Safety Window Australia
Designed to be durable and structurally sound, our louvre windows prioritises safety above all else.
Safety Window Australia
Safety Window Australia
Designed to be durable and structurally sound, our louvre windows prioritises safety above all else.
Australian Building Codes Board Certification
Australian Building Codes Board Certification
Looking for Australian building codes board certification will codes board certification will ensure that you dont use non-compliant products.
Australia Building Crisis Fix Will Cost $6.2 Billion
The cost of fixing the unfolding national building crisis, including widespread residential apartment block defects and the use of dangerous combustible cladding, could soar past $6.2 billion, according to a new economic analysis.
More than 3400 residential unit blocks across the country have potentially flammable exterior cladding, according to a report commissioned by the construction union.
The construction union has called for a national approach to help fix problems stemming from residential building defects and combustible cladding.
The construction union has called for a national approach to help fix problems stemming from residential building defects and combustible cladding.
Those high-rise blocks take in about 170,000 apartments. In NSW, hundreds of buildings are potentially affected.
Pressure is mounting on the Berejiklian government to provide more support and funding either to individual owners’ corporations, or to Sydney councils confronted with buildings that could need flammable cladding ripped off and replaced.
Amid escalating debate over the use of flammable cladding, the Herald asked each council in Sydney how many buildings in their area had been identified as potentially containing the material.
The figures provide an insight into the extent of the problem facing the NSW government as it continues to grapple with a broader crisis of confidence in the apartment construction industry.
The cladding taskforce set up by the government has so far identified up to 553 high-risk buildings across NSW, including 154 residential apartment buildings. The government has not publicly released the list of buildings on its cladding register.
The City of Sydney is seemingly the worst affected, with 350 properties identified on the cladding register. The council is investigating 333 of those properties, with 16 handed fire safety orders.
There were as many as 174 buildings identified in Parramatta. Of those, seven have been found to contain non-compliant cladding, with investigations continuing on nearly 100 buildings.
In the City of Canterbury Bankstown, there are 87 buildings on the register of buildings potentially containing flammable cladding, 44 of which are residential. Bayside Council in the city's inner south has 71 buildings listed, with cladding rectification notices served on 14 building owners.
The figures come as the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy ‘Shaky Foundations: the National Construction Crisis’ report, released on Monday, said analysis from Equity Economics showed that the "costs of failure are piling up".
The report estimates "the cost to building owners and state, territory and federal governments of addressing the structural and safety defects in buildings will approximate $6.2 billion".
This figure is "conservative" as it only includes buildings constructed in the past 10 years, the report says, and "can be expected to double when accounting for previous decades of construction".
The report said the country's building industry had reached "crisis point" and pointed to governments' failure to enforce building standards, a loss of public sector skills leading to poor scoping and design for building projects, and the outsourcing of building approvals which resulted in "increased conflicts of interest and lack of oversight".
The CFMEU's construction arm is calling for a national approach to fixing those problems. This includes applying the "strictest standards practical to new builds" , "best practice regulation which protects the consumer" and government financial support for affected property owners.
The report said an estimated 1411 residential apartment buildings in NSW used potentially combustible cladding, including 95 "extreme risk" buildings. In Victoria, 1069 buildings have cladding, the report said. Of those, 72 have been deemed as extreme risk, and 504 are high-risk.
Among other councils surveyed by the Herald, the City of Canada Bay Council has 66 buildings on the cladding register; the Hills Shire has 63; North Sydney Council has 61 buildings and Willoughby Council has more than 60 buildings listed.
Cumberland Council has 59 buildings on the register, the Inner West Council is aware of 55 residential buildings listed, and Sutherland Shire Council has 42 buildings.
Liverpool City Council has 41 buildings on the register, but the council said its investigations had whittled that number down to 24 properties with potentially flammable cladding.
Blacktown Council has 37 buildings. Of those, seven government owned buildings that include hospitals, TAFE colleges and train stations.
In Campbelltown City Council's area there are 28 buildings on the register, four of which are residential apartment blocks, while Strathfield Council is investigating 23 buildings.
The rest of the councils which responded had 20 or fewer buildings identified as potentially having flammable cladding. Some councils, including Randwick City Council and Fairfield Council, declined to provide figures.
Several councils, including Parramatta and Liverpool, have used recent council resolutions to call on the state government to provide support and funding to ease the financial burden of cladding rectification works.
The Strata Community Association NSW previously suggested at least $1 billion could be needed to remedy the buildings with flammable cladding across the state.
The Victorian government last month announced a $600 million package to fix the cladding crisis across the state, where more than 500 “high-risk” buildings require rectification works.
The NSW government has not offered compensation to apartment owners in buildings that will need to replace flammable cladding.
Building Commissioner David Chandler has said he would possibly recommend low-interest government loans for apartment owners facing significant defects or cladding that needed to be removed.
A spokesman for Better Regulation Minister Kevin Anderson the Victorian government's package was "yet to be tested to check whether is it adequate to address the issue, will be allocated in part in administration costs or whether the total will be spent on buildings".
The NSW government is unable to say they will commit to a funding package with a lack of those details or without a firm idea on what may be required within NSW.
More than 3400 residential unit blocks across the country have potentially flammable exterior cladding, according to a report commissioned by the construction union.
The construction union has called for a national approach to help fix problems stemming from residential building defects and combustible cladding.
The construction union has called for a national approach to help fix problems stemming from residential building defects and combustible cladding.
Those high-rise blocks take in about 170,000 apartments. In NSW, hundreds of buildings are potentially affected.
Pressure is mounting on the Berejiklian government to provide more support and funding either to individual owners’ corporations, or to Sydney councils confronted with buildings that could need flammable cladding ripped off and replaced.
Amid escalating debate over the use of flammable cladding, the Herald asked each council in Sydney how many buildings in their area had been identified as potentially containing the material.
The figures provide an insight into the extent of the problem facing the NSW government as it continues to grapple with a broader crisis of confidence in the apartment construction industry.
The cladding taskforce set up by the government has so far identified up to 553 high-risk buildings across NSW, including 154 residential apartment buildings. The government has not publicly released the list of buildings on its cladding register.
The City of Sydney is seemingly the worst affected, with 350 properties identified on the cladding register. The council is investigating 333 of those properties, with 16 handed fire safety orders.
There were as many as 174 buildings identified in Parramatta. Of those, seven have been found to contain non-compliant cladding, with investigations continuing on nearly 100 buildings.
In the City of Canterbury Bankstown, there are 87 buildings on the register of buildings potentially containing flammable cladding, 44 of which are residential. Bayside Council in the city's inner south has 71 buildings listed, with cladding rectification notices served on 14 building owners.
The figures come as the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy ‘Shaky Foundations: the National Construction Crisis’ report, released on Monday, said analysis from Equity Economics showed that the "costs of failure are piling up".
The report estimates "the cost to building owners and state, territory and federal governments of addressing the structural and safety defects in buildings will approximate $6.2 billion".
This figure is "conservative" as it only includes buildings constructed in the past 10 years, the report says, and "can be expected to double when accounting for previous decades of construction".
The report said the country's building industry had reached "crisis point" and pointed to governments' failure to enforce building standards, a loss of public sector skills leading to poor scoping and design for building projects, and the outsourcing of building approvals which resulted in "increased conflicts of interest and lack of oversight".
The CFMEU's construction arm is calling for a national approach to fixing those problems. This includes applying the "strictest standards practical to new builds" , "best practice regulation which protects the consumer" and government financial support for affected property owners.
The report said an estimated 1411 residential apartment buildings in NSW used potentially combustible cladding, including 95 "extreme risk" buildings. In Victoria, 1069 buildings have cladding, the report said. Of those, 72 have been deemed as extreme risk, and 504 are high-risk.
Among other councils surveyed by the Herald, the City of Canada Bay Council has 66 buildings on the cladding register; the Hills Shire has 63; North Sydney Council has 61 buildings and Willoughby Council has more than 60 buildings listed.
Cumberland Council has 59 buildings on the register, the Inner West Council is aware of 55 residential buildings listed, and Sutherland Shire Council has 42 buildings.
Liverpool City Council has 41 buildings on the register, but the council said its investigations had whittled that number down to 24 properties with potentially flammable cladding.
Blacktown Council has 37 buildings. Of those, seven government owned buildings that include hospitals, TAFE colleges and train stations.
In Campbelltown City Council's area there are 28 buildings on the register, four of which are residential apartment blocks, while Strathfield Council is investigating 23 buildings.
The rest of the councils which responded had 20 or fewer buildings identified as potentially having flammable cladding. Some councils, including Randwick City Council and Fairfield Council, declined to provide figures.
Several councils, including Parramatta and Liverpool, have used recent council resolutions to call on the state government to provide support and funding to ease the financial burden of cladding rectification works.
The Strata Community Association NSW previously suggested at least $1 billion could be needed to remedy the buildings with flammable cladding across the state.
The Victorian government last month announced a $600 million package to fix the cladding crisis across the state, where more than 500 “high-risk” buildings require rectification works.
The NSW government has not offered compensation to apartment owners in buildings that will need to replace flammable cladding.
Building Commissioner David Chandler has said he would possibly recommend low-interest government loans for apartment owners facing significant defects or cladding that needed to be removed.
A spokesman for Better Regulation Minister Kevin Anderson the Victorian government's package was "yet to be tested to check whether is it adequate to address the issue, will be allocated in part in administration costs or whether the total will be spent on buildings".
The NSW government is unable to say they will commit to a funding package with a lack of those details or without a firm idea on what may be required within NSW.
"The quoted rectification costs that have been floated in the public domain a little more than thoughts and are seemingly not based on any fact whatsoever."The spokesman said that about 86 per cent of the buildings listed on the original cladding register had been removed, with about 13 per cent requiring detailed assessment or rectification.
"The NSW Cladding Taskforce will continue to work with local government to ensure the remaining buildings are completed, prioritising the 154 residential high-rise buildings that remain."Reference: https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/australia-s-building-crisis-fix-will-cost-6-2-billion-report-20190730-p52c9x.html
Sustainablity Australia
Sustainablity Australia
Australia is a world leader in environmental sustainability. SafetyLine Jalousie can help you find sustainable solutions and improve your profits.
Conditions Remain Fairly Dire for Australia's Residential Construction Sector
- Conditions across Australia’s construction sector remain weak, but they’re not quite as severe as they were earlier in the year.
- Activity levels for residential and commercial construction are going backwards but are stable for engineering firms.
- Jobs continue to be shed and margin pressures remain acute.
- New orders are also declining, pointing to continued weakness in the quarters ahead.
The Australian Industry Group’s (Ai Group) Performance of Construction Index (PCI) rose to 45.6 points in March in seasonally adjusted terms, up 1.8 points on the level reported in February.
The PCI measures changes in activity levels across Australia’s construction sector from one month to the next. Anything above 50 signals that activity levels are improving while a reading below suggests they’re deteriorating. The distance away from 50 indicates how quickly activity levels are expanding or contracting.
So at 45.6 points, the PCI indicates that activity levels continued to weaken last month, albeit at a slightly slower pace than February.
According to the March report, activity levels for housing and apartment construction continued to deteriorate at a rapid pace during the month.
“Residential building respondents mainly commented on subdued market conditions due to soft new orders, tight lending conditions, and falling prices and caution by prospective buyers,” the Ai Group said in a statement accompanying the release.The feedback fits with data from the ABS which revealed approvals to build new houses and other residential dwellings slumped 12% and 32.6% respectively in trend terms in the year to February.
Conditions for commercial construction weakened at a faster pace while those for engineering firms were relatively unchanged from a month earlier.
With conditions continuing to weaken across most sub-sectors, construction firms reduced staffing levels for an eighth consecutive month, adding to downside risks for broader hiring levels in the months ahead given the sector is the third-largest employer in the country behind healthcare and retail.
Margin pressures also remained acute with input prices continuing to increase sharply, albeit at a slightly slower pace than February, while selling prices continued to decline.
“Rising input prices and other costs are not, on average, being passed on to customers,” the Ai Group said.
“This reflects the continued strong competition among builders in securing work. The on-going gap… demonstrates that profit margins remain tight for many businesses in the construction industry.”
Pointing to the likelihood that conditions across the sector will remain weak for some time yet, new orders continued to decline across all sub-sectors with the most acute falls seen in residential work.
Survey respondents cited strong competition, cost pressures and the slowdown in the economy in recent quarters, along with uncertainty ahead of the federal election, as the chief areas of concern in March.
While another weak report card on the current state of the construction sector, Peter Burn, Head of Policy at the Ai Group, offered cautious optimism towards the outlook for activity levels ahead.
“There are some encouraging signs that the overall rate of contraction has eased,” Burn said.
“Looking ahead, the construction industry is likely to remain in negative territory over coming months due to the ongoing fall being recorded in new orders.
“On the positive side, there is clearly capacity to lift construction activity if policymakers are looking to stimulate the slowing economy.”
That’s a not-so-subtle hint to the government ahead of Australia’s federal election next month.
Reference: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-residential-construction-house-prices-2019-4
Australia has a New National Construction Code
Some say the building industry is in deep crisis and broken, that even our entire building regulatory system is not fit for purpose. Consider what has happened, particularly in residential construction. We have had buildings burning, cracking, windows exploding, rooms with intolerable heat stress, rendered unfit for occupation without costly remedial action, class actions against developers, and multi-million-dollar court judgments against consultants and builders.
What have reforms to the old Building Code of Australia (BCA), now the NCC, delivered? Is the new code good enough?
Well, how do you measure performance? We should think in terms of lives saved, heat stroke minimised, costly remedial works avoided, less sleep deprivation and climate-induced respiratory issues, disability access, less bill shock for the vulnerable, and housing that is built to allow ageing in place.
Safety and amenity
Widespread use of non-compliant building materials, and specifically combustible cladding, has been foremost in the minds of regulators. Three years ago, after the Lacrosse fire in Melbourne Docklands, the ABCB amended the existing code. This crucial revision has been carried forward into the new code.
Individually, states have acted on the findings of a Senate inquiry into this area. Last October, for example, Queensland enacted the Building and other Legislation (Cladding) Amendment Regulation 2018.
Investigations into the highly publicised, structurally unsound Opal tower in Sydney found the design – namely the connections between the beams and the columns on level 10 and level 4, the two floors with significant damage — indicated “factors of safety lower than required by standards”.
Just two months ago when the new code was released in preview form, we learnt that a significant number of approved CodeMarks used to certify compliance for a range of building materials are under recall. The Australian Institute of Building Surveyors posted urgent advice: “We are in the process of making enquiries with the ABCB and Building Ministers to find out when they were made aware that these certificates were withdrawn and what the implications for members will be […] and owners of properties that have been constructed using these products.”
Fire safety concerns are driving changes in the code. The new NCC 2019 Framework has extended the provision of fire sprinklers to lower-rise residential buildings, generally 4-8 storeys. However, non-sprinkler protection is still permitted where other fire safety measures meet the deemed minimum acceptable standard.
Comfort and health
The code includes new heating and cooling load limits. However, requirements for overall residential energy efficiency have not been increased. The 6-star minimum introduced in the 2010 NCC remains.
The code has just begun to respond to the problem of dwellings that are being constructed to comply but which perform very poorly in the peaks of summer and winter and against international minimum standards. The change in the code deals with only the very worst houses – no more than 5% of designs with the highest heating loads and 5% with the highest cooling loads.
It’s a concern that the climate files used to assess housing thermal performance use 40-year-old BOM data. Off the back of record hot and dry summers, readers in such places as Adelaide and Perth might be surprised to learn the ABCB designates their climate as “the mildest region”.
For well over a decade my colleagues and I have researched thermal performance, comfort and health and improvements by regulation. Our recent paper, based on a small sample of South Australian houses built between 2013 and 2016, demonstrated what has been discussed anecdotally in hushed voices across the industry, that a building can fail minimum standards using one particular compliance option yet pass as compliant using a different pathway.
A building that is not six stars can be built under the new code. In fact, it may have no stars!
Lamentably, there has been no national evidenced-based evaluation (let alone international comparison) of the measured effectiveness of the 6-star standard. CSIRO did carry out a limited evaluation of the older 5-star standard (dating back to 2005). An evaluation for commercial buildings is available from the ABCB website.
Accessibility and liveability
Volume 2 of the NCC covers housing and here it is business as usual, although the ABCB has released an options paper on proposals that might be part of future codes. Accessible housing is treated as a discrete project. Advocates for code changes in this area, such as the Australian Network for Universal Housing Design (ANUHD), have written to the ABCB expressing disappointment.
A Regulation Impact Assessment on the costs and benefits of applying a minimum accessibility standard to all new housing has yet to see the light of day.
These proposals or “options” talk of silver and gold levels of design (there is no third-prize bronze option for liveable housing). Codes of good practice in accessible design have for decades recommended such measures.
It’s all about performance
Some argue that deep-seated problems have developed from a code that favours innovation and cost reduction over consumer protection. There is a cloud over the industry and over some provisions – or should we say safeguards and compliance?
Safety should not be a matter of good luck or depend on an accidental selection of a particular building material or system. New buildings born of this new code are hardly likely to differ measurably from their troublesome older siblings. The anxiety for insurers, regulators and building owners continues.
The National Construction Code adopts a performance-based approach to building regulation, but don’t expect the sales consultant to know the U-value of the windows, whether the doors are hung to allow for disabled access, or if the cleat on your tie beam is to Australian standards.
Anyone can propose changes to the NCC. The form is on the website. Consultants will be hired to model costs and benefits.
Regulatory reforms introduced through the ABCB over the past 20 years have produced an estimated annual national economic benefit of A$1.1 billion. That’s a lot of money! The owners of failing residential buildings could do with some of that cash to cover losses and legal fees.
Reference: http://theconversation.com/australia-has-a-new-national-construction-code-but-its-still-not-good-enough-113729
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)