Non-Conforming Building Products Update
The status report of the Non-Conforming Building Products Audit Taskforce was tabled in State Parliament on 17 May 2018.
The report contains the results of investigations into the use of potentially combustible cladding on Queensland government and non-government (private) buildings in Queensland.
The Report recommends that:-
the State government take a strong regulatory role to ensure that private building owners take remediation action to address the use of combustible cladding in existing buildings;
a ‘non-government building process’ be implemented to assess non-government (private) building;
the Department of Housing and Public Works (HPW) keep a database to register key built asset information about State government buildings;
education and guidance material be developed for building industry professionals, owners and
management bodies;
options for the testing of composite cladding materials to assess the fire performance of those materials, be developed;
commonly available external cladding products be tested and a ‘materials library’ be developed to allow for a rapid assessment and product classification of samples taken from existing buildings;
a continuing education programme be developed to target the industry supply chain (for example, building certifiers and fire engineers) and improve the consistency of application of Building Code compliance requirements.
The rectification of State government buildings that were identified as being affected during the audit, is progressing and will continue to be managed by HPW. No State government buildings were identified as posing an imminent risk to safety.
It is anticipated that existing building legislation will be amended to articulate a robust fire safety standard for combustible facades and that QFES (Queensland Fire and Emergency Services) will continue to undertake regular inspections of buildings, including reviewing any assessments and remediation undertaken.
In November 2017, the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 was amended by the Queensland Building and Construction Legislation (Non-conforming Building Products – Chain of Responsibility and Other Matters (Amendment Act 2017)) to:-
enable regulation of building products and impose duties and responsibilities upon persons in the chain of responsibility (designers, manufacturers, importers, suppliers and installers);
provide enforcement powers to QBCC; and
allow the Minister to issue recall orders for non-conforming building products.
The Grenfell Tower fire in London and the Lacrosse Apartments building fire in Melbourne continue to have wide-ranging consequences. Watch this space.
