2×6 Wood Exterior Wall Passes Fire Test, Added to Fire-Resistance-Rated Wood Assemblies

Leesburg, Va. — The American Wood Council (AWC) released an update to “Design for Code Acceptance (DCA) 3 – Fire-Resistance-Rated Wood Floor and Wall Assemblies.”

“To meet new energy requirements, a number of designers have been asking to use asymmetrical exterior wood-frame walls constructed with 2×6 studs spaced at 24 inches on-center with fiberglass cavity insulation,” said AWC Manager of Engineering Technology Jason Smart, P.E. “To prove the required fire resistance of this configuration, a wall assembly with these parameters was successfully fire tested.”

Not only did the assembly pass the ASTM E119 1-hour fire endurance test, but the required hose-stream component of the test was successfully conducted on the same assembly, even though the test allows conducting a separate, shorter duration fire exposure just for the hose stream portion. The new 2×6 assembly has been added to AWC’s Design for Code Acceptance (DCA) 3 – Fire-Resistance-Rated Wood Floor and Wall Assemblies.

The updated DCA 3 can be found on the AWC website: https://www.awc.org/codes-standards/publications/dca3.