Why was combustible cladding used and who is responsible?
Aaron Nicholson
Technical Director at RED Fire Engineers - Fire Engineer & Expert Witness. All views and opinions are my own and not that of my employer.
(Updated 10th August to include a short section on the VBA as regulator)
Introduction
In Australia, Cladding Safety Victoria have released a report looking into the questions of “why was combustible cladding used and who is responsible?”
This article considers some of the findings of that report and asks questions about what additional insights the data might show and also about the legislative environment within Australia and whether or not “Scope” of practitioners plays a part.
Last week I was speaking to a fire engineer who lives and works in the UK and it appeared to me she hadn’t really heard of Cladding Safety Victoria (CSV) and the work undertaken (she will let me know if I am being unfair there).
While understandable as we are on opposite sides of the world, I think its hard to overstate the work Cladding Safety Victoria have done.
Nothing in this article should be perceived as downplaying the works undertaken by all involved in the CSV program as I really do believe it is world-leading.
When something is done for the first time, there will always be lessons learnt that can be applied next time (or by other similar programs) – that is the nature of going first.
We will start by taking a look at what Cladding Safety Victoria is and what they have done to date.
Cladding Safety Victoria – Cladding Rectification Program
?For those outside of Australia, Australia is made up of States and Territories:
There are historical reasons but it means that each State/Territory is effectively empowered to solve their own problems and no two States/Territories necessarily solve it the same. CSV is the State of Victoria’s vehicle to deal with the Combustible Cladding crisis. Other States and Territories have different schemes but CSV was the first and is therefore much further along (almost completed) than the others.
The Victorian government allotted a $600 Million fund to make Victorians safer by reducing the risk associated with combustible cladding on residential apartment buildings and publicly owned buildings.
CSV work with owners and owners corporations (Strata/Body Corporations) to help them rectify non-compliant or non-conforming external wall cladding products on buildings. They do this by?providing funding, support, guidance and connections to appropriately registered and qualified practitioners.
Given that the $600 Million was allotted prior to completely knowing the scale of the problem, it is no surprise that the budget was found to fall short of being able to completely resolve all cladding issues in Victoria. This led to CSV having to make decisions about what materials would and would not be covered for CSV funding and also led to the fund being focused on the higher risk buildings first.
Materials covered by CSV funding are Aluminium Composite Panels (ACP) with a core of Polyethylene (high percentage) and Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) systems:
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Combustible cladding materials not typically covered by CSV funding include; Timber, Composite Timber, High Pressure Laminates (HPL), Insulated Sandwich Panels (ISP), Fibre or Glass reinforced plastics (FRP or GRP)
I wrote back in January 2022 of my concerns that some of the Industry messaging was inadvertently leading people to believe that if there was no CSV funding for the cladding on their building (because it was not ACP or EPS) then they didn’t need to assess the risk and undertake mitigation measures where identified as being required.
Many buildings were found not to be high risk enough to qualify for CSV funding, but were still required to assess their risk level and undertake mitigation measures at the owners costs as necessary.
Even when CSV funding was not available for a building, CSV provided information and support to owners to help address the cladding risk on their building. The recently published Ministers Guideline 15 (MG-15) requires a Municipal Building Surveyor (MBS) to consider CSV’s risk-based assessment and solution for each building. The Guideline applies to all private and municipal building surveyors in Victoria who are being supported by CSV to deal with the cladding risk on these buildings. I know from first hand experience that MG-15 is really helping inform the MBS and by referencing it in my risk assessments, it really helps with acceptance and closeout of Building Notices relating to combustible cladding.
I’m not sure exactly what the running totals look like but in December 2023, Master Builder Victoria Magazine reported that:
“Approximately 300 of Victoria’s highest-risk residential buildings are now rectified from the risk of combustible cladding, equating to more than 26,000 residents and more than 13,000 individual homes now safer as a result. This is on top of the 118 government-owned buildings, which includes facilities like schools, hospitals and entertainment venues, which have also been rectified. The Cladding Rectification Program will be completed by the end of 2025.”
The CSV Data Analysis Findings
CSV has reviewed in detail the original plans and permits for 1000 privately-owned apartment buildings. The report presents insights about more than 800 buildings where adequate information was available in designs and permits to yield a robust conclusion about the compliance of the external wall cladding. The review focused on Aluminium composite panels (ACP) and Expanded polystyrene (EPS) as they were most commonly used and were prioritised for funded rectification.
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What I want to do here is look at a couple of the findings in the report in more detail and ask some questions about what additional insights the data might show.
I think its important to acknowledge that there will likely be some bias in my views based on my experiences as a fire engineer no matter how hard I try to simply report the data and what I think it tells us. This will partly be down to my deeper knowledge of a fire engineers role in the construction industry, rather than say an Architects or Building Surveyors/Certifiers Role (as I haven’t performed those roles). ?
So having recognised that, please feel free to politely point out in the comments if I ‘read/interpret’ some of the data differently to how you would and we can discuss it.
Finding 4.1 - Non-compliant uses of combustible cladding:
CSV reviewed the original plans and permits for 1000 referred buildings. Adequate information was available to yield robust conclusions for about 804 buildings. Amongst this set, cladding compliance could be determined in 659 cases.
Contrary to the requirements of the BCA, CSV found that there was no performance solution for the specification of ACP or EPS as a cladding product in 72% of these cases.
There's not really too much you can read into this – other than a complete and total failure of industry to understand what is/was compliant and what was not and what routes to compliance were required and in which circumstances.
I expect all facets of industry should shoulder some blame and that includes the ABCB responsible for the NCC given the confusion in the drafting of the Class 2 concessions which led to the widespread use of EPS in my opinion.
In short, the Class 2 (essentially apartments) concessions say that certain requirements for non-combustible external walls may be ignored (i.e combustible elements are permitted) so long as other requirements (namely height restrictions and insulation requirements) were met. A number of years later these concessions were ‘clarified’ but this should have been caught earlier by a switched on regulator (VBA etc) who would have noticed this happening in the field and raised its incorrect application with the ABCB for a clarification earlier than was received.
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Finding 4.3 - Assessment of combustible cladding for compliance:
I personally believe this is the most important finding and worthy of further discussion.
ACP or EPS cladding was specified on 603 buildings (75%).
Chart 5 demonstrates that a FSE prepared a FER for 426 of these buildings (71%).
The FSE assessed the suitability of the combustible cladding against the performance requirements for only 63 of these buildings (15%).
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How I read Finding 4.3 is that in 85% of the buildings that FSE’s were engaged to provide Performance Solutions, the cladding was not raised as a departure (i.e not identified as not meeting the prescriptive Deemed to Satisfy provisions).
The legislative environment that we have in Australia is that you only typically need to engage a fire engineer for situations where a design departs from the prescriptive Deemed to Satisfy (DtS).?
So if the Building Surveyor/Certifier assesses that there are no departures from the DtS, then there is typically no reason for a fire engineer to get involved (doesn't happen too often on mid to high rise to be fair).
There are also times when the design team (the other practitioners/professionals who are often quite knowledgeable in fire related issues) identify that maybe the DtS fire safety requirement is more expensive than an appropriate Performance Solution and so a fire engineer may be asked to undertake certain Performance Solutions.
This isn't always about Value Engineering (though that does happen lets be real), the NCC in trying to be everything to all buildings is sometimes overly conservative (and sometimes not conservative enough we could argue). That is the nature of prescriptive (DtS) provisions - one size most definitely does not fit all.
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So for these 71% of buildings where an FSE was engaged to undertake a Performance Solution, the departures they were resolving did not include the cladding.
Its not reasonable to think that the cladding was raised as a departure item and the FSE just didn’t include it in their report AND then the Building Surveyor didn’t realise that it hadn't been included.
More likely, the cladding was not identified as a departure which either needed redesign (to be compliant via DtS - people forget this is an option) or via a performance solution by a fire engineer.
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The bigger question here though is one of legislative environment and scope for me. In fact the report touches on this when noting:
“One explanation may be that FSEs limited their assessments to the briefs put to them, rather than considering the buildings in their entireties and the risks associated with the overall design.”
Yes that's exactly what happened in most circumstances - because FSE's were told the rest of the design complied via the DtS route and therefore they didn't need to review it and it wasnt required to be part of their scope.
Should a fire engineer have been expected to look at and check for something that is ‘out of scope’ as not being listed in the departures which require a Performance Solution?
If (as was the case in the majority of instances here – 85%) the cladding was not identified as a departure which either needed redesign (to be compliant via DtS - again, people forget this is an option) or a performance solution by a fire engineer - then should a fire engineer have been expected to look at and check for something that is ‘out of scope’ as not being listed in the departures which require a Performance Solution?
If this is a yes from you – “yes the fire engineer should have checked the cladding whether or not it was identified as a departure to be covered in their scope” – then my question is how far do we go?
We would literally have to have nothing fire related ‘out of scope’ and FSE’s would have to check everything fire related for compliance. Which I'm all for by the way (I’m actually on an SFS committee writing a "Holistic Fire Engineering Design Guideline") but it is not the legislative environment that we work in currently here in Australia. It could be the environment we work in but some changes would be required, fees would have to increase to cover the increased workload (checking ALL fire safety related items rather than ‘scoped’ items) and the increased liability taken on as a result.
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To give some more examples, instead of being scoped to simply resolve some excess travel distances or demonstrate that reduced FRLs are appropriate etc etc the FSE would have to check all elements relating to fire safety. Does the FSE then have to state that all fire safety related Performance Requirements are met? I would say absolutely yes.
If we try to apply this under the current environment, what happens if/when the FSE disagrees with something in the proposed design that the Building Surveyor/certifier assesses as being ok – who is responsible for everything fire related? The legislation would need to change in my opinion – to make it clear that all fire related Performance Requirements are the responsibility of the FSE. Like it or not, this would be a step-change from the current legislative environment in my opinion.
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Another point I’d like to raise is that if we are going to say that “yes the fire engineer should have checked the cladding whether or not it was identified as a departure to be covered in their scope” – then my question is how does this then apply to other disciplines? And if it doesn’t apply to other disciplines, why does it only apply to fire safety?
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For example, sometimes on projects there are two architectural firms. One responsible for the base building design and compliance and the other responsible for part (or all) of the fit out design of the interior spaces. In this scenario, would we expect the base build architect to check the surface finishes compliance, door swings for fit out, fit out travel distances etc etc for the fit out design by the other architectural firm?
If the base build architect can simply look at their own scope and ignore the fit out (and vice versa) then why cant the fire engineer be afforded the same ‘scope’ protection?
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What about if an Access Consultant is brought in to resolve an access issue via a Performance Solution - is it acceptable that they simply resolve the one item that has been brought to their attention or do they have to review all floorplan drawings and check for any other access issues that the Building Surveyor/certifier assessed as being compliant?
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No Responsibility for Head Contractors/Builders?
You might think in reading the CSV report that Head Contractors/Builders bear no responsibility for the combustible cladding crisis.
Architects, draftspersons, Fire Safety Engineers and Building Surveyors are all named as being responsible parties.
It is well known that Head Contractors/Builders swapped out compliant cladding for non-compliant alternatives for various reasons (mostly for cost saving in my opinion). When doing this, the new proposed cladding should have gone through a compliance check before being accepted.
The report doesn't touch on this and I would have thought that as one of the routes by which combustible cladding ended up on our buildings, it would have been within the scope of the report.
Maybe gathering the data for this route was too difficult?
I feel like some estimates could have been made - surely the percentage of designs that correctly documented non-combustible (compliant) cladding in the dataset would have identified that builders must have therefore swapped out the materials during construction for the combustible (non-compliant) cladding to end up on buildings.
No Responsibility for the Victorian Building Authority?
The Victoria Building Authority (VBA) state on their website that their role is to:
"prioritise consumers, the people who live, work, and occupy buildings across Victoria and strive to increase their confidence in the building industry.
The Authority regulates for better consumer protection and is committed to safety, compliance, and buildings that last.
What we do:
So clearly then with respect to the combustible cladding crisis in Victoria, the VBA failed in its role. I don't think that is unfair to state since we are looking into reasons for this cladding issue. Strange then that the CSV report doesn't mention this at all.
Its good to see that there are changes afoot within the VBA following a period of turmoil and we are now a year on from the appointment of Anna Cronin as the CEO.
I would suggest the VBA has their work cut out to restore confidence but we can all play a part in assisting by doing the right things day in day out.
Final Thoughts:
I’m definitely not trying to give fire engineers a pass here – there were times when a fire engineer was asked to assess the cladding and the assessment fell well short of what it should have been.
What I am trying to explain is the environment within which the designs for these buildings were assessed and how that environment led to this issue. We still have this environment today.
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If you accept that practitioners are able to limit their scope to what they are being asked to look into, then this issue or a similar one can happen again. The legislative environment permits (some would say encourages) it by the way that a fire engineer is only responsible for fire safety related Performance Requirements when they are engaged, and even then only for those that they are engaged to resolve. Outside of that, compliance is assessed by the Building Surveyor to have been achieved via the DtS route.
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If you think that practitioners should not be able to limit their scope then we really do have a larger problem that extends way beyond cladding and way beyond fire engineering as it must surely apply to all disciplines.
PhD Candidate | Senior Researcher | Fire Safety Engineer (CPEng)
7 个月A superb and well-articulated summary Aaron.
Visiting Professor (Law), King's College London (retired)
7 个月Superbly helpful for readers outside Vic - even for those of us who have tried to understand and appreciate CSV's impressive work without an insider's knowledge.
Executive Director GCA Duratec Pty Ltd Building Facades
7 个月I think it was quite clear what happened. In many cases. the products came with a codemark compliance certificate. Trying to get the supporting design documentation and testing certificates was nearly impossible and in most cases a product was accepted for use for the classification on the codemark certificate. Resulting misuse of the product. The system failed. I don’t blame codemark but it is quite clear the certifcate, testing documentation and limitations of use need to be available so informed decisions can be made
MBA Griffith University / Architect / Builder - Project Management / Product Design
7 个月In my opinion as a cladding specialist, these cladding systems were at no time compliant and I do not understand why those specifying defective products were not required to fix the problem? What a few decades of defective and cheap cladding do in the industry? It sent those who complies with the codes and testing regime broke! The professional teams in every case should have stumped up for remediation works.
Head of Technical Department ALPOLIC ?? fire regulations & energy efficiency of rainscreen
7 个月Interesting, it is complicated even for ACP experts to understand the behavior of PE core during testing phase. Some suppliers managed to pass the european classification B (EN 13501-1) with face fixed panels or even cassettes. Mostly because the gaps between panels were closed by profiles or Z returns during tests. Fire experts can’t be specialist of every type of material used on buildings.