By Daisy 
Key Insights
· Combustible cladding represents a major fire safety risk to thousands of Australian buildings, including high-rises. This is a crisis that Australia has grappled with for more than ten years.
- Australian states have launched large-scale initiatives for cladding remediation to remove high-risk cladding panels and replace them with non-combustible cladding.
- The Australian government, property owners, and insurers must collaborate effectively to address the cladding crisis.
- Deemed to satisfy non-combustible aluminium cladding presents a safer, more stylish, compliant option for cladding remediation.
Building safety is of the highest priority, and this especially includes fire safety considerations. There have been several well-publicised high-rise fires globally, some of which have resulted in the tragic loss of human life. These include, most infamously, the 2017 inferno in London’s Grenfell Tower, which caused 72 deaths. The use of combustible cladding materials in many of these buildings played a major role in the spread of fire and loss of life.
In response to such events, Australia has been forced to consider its own crisis of widespread use of non-compliant combustible cladding on buildings throughout the country, including high-rises and skyscrapers.
The Combustible Cladding Issue
Many older buildings throughout Australia remain fitted with high-risk combustible external façade cladding. This is typically made from aluminium composite panels with a polyethylene core or expanded polystyrene. The use of these panels became popular in the early 2000s, driven by the materials’ light weight, visual appeal, and low cost.
Alarm bells literally and figuratively began ringing in 2014 when the 13-storey Lacrosse Building in Melbourne ignited after a cigarette started a fire on a balcony. There were, thankfully, no human fatalities, but the rapid spread of the fire across the cladding exposed major issues with design and compliance in terms of fire safety and illustrated how devastating a similar incident could be – and that it was simply a matter of time before such a tragedy occurred.
Audits were thereafter carried out in QLD, NSW, Victoria, and other states, and thousands of buildings were found to be clad (fully or partially) with unsafe panels.
What is Cladding Remediation?
Cladding remediation aims to replace non-compliant material panels with industry-compliant deemed to satisfy non-combustible cladding.
Building owners have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure the safety of their structures and the people who use them. This includes remediation processes to bring these buildings into compliance and minimise fire risks by undertaking a recladding project using non-combustible cladding products.
Cladding remediation or recladding refers to the replacement or upgrade of a building’s external façade cladding. It is mandated in Australia for buildings in which non-compliant cladding materials have been identified, particularly where combustible cladding is present.
The is a complex process that includes considering and assessing building materials, fire safety systems, design, and replacement strategies, followed by:
1. Removal of combustible cladding panels
2. Installation of deemed to satisfy non-combustible aluminium cladding panels (or another compliant material)
3. Enhancement of fire safety systems (fire doors, alarms, sprinkler systems)
4. Compliance with the current National Construction Code
Additional Benefits of Recladding
Not only does cladding remediation ensure compliance with Australia’s laws and regulations to mitigate risks in case of a building fire, it also improves energy efficiency within the structure and modernises the visual aesthetic of the building. Combined, this can increase the property’s value.
Challenges of Cladding Remediation
Building owners do have some hurdles to navigate. These include funding where government assistance is not available; legal/liability disputes between developers, builders, suppliers, and certifiers; supply chain issues where demand exceeds material availability; and issues relating to insurance.
How Is This Being Addressed by Our Government?
To coordinate a national response to this issue, the Council of Australian Governments established the Building Ministers’ Forum in 2019. Each state implemented its own program (e.g. Project Remediate in NSW). This included various incentives to:
- help fund the removal and replacement of unsafe, flammable cladding on eligible government-owned buildings
- provide interest-free loans to eligible building owners for remediation
- publish registers of non-compliant buildings
- provide encouragement and support to building owners to voluntarily replace flammable cladding
In Summary…
Recladding with the right deemed to satisfy non-combustible panels ensures compliant, safe, high-quality, durable, stylish, long-lasting, and insurable replacement cladding. More importantly, it helps deliver the peace of mind that comes with knowing a building’s safety has been optimised in terms of reducing risks if a fire should break out.