The fire at the Lacrosse Building in Melbourne’s Docklands in November 2014 brought home the dangers of combustible facade systems. In addition to the Grenfell Tower fire that drew worldwide attention to the use of combustible wall cladding on buildings, the United Arab Emirates saw three major facade fires during the past year. The swiftness of fire spread has been blamed upon non-compliant highly combustible wall cladding systems.
To help combat non-compliance and ensure public safety in Australia, the ABCB released an Advisory Note in August 2016, ‘Fire Performance of External Walls and Cladding’ to highlight that all components making up the facade wall cladding system on all type A and B construction projects should be made from non-combustible materials. The Australian Standard AS1530.1 covers the non-combustibility tests for building materials.
Though there are several fully DTS compliant non-combustible sarking materials on the Australian market, many high-rise towers currently being built continue to use combustible sarking materials. This lackadaisical attitude can lead to more facade fires and possible loss of life.
TBA Firefly offers non-combustible, fully DTS compliant sarking products.
