‘Concern over quality of building panels’

PETALING JAYA, June 18 — The Fire and Rescue Department has expressed concern over the use of materials of questionable quality for the exterior of buildings nationwide.

Its director-general Datuk Wan Mohd Nor Ibrahim believes lower quality and flammable construction materials are used for building exteriors.

“Some contractors or developers might declare low quality aluminium composite panels (ACPs) as higher quality, which poses a fire hazard,” he said.

He added though flame test surface spread was conducted on ACPs, it was difficult to differentiate between a high quality ACP and its lower quality counterpart by mere visual inspection.

“The lower quality component remains a cheaper alternative and is non-fire resistant, compared to a higher quality ACP,” he said.

His comments come in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze in London’s North Kensington district on Wednesday, killing at least 30 people. While the cause of the fire has yet to be determined, the building’s cladding is being blamed for the inferno’s rapid spread.

According to a report by The Guardian, the building’s cladding had been changed in a 2016 renovation, but reports have emerged that contractors installed a cheaper, less flame-resistant material.

“Here, we use ACP, also known as sandwich panel, where the core is made of polyurethane, sandwiched by two outer layers of aluminium.

“The core material is what determines whether it is a fire hazard or not, and polyurethane of higher quality does not catch fire easily,” he told Sunday Mail.

Though he was not able to provide exact figures, Wan Mohd Nor said the use of FRD-approved ACP was extensive in Malaysian buildings.

“It’s important that development consultants ensure the ACP fitted on building exteriors are approved by us and are of higher quality.

“We would always remind developers to only use higher quality panels as we do not want such incidents to occur here,” he said.

“The last fire outbreak in Malaysia where poor quality ACP was fitted involved a low-rise building in Jalan Bukit Bintang in the early 1990s.

“That was when the material was first introduced, and in that incident, the building had used lower quality ACP.”

Though, he added, the ACP material used in Malaysia does not have a fire rating, it undergoes surface flame spread test. “The department only approves materials which do not spread flame across its surface.”

However, he also voiced concern over developers who declare the lower quality ACP to be of high quality.

“It’s not easy to tell the difference between the two, especially once the panels have been fitted.”

On the Grenfell Tower inferno, Wan Mohd Ismail said there were other factors which could have caused the fire to spread fast, including the design of the building.

“Due to its age, certain safety features were not incorporated into the building’s design.

“It does not have a design feature between floors which prevents fire from easily spreading.”

He said that one such feature was panels installed on floor panels to seal gaps.

“This feature is incorporated in most of our high-rise buildings to prevent fire from spreading fast,” he said.

Another was the location of the single staircase in Grenfell Tower which resulted in the building becoming a fire hazard.

He said since the Uniform Building By-Laws 1984 was enacted, high-rise buildings in Malaysia were required to have a minimum of two staircases located at opposite ends of the building.

Wan Mohd Nor said for buildings built before 1984 with only one staircase, an external staircase would be required to be installed as a safety precaution.

He also dismissed the notion that a ban would be imposed on the use of ACP.

NOTE: The major building fire tragedy which took place on April 8, 1976, was at Campbell Shopping Complex along  Jalan Campbell (now Jalan Dang Wangi), which claimed the life of Yap Leong Hoe, 59.

The country’s first high-rise shopping complex, including its 20-storey office tower block, was completely engulfed in fire but did not collapse entirely.

It was Malaysia’s worst fire disaster to date involving a high-rise building, which incurred RM50 million in losses.

The inferno which took almost 30 hours to extinguish destroyed 156 shops and 41 offices, the cause of which was attributed to an electrical short-circuit.