This article about the fire engineer’s role in cladding solutions has been supplied by Ferm Engineering.
There are alternatives to full replacement of potentially flammable cladding on high-rise buildings, but insurers need to acknowledge owners’ loss mitigation efforts in premium rates, says respected fire engineer Stephen Burton.
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He told a Sedgwick seminar on aluminium composite panel (ACP) cladding in Brisbane last week that full replacement was not always the only option and was frequently the most expensive.
Mr Burton, CEO of Brisbane-based Ferm Engineering, said alternatives were cladding’s partial removal and replacement; and performance engineering to reduce the fire risk.
“If cladding is fire retardant, ie, it contains less than 30% polyethylene, partial removal may reduce the risk without major expense,” Mr Burton said.
“For many buildings, it is feasible to retain some wall cladding types and mitigate potential losses.”
He said performance engineering would be a cheaper alternative, but insurance premiums needed to reflect owners’ efforts to reduce the overall fire risk.
Performance engineering could include supplementary fire systems, like water cannons; sprinklers in at-risk areas, for example balconies; and removing cladding from perimeter locations where there was a higher likelihood of ignition, for example, near rubbish bin storage sites or loading bays.
Mr Burton said some building owners had copped higher premiums after removing cladding because insurers argued the building’s value had increased.
Owners, and their brokers, needed to demonstrate to insurers that performance engineering could significantly reduce a building’s fire risk.
Ferm Engineering is working with Queensland University of Technology scientists and architects on researching and testing performance engineering options to mitigate potential losses at reduced costs.
Mr Burton said the research included more robust testing of balconies’ shapes and sizes to determine how they affected the speed and spread of fires and potential water application rates for external fire suppression.
“Stopping fires spreading into ACP cladding, if it contains less than 30% polyethylene, can be achieved by creating fire breaks and other engineering solutions,” Mr Burton said.
Full ACP cladding replacement could create additional problems, including damaging waterproofing, and occupational health and safety risks for workers using scaffolding to remove and replace cladding.
Mr Burton said a simple but obviously effective measure was to ban smoking in highrise buildings, including on balconies. “Cigarettes have been identified as the cause of the three cladding fires that have occurred in Australia,” he said.
Mr Burton, a nationally certified engineer, has been a qualified fire engineer for more than 25 years and is highly respected in the field.
Are you an owner in a building affected by combustible cladding? RMIT would like to invite you to participate in the ‘‘At what cost? Cladding concerns for owners” research project.
They are interested in learning more about the scale of the problems owners of property affected by combustible cladding face day to day across Australia, particularly those living in apartments. Find out more via this document from RMIT.
Read Next
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This post appears in Strata News #281.
Ferm Engineering
E: [email protected]
P: 07 3277 6314
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Have a question about fire engineers and their role in providing cladding solutions or something to add to the article? Leave a comment below.
QLD: Fire engineer – Cladding replacement not sole solution
Published September 5, 2019 By The LookUpStrata Team Leave a Comment Last Updated September 18, 2019
“Mr Burton said some building owners had copped higher premiums after removing cladding because insurers argued the building’s value had increased.”
I wish to make an observation regarding the above statement.
Building insurance valuation and the resultant building sum insured is not based on the indemnity value of the property – that is the estimated building sale price Value at a particular date.
The building insurance sum insured Value is based on the applicable strata building gross area including the common areas fixtures and fittings/improvements gross area replacement valuation as assessed and provided for by the strata residential building insurance valuation report information as provided by a Registered Quantity Surveyor to the Owners Corporation through the Strata Manager.
Owners Corporations should ensure that their building is insured for at least 90% of the full estimated catastrophe costs valuation.
Michael Cretikos Registered Architect 5766
Hi Michael
Thanks for your comment. This reply to you (plus general comments on the article) from Tyrone Shandiman, Strata Insurance Solutions:
The treatment of cladding differs from insurer to insurer.
Insurers that have a low or no appetite for cladding are less likely to be influenced by any risk minimisation that has been undertaken to make the building less prone to a major loss caused by spread of fire from flammable cladding.
Insurers that have an appetite for properties with cladding will however look at risk mitigation that has been implemented. Partial removal of cladding will reduce the % of cladding a building has and thus make it more attractive to insurers who apply guidelines or ratings based on % of cladding vs non-compostable material on the exterior of a building. Likewise some insurers will look at the amount of vertical cladding a building has for example we have recently had a building that had 10 stories of continuous cladding vertically up a building – one insurer who declined to offer quotes commented that they would offer their quotes if a fire break of 2 stories or more separated the 10 stories.
We have not heard of any instances where insurers charge higher premiums for removal of cladding. Insurers rate based on sum insured for re-build value and removal of cladding is not necessarily linked to an increase re-build value in the building. If anything, building owners should experience a premium reduction for removing cladding because any premium loadings for combustible material can be removed.
We do however agree with the general commentary of the article that performance engineering is a good way to reduce overall fire risk and thus can and should have a positive impact on insurance.
We have also received the following comment from Steve Burton, Ferm Engineering:
Tyrone is right, insurers’ risk appetites differ on the issue of potentially flammable cladding.
My point is that full removal is not the only option for buildings with potentially flammable cladding affixed. Performance engineering may not be as costly as full removal. Each building needs to be risk managed in accordance with the quantity and positioning of potentially flammable cladding.
It is important for insurers to take into account building owners’ mitigation efforts, like performance engineering, when assessing the risk.
Stephen Burton, CEO, Ferm Engineering.