Published June 2016 | Updated March 2024
One thing I learned during my recent sisal factory visit is that hospitality fire codes for wall textiles are not the same as the fire codes for floor coverings. I had always wondered why there is only one weave available for sisal wall covering and hundreds available for the floor. Now I know. After the MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas in 1980, where the fire spread quickly by climbing up the walls (the glue for the wallpaper was the issue), the fire codes became much more strict for any kind of wall textiles in a hospitality environment. The process for making a product that meets hospitality fire codes for wall coverings is quite expensive; thus, suppliers only offer the wall coverings in one weave. So my lesson learned is that even though a floor product may have a class-1 fire rating, it is only able to be used on the floor and NOT on the walls unless it is specially treated and tested for walls.
