Patent ID: 8151526

Claim:
A fire retardant head-of-wall assembly, 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, each sidewall having an upper sidewall portion adjacent to the web and a lower sidewall portion; an elongated 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; 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; wallboard attached to at least one side of the plurality of studs, the wallboard having an elongated upper interior wallboard surface in contact with the outer strip surface of the elongated intumescent strip.