When it comes to managing your building's cladding – exactly what are you responsible for under the new legislation?
Under the new Building and Other Legislation (cladding) Amendment 2018 (an amendment to Building Regulation 2006), the owners of certain types of private buildings in Queensland are now responsible for the combustible cladding assessment of their building façade.
Type A or B construction, as defined in the Building Code of Australia.
What do you need to do by when?
To undertake your review, you will need to complete the online building cladding checklist at the Safer Buildings website published by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC).
There are three parts to the online checklist, and each contains a series of questions relating to the building being assessed.
Building owners are required to complete Part 1 which relates to the general building specifics by 29 March 2019. The system will determine, based on the responses to the questions, if a building potentially meets the above listed criteria for cladding assessment.
If it's determined that the building shall proceed to Part 2 of the process, the building owner must engage a Building Industry Professional (BIP) to help complete this part by 29 May 2019.
During Part 1 or Part 2 of the process, if it's deemed by the online system that the building does not need to progress further, the building will be exited from the process. The building owner will be required to submit a signed declaration online to complete the process.
If a building is required to proceed to Part 3 for a fire engineering assessment, the building owner must engage a qualified fire engineer and provide QBCC the engineer's details by 27 August 2019. A Building Fire Safety Risk Assessment report must be completed by the fire engineer by 3 May 2021.
When it comes to managing your building's cladding, exactly what are you responsible for?
Find out your requirements, key dates and deadlines.
Need some help? Our Fire Engineering team can help with parts 2 and 3 of the process.
We can carry out inspections of buildings and, where required, organise sample collection of the cladding materials and send them for laboratory testing. We will prepare the required Building Fire Safety Risk Assessment report, detailing the cladding information and fire test outcomes, and the risk assessment carried out.
Our team will provide solutions that minimise building works or disruption to the building operation. As part of the process, we will liaise with the approving authority as well as the fire brigade (QFES) to reach a mutual agreement on the assessment approach and any proposed remedial building works.
Our fire engineering team comprises of chartered RPEQ registered engineers who specialise in fire safety building solutions and have a deep understanding of the assessment methodologies associated with combustible cladding.
They are experienced in fire risk approach for addressing vertical fire spread via building façades.
Koroush Keshavarz has also completed the cladding fire safety specialist course, 'External Fire Spread Risk in Tall Building Design' with the University of Queensland.
Arthur Ting has extensive knowledge of building regulations and risk assessments to prepare building fire safety risk assessments.
If you would like to find out more about the combustible cladding legislation and what you are required to do, contact Koroush Keshavarz on koroush.keshavarz@dmaengineers.com.au or call on (07) 3839 3050.