Two Auckland buildings confirmed as having combustible cladding, but there could be more

Friday, 23 June 2017

Two Auckland high-rise apartment buildings have been identified as having combustible cladding in the wake of London's Grenfell Tower blaze.

While Auckland Council would not identify which apartments were affected, TVNZ reported they were the Nautilus in Orewa and the Spencer on Byron in Takapuna.

Residents had not been officially informed of their building's fire-risk cladding by Friday evening, and had mixed views when spoken to.

One Nautilus resident said he wasn't worried 'because it's all going to be replaced in 18 months anyway'.

* After London tower fire, Government checks NZ buildings for cladding

* London fire: Apartment tower could have been fireproofed for under $10,000**

The building was notorious for its weather tightness issues, and has been under repair since 2015.

Another resident said she was 'furious' to learn about Nautilus' cladding from media rather than the council.

A third resident said he had been wondering about his apartment's cladding since the Grenfell caught fire, and already regarded the building as having fire safety issues.

'We only have one fire escape as it is,' he said.

Has your building been identified as having combustible cladding? Email newstips@stuff.co.nz

The council's general manager of building control, Ian McCormick, said body corporates would be advised 'as soon as practically possible'.

It was difficult for the council to identify individual apartment residents affected and it would be up to the body corporates to inform owners and residents, he said.

In total, 90 buildings were identified that could potentially have the cladding and 21 have been investigated so far - with just two confirmed.

McCormick said such cladding had been authorised by fire engineers who had signed off the buildings.

“You could have combustible cladding on it as long as the building was sprinklered and had various other fire safety systems on it.”

McCormick said enquiries around the presence of aluminium composite panels started after the Lacrosse Apartment fire in Melbourne in November 2014.

'It was a little difficult for us to identify those buildings initially because we don't keep records by cladding type of buildings.'

A list of potentials drawn up with industry turned up 21 buildings that 'represented a large proportion of the larger buildings in Auckland', McCormick said.

Council staff then realised the list didn't include some buildings known to have the panels.

'As a result we went through an area canvas of Auckland.'

That meant 'staff driving a vehicle and walking around' to identify buildings that looked like they might have aluminium composite panels, McCormick said.

'We end up now with a situation where we have around about 90 buildings that we're looking at in that list.'

The two buildings identified as having aluminium composite panels were currently being re-cladded for weather tightness, rather than fire-related issues.

An Aluminium Sandwich

McCormick defined aluminium composite panels as 'an aluminium sandwich', a composite material sandwiched between two sheets of aluminium.

How combustible such panels proved to be would depend on the type of composite used in the middle.

Materials referred to as combustible were 'part of the design that was part of what was acceptable in this country' and were used in standalone houses.

'You're talking about materials that we and our grandparents are very familiar with.'