Minutes of the Auckland Branch Training and Networking Event

held on Wednesday, 18th October 2017 at 6.00pm, Alexandra Park.

Welcome:

Acting Branch Chair – Glynn Robertson, opened the meeting, welcoming members, new members, and guests as well as extending a special welcome to the event’s sponsor – BRANZ and presenters

Peter Whiting – Fire Testing Team Leader, Lynda Amitrano – Assurance Services Team Leader and Stuart Park – Project Manager Assurance Services.

Grant Brown introduced three visitors to the Auckland meeting and hopefully to bring these gentlemen to the audience early in the New Year.

Ricky from Henderson Demolition who is the new president of Asbestos Association

Kim from NZAAG asbestos advisory group and John.

Attendance:

44 members recorded their attendance

Apologies:

Rob Taylor

Moved: Grant Brown Seconded: Brendon Leckey

Minutes and Matters Arising:

Meeting minutes were read and accurate.

Moved: Clive Megson Seconded: Maurice Minton

Correspondence In/Out:

• A reminder to members sent out via email of the new training correspondence provided by the BOINZ training school and collection of CPD points.

• Education / training calendar also sent via email from “Membership”

• AKL Branch AGM nomination and proxy votes to Steven and Christine by 8th Nov

General Business:

No general business.

Anyone who is interested in getting involved and becoming part of the leadership team – please do not hesitate to get in touch with:

Branch Chair - Tineke de Villiers - 021 511 527 Tineke.deVilliers@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Branch Co-Secretary - Christine Watkinson - 021 890 493 Christine.Watkinson@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Branch Co-Secretary - Steven Peng - 027 403 0100 steven.peng@holmesfarsight.com

Branch Executive committee - Glynn Robertson - 021 917 684 glynn.robertson@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Guest Presentation:

BRANZ – Product performance Challenges and Support through Testing

Peter Whiting –Fire Testing Team Leader

Lynda Amitrano –Assurance Services Team Leader

Stuart Park – Project Manager Assurance Services

Keynotes:

Lynda Amitrano:

• Introduced the nights topic on fire safety testing of products/systems/claddings etc.

• BRANZ also assists CodeMark assessments.

• Current appraisal around 150 products, all of which want to move into the medium density residential build space (up to 25m)

• Lynda also did a quick introduction on BRANZ personnel present at the meet:

    • Peter Whiting and Stuart Park
    • Graeme Hughes from Build Magazine
      • Flagship to showcase BRANZ
      • Provides quality technical information in the publication

• Notification to appraisals – email sign ups available – admin@appraisals,co.nz

• Tom Edhouse – technical helpline – 0800 808085

• Industry question on treating flexible building wrap as able to close in – BRANZ’s stance is no – does not believe it meets the purpose and objective of Building Code

Peter Whiting alluded to:

• BRANZ undertook technical reviews on couple of topical fire events,

• Managing the risks associated to these exterior cladding systems

• Discussion on ACM/ACP cladding systems

• Applying Building Code and engineering principals

• Review of Australian building code

• MBIE guidance on fire rating of cladding systems in Codewords 77, March 2017 issue.

• Study 1: Grenfell Tower – 67m, 129 apartments up to 600 residents.

    • 50 million dollar renovation project (local government funded)
    • Mainly external façade upgrade
    • Cladding system –
      • 4mm cladding, 50 mm ventilated cavity, 150mm PIR insulation, 250 existing concrete
      • Building had single means of egress
      • No sprinkler suppression system
      • Exposed gas pipes in stairway
      • Stay in place policy – (different fire safety design principles to NZBC)
      • Building Research Establishment - BS8414 test investigation of cladding – cladding
      • FR-Grade – fire retardant grade (reduction of polyethylene present in the filler)
      • What went wrong =
        • Detection, containment, safe egress
        • Regulatory oversight, value engineering during construction, product substitution during construction to combustible cladding

• Study 2: Lacrosse Tower fire in Melbourne

    • 300 apartments, fire spread from 8th to 21st in minutes
    • Falling debris (burnt cladding) spread fire down to 6th floor
    • No casualties
    • Sprinklered building
    • 450 occupants
    • Fire didn’t enter the building

• Brief description of ACM/ACP (Aluminium Composite Material/Panels)

    • Heat through conduction will melt the plastic core and reduce the structural integrity
    • Polyethylene melting temp – 100~130c, heat coef combustion –
    • Fuel load of (43.3MJ/KG) translates to approximately 1m2 of ACM = 5 litres of petrol

• Within New Zealand Context, for similar building typologies would expect to have the following design features and considerations:

    • Sprinkler
    • Multiple egress provisions
    • Combustible insulation,
    • Scale of testing
    • Protection of other properties
    • Safeguard people from fire
    • Safeguard fire fighting
  • Detection occurs early in fire

• Sprinklers highly reliable and effective

• Containment – fire contained to fire cell of origin; fire rating at penetration; fire separations

• Safe egress routes

• When designing multi-storey apartments with sleeping occupations, many factors are also taken into consideration such as: evacuation time, ability to escape and firefighting ability height of building.

• Acceptable Solution hasn’t taken externally started fire (fire on balcony etc) into consideration in setting the prescribed method of fire safety design.

• C/ASX 5.8.2 b) reading – systems to be tested

• Industry has different interpretation on “Cladding” vs. “Cladding System”

• Test to AS/NZS3837 / ISO5660

• Referenced in C/ASX 5.8.2 b), NFPA285 – full scale single pane façade test, test as a façade cladding system – testing fire spread vertical and horizontal to room above. NFPA285 does not require return wall scenario for complex fire.

• Study by BRANZ has found that systems imported to NZ could have substantial replacement of elements that are different to the test carried out overseas.

• AS1530 – Methods for Fire Tests on Building Materials. Testing for combustibility of external façade/material/systems.

• AS5113 – Fire Propagation Testing and Classification of External Walls of Buildings. Classifications including testing methods (BS8414 or ISO13785-2)

• Codewords 77 (March 2017) – improved definition on cladding system across compliance documents, requiring all components to be tested. The document also gives guidance on interpretation of “cladding system” which should be read as the complete envelope assembly.

• Some NZ industry-wide questions remain –

    • Need to quantify the cladding system as a whole
    • Extent of cladding systems used.
    • Effectiveness of cavity barriers
    • RAB products
    • Combustible insulation
    • Interaction of materials used in combination
    • Bench – vs full-scale testing
    • International best practice
    • Risk based approach – likelihood vs consequences of failure
    • Where does cladding system start and stop?
    • Timber framed used to infill with RAB and warp that may also include combustible insulation.

Q – RAB (PBS and JH) being applied to building over 10m high – whole system need to be tested, but no results available

A – Yes

Q – Future building of Bob Jones timber CLT building – what is the cladding system?

A – TBA, best answered by the project design team.

Q - NFPA 285 – is that acceptable or alternative solution

A – Acceptable if it’s constructed and tested as per the standard

Peter Laurenson, BOINZ Board member - Liaison for East Coast and Southern Branches provided an update to the members.

• Auckland AGM in November, put your hand up if you are interested

• Conference in 2018 in Dunedin – 13~16th May Call for papers

• Invoices due soon – modest increase of 5%

• BOINZ involvement in national cadetship

• Budget – training hasn’t been happening as forecasted, National Office is preparing CPD programmes

• New Staff – new EA and new marketing manager

• MBIE

    • Kerry Walsh and Nick Hill attended ICC – International Code Council – focus on certified products
    • Promote building surveyors across countries

The Acting Chair Glynn thanked the presenters from BRANZ for providing the members with an insightful presentation and Peter for Head Office update.

Acting Chair closed the meeting @ 7.00pm.

BOINZ, Co-Secretary

Steven Peng

End of Meeting

Networking and Refreshments

**Refreshments kindly provided by BRANZ**


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