with the Netherlands Fire Brigade Lab. A couple of years ago when we did a direct comparison between these types of cables. There is a video available. I think it should be available on the Europa Kabul CPR website and where the fire brigade ran a mock-up room with showing installations of PVC and low smoke cables and how the cables performed in an identical fire. So do go and have a look at that. So do go and have a look at that. And I think many fire brigades should be well aware of this sort of technology now. Is it not sufficient to refer to the CPR specification of the cables being considered? It may be, depending on how a specification is drawn up. Certain regulations, local regulations may require CPR classifications to be used. But remember that the CPR classification changes as you go up the scale. So only the higher classes is. So only the higher classes is it possible to achieve the good smoke and acid type of classifications. A class E will only give you a single cable burn test. And you have to go to class D and above to get the larger test. And only the classes C and B2, etc. will give you the better smoke and acid results you might be looking for. So the CPR classifications at the higher level will certainly give you the limitations you might be needing. But at the lower level, that will not be generally sufficient. So if your local regulation only requires class E, for example, but you still want to use a low smoke, type of cable, type of cable, type of cable, type of cable, type of cable. You will have to specify additional requirements for that. It is possible to simply have a cable classified at class E, but it may also be able to perform at, to achieve a good performance in a smoke and acid tests. Usually, though, the two go together, and you'll you'll be looking for a higher class, you'll be looking for a higher class, higher CPR class. Right. Glenn Lesmeister asked, does the CPR apply only at the building level or we need to see, need to have LSA products, so just short power cords and network cables. Now, power cords apply, attached to electrical appliances. These tend to be a higher class, these tend to be a higher class, these tend to be a higher class, and they tend to get a lot of use, and they tend to be at the moment made, made of PVC. As I mentioned, the low smoke types tend to be slightly stiffer. That may not be practically suitable for a short power cord. The CPR doesn't, it doesn't, is out, you know, power cords are out of the scope of CPR. In terms of network cables, a patch cord joining two boxes is out of scope of CPR. But if it's, if it's installed permanently in the building, like structured cabling, that does fall within the scope of CPR. So, so, so if it's got connect, in short, if it's got connectors on the end, it's out of scope of CPR. If it's, if it's supplied on a reel, and is permanently installed in the building, it's within scope of CPR. Darren Long, is there any difference in how the insulation maintains something? Maybe Darren can add a bit more to his question, because I can understand. I don't understand what he means there. Andrew Youngman asks, is XLPE cable also available in LSF? I'll, I'll, I'll take, I'll take your meaning of LSF, meaning they're low smoke halogen free. Many of these cables do use XLPE for the insulation for these cables. XLPE is inherently halogen free. It tends to burn quite cleanly, but it can be modified to reduce smoke. Remember the, the low smoke halogen free type of cable, the, the, the smoke test and the CPR classification tests are done on the whole cable. So you're largely looking at the properties of the sheathing material. So you're largely looking at the properties of the sheathing material there, not necessarily the, any insulation material that may be inside. So generally XLPE will, will be the, one sort of insulation that you can use for a low smoke halogen free cable. Can, Thomas Ziorborough asks, can fire resistant cables be painted? Well, I did say I wouldn't be talking about fire resistance. Like dangerous resistant cables. Now this is a, an interesting question. Um, by painted, I mean, uh, painted over just to match a room, for example. Um, I think manufacturers would generally prefer that, uh, cables are not painted, um, because that can affect the fire performance of the, um, of the sheathing material. And it potentially could affect the, uh, longevity of the sheathing material. And this would apply to fire-resisting cables and non-fire-resisting cables the same. So I think in general, manufacturers will prefer that cables are not painted. But that's an interesting question. It's probably one we want to come back to in future years. Miguel Pereira asks, when adding a new installation cable within older PVC cables, should you use low smoke too? Thank you very much. So this is adding cables to an installation. I'm taking it at that meaning. So imagine you've got some PVC cables in a tray. If you put some new low smoke cables alongside with new circuits, for example, is that worthwhile? Now, would you need to think about replacing the older PVC cables? Well, that will again just be determined by what fire regulations apply. You would still get a better performance out of the low smoke halogen free type cables. But, you know, I'm not sure we've, you know, people know how they perform together. But PVC cables will still, if they do get involved in a fire, will still produce the thick black smoke that you can see from those cables. Nadia Spui asks, please, for enhanced protection, is it preferable to run the cables inside conduits when laid on cables? Well, is this too much? If a cable is, if a cable is being laid on an open cable tray or a basket or something there, it will be exposed to fire more easily than if it was in an enclosure such as trunking or conduit. How you, how you, how you, how you suspend the trunking or conduit is, is, is up to you. You could put it in a, in a basket or a ladder. So it depends on your strategy on whether you're putting cables into conduit and trunking or not. But that's really an installation design matter and not really something that we can go into great detail here. uh alessandra pisteria asked do you know anything about the drift in fire reaction performance of cable materials after installation they mean this is over drift over time do do does the fire performance of um a cable change over time um i'm not aware of of anything but i'm that doesn't mean to say work has not been done um ideally um you would hope that a cable has exactly the same fire performance towards the end of its working life as at the beginning um and um certainly i would think that should that would be the intention of of most manufacturers that a cable should maintain its performance over its lifespan but i don't know that there are any details on that and matt murphy asks are there any fire tests undertaken on fire resisting cable to the eureka rabt time temperature curve um i think we're talking again about fire resisting cables here which is not really the the topic of this one but um uh manufacturers of fire resisting cables for different markets to different standards may be using all sorts of different um uh test methods including different furnace temperature profiles etc so um talk talk to the manufacturers of those cables um and they they may or may not have had them tested to particular uh specific tests good i think that's all the questions i can see on my screen at the moment um unless curtis has any more no i believe that is everything thank you so much jerry for the presentation and for answering those those those uh those uh questions that was really in informative some lovely comments uh from the chat there as well thank you to everyone who has joined us today uh thank you for your questions thank you for your time and hopefully we will see you see you at a future session uh i hope i hope you have a fantastic rest of your thursday and i'll hopefully see you all soon thank you cheers everyone bye bye