From Two Way Hard Three:
What the hell is EIFS you ask?
EIFS stands for Exterior Insulation Finishing System and is a fairly common ‘cladding system’, at first used mostly on commercial buildings but now also used in single family homes as well.
Some have asked what the fire rating of materials like those that would be on the Monte Carlo would be – the response I’ve gotten is that the fire rating applies to the entire wall assembly, not just the EIFS portions and that the materials neither add to nor take away from the fire resistance of said assembly. From what I’m told, most commercial building materials have fire ratings of about an hour.
We’ve heard that Monte Carlo was built under the former set of code guidelines and Clark County officials have even speculated that some *other* buildings might need to be re-clad as a result of this fire’s data. I’ve read that we’re talking about maybe half a dozen structures, though they haven’t been identified. I could probably guess they include The Mirage, Treasure Island, Excalibur, and perhaps others. If anyone has more information on this, chime in.
Lastly, I asked these EIFS experts to speculate based purely on what they saw on TV. Of course, an official report will have in-depth findings but this is interesting for discussion if nothing else.
It seems that the construction of 3D embellishments that include EIFS materials, common as architectural flair, are very difficult if not impossible to fireproof in the same manner that you would for a simple shaped wall panel. There’s an after-market for products that fill this fire-proofing void but it seems that many in the EIFS field don’t endorse these techniques. Some of the coatings used to finish these components can be flammable and it is possible we’re seeing something along those lines here.
