‘Highly dangerous’: Investors warned on buying lightweight homes
A warning has been raised about buying a home that is situated in a high-storey apartment building, with one investor flagging caution about the highly dangerous cladding being used in many complexes.
Kevin Young, president of Property Club, says a Grenfell Tower tragedy “was waiting to happen in Australia”, with the type of cladding used in Grenfell commonplace in many high-storey apartment buildings in Australia.
“There are currently thousands of Australians living in high-rise death traps made of highly dangerous and flammable materials,” Mr Young said.
“Since Property Club has established 26 years ago, we have banned buying apartments in buildings made of lightweight materials such as this type of cladding.
“These lightweight constructed buildings are highly dangerous especially since local councils handed over the safety certification of these building materials to private contractors.”
Mr Young noted that the Australian construction market is being flooded by cheap and largely untested construction materials “that are being used by developers to build lightweight apartment towers to cut costs”.
“Builders are also using these dangerous materials in other forms of residential construction such as houses, small blocks of units and townhouses,” he added.
“Residents in all these buildings made of lightweight inflammable materials are not only vulnerable to fire but also smouldering combustion and deadly silent styrene gas, for example, that at best affect the nervous system and at worse kill if not detected quickly.
“Property Club has a policy of only recommending apartment developments that are made of brick and concrete.
“We urge the government to implement more stringent testing and monitoring of these lightweigh constructed homes to help avoid a Grenfell Tower tragedy in Australia,” Mr Young concluded.
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