International Barrier's BLAZEGUARD: Who is the competition ???
Since Barrier went public (1986) the competition within the FRT (Fire Retardant Treatment) industry is analogous to an inverted pyramid, scaling down from dozens of companies (1990) to the two major producer's of today.
HOOVER:
Produces a product called Pyroguard. It's relatively
inexpensive to make but suffers one serious drawback.
It causes the plywood it treats to lose its structural
integrity over time.
HICKSON:
Produces the acclaimed Dricon. As an FRT product,
Dricon is expensive, but as of yet, has no proven
structural failures due to thermal degradation in a
roof deck system.
Both HOOVER and HICKSON however, lose approximately 15% of the
plywoods strength during the treatment process of Pyroguard and
Dricon respectively. This well-documented testing protocol illustrates that not only does degradation occur initially at the time of treatment, but that FRT plywood suffers varying degrees of degradation faster than untreated wood in temperatures of 135 degrees F or greater.
Blazeguard, as an FRT replacement product, actually strengthens the wood it's adhered to during manufacturing and thereby outlasts untreated plywood. Furthermore and beyond the abilities of any FRT product (including HOOVER and HICKSON) Blazeguard can be applied to
Oriented Strand Board (OSB)and with OSB as the substrate material, Blazeguard can be competitively priced to Dricon. In essence, Blazeguard competes with FRT in roof deck applications.
Additionally, Blazeguard competes with sheet rock (gypsum wallboard)
in interior walls and foam core panel projects. Advantages to Blazeguard are threefold:
1. Lower weight
2. Higher strength and impact resistance
3. Application in factory (controlled) versus
on the job-site (variable)
Blazeguard's performance criteria in extreme weather (rain) is far better and our production facility can create "jumbo" panels: 8'X 24'
sheets with dual textures; rippled and smooth.
Blazeguard costs more to make (material costs) than sheet rock or OSB.
The higher material cost however, are offset by lower life cycle costs (FRT), since Blazeguard will not have to be replaced prior to the rest of the sheathing in the roofdeck, like FRT.
International Barrier remains actively engaged in soliciting viable, joint venture partners that will allow us to collectively target niche
markets of both FRT replacement and sheet rock projects. These potential partners include both manufacturing and distributing companies in the building products industry.
As our sales volumes increase, based on a renewed marketing effort, economies of scale will effectively lower costs for International Barrier, allowing the company to become more competitive or increase margins to increase profit, or a combination of both. |
