Patent ID: 7814718

Claim:
A fire retardant head-of-wall assembly configured to seal a linear head-of-wall construction joint or gap when exposed to a heat source, comprising: an elongated sheet-metal footer track; an elongated sheet-metal header track confronting and vertically spaced apart from the footer track, the header track including a web integrally connected to a pair of spaced apart and downwardly extending sidewalls, the web having a top exterior web surface positioned adjacent to a ceiling and a bottom interior web surface, each sidewall having inner and outer sidewall surfaces, each sidewall having an upper sidewall portion adjacent to the web and a lower sidewall portion; an elongated heat expandable intumescent strip affixed lengthwise on at least one of the outer sidewall surfaces of the pair of sidewalls, the intumescent strip being positioned on the upper sidewall portion, the intumescent strip having an outer strip surface offset from the outer sidewall surface an intumescent strip offset distance; a plurality of sheet-metal studs having upper and lower end portions, the studs being vertically positioned between the spaced apart and confronting footer and header tracks such that the lower end portions are received into the footer track and the upper end portions are received into the header track, each of the upper end portions of the plurality of studs being spaced apart from the bottom interior web surface of the header track a first gap distance that allows for ceiling deflections; and wallboard attached to at least one side of the plurality of studs, the wallboard having a top linear end surface positioned apart from the ceiling a second gap distance that allows for ceiling deflections and defines the linear head-of-wall construction joint or gap, the wallboard having an elongated upper interior wallboard surface in linear contact with the outer strip surface of the elongated intumescent strip.