Flame protection and heat transfer

What applies to heat transfer on flame-retardant garments?

We are often asked if our transfer prints are approved to be applied to flame protected garments. The short answer is unfortunately no, But to find out why and what applies in the certification we need to go through what the requirements for flame retardant certification really are.

A brief description of the requirements you need to meet to be able to become certified is the following; Each garment must be tested and approved together with the applied transfer in order to be sold as a flame-retardant garment with certification.

What does the certification of flame protection incude?

The design of the certification standard sets limits for us as manufacturers of heat transfers. A heat transfer is not considered by the standard as a stand-alone product, and therefore it is not possible to certify a heat transfer so that it can be applied to all flame-retardant garments without the requirement for constant testing.

In order to be able to maintain an approved certification of a flame-retardant garment according to EN ISO 11612, 14116 & 11611, the requirement that the whole of the garment + heat transfer complies with EN ISO 14116 index 3 (= test method ISO 15025 procedure A). The only exception is if the area covered by the heat transfer is less than 10 cm2 of the garment’s surface, in which case no further test is required.

Have you tested your heat transfer?

Many of our customers have passed the tests with a combination of heat transfer made by us and garments with flame protection, but this does not mean that you can use that result for all future flame retardant garments. Since our heat transfer has been approved in several tests, the standard requires that each heat transfer design / article and size be tested and approved for each type of garment / article to maintain its certification.

If you choose to increase the size of the transfer, change color or design, a new test will be needed together with the garments to be approved as flame retardant.

What do you recommend as a supplier of heat transfer?

As it is expensive to test each order, our advice is to talk to the supplier of flame-retardant garments to see which solution they recommend on their garment. Many suppliers have tested combinations of fabric and heat transfer and can come up with recommendations for flame-retardant garments and heat transfer.

Depending on what your order looks like, there are different options. You can convey the flame garment to your customer without heat transfer applied to avoid the risk of the garment losing its certification.