Auckland’s combustible buildings

Two Auckland high-rise apartment buildings have been identified as having combustible cladding in the wake of London’s Grenfell Tower blaze.

While Auckland Council would not identify which apartments were affected, TVNZ reported they were the Nautilus in Orewa and the Spencer on Byron in Takapuna.

Council general manager of building control Ian McCormick said body corporates would be advised ‘‘as soon as practically possible’’.

It was difficult for the council to identify individual apartment residents affected and it would be up to the body corporates to inform owners and residents, he said.

In total, 90 buildings were identified that could potentially have the cladding and 21 have been investigated so far - with just two confirmed.

McCormick said such cladding had been authorised by fire engineers, who had signed off the buildings.

“You could have combustible cladding on it as long as the building was sprinklered and had various other fire safety systems on it.”

He said inquiries around the presence of aluminium composite panels started after the Lacrosse Apartment fire in Melbourne in November 2014.

The two buildings identified as having aluminium composite panels were currently being recladded for weather tightness, rather than fire-related issues.

McCormick defined aluminium composite panels as ‘‘an aluminium sandwich’’, a composite material sandwiched between two sheets of aluminium.

How combustible such panels proved to be would depend on the type of composite used in the middle.

Materials referred to as combustible were ‘‘part of the design that was part of what was acceptable in this country’’ and were used in standalone houses, he said.