Browns’ stadium panels called safe
ONGOING COVERAGE
In promotional brochures, a U.S. company boasted of the “stunning visual effect” its shimmering aluminum panels created in the Cleveland Browns’ stadium, an Alaskan high school and a luxury hotel along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
Those same panels — Reynobond composite material with a polyethylene core — also were used in the Grenfell Tower apartment building in London. British authorities say they’re investigating whether the panels helped spread the blaze that ripped across the building’s outer walls last month, killing at least 80 people.
The panels, also called cladding, accentuate a building’s appearance and improve energy efficiency. But they are not recommended for use in buildings above 40 feet because they are combustible. In the wake of the London fire, Arconic Inc. announced it no longer would make the product available for high-rise buildings.
Determining which buildings might be wrapped in the material in the U.S. is difficult. City inspectors might not even know. In some cases, building records have been long discarded and neither the owners, operators, contractors nor architects involved could or would confirm whether the cladding was used.
That makes it virtually impossible to know whether such structures as the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel — identified by Arconic’s brochures as wrapped in Reynobond PE — are actually clad in the same material as Grenfell Tower.
At a Thursday news conference that followed the publication of the story on the use of the cladding material in the U.S., Cleveland’s chief building official confirmed that panels on FirstEnergy Stadium, the city-owned home of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, are “similar if not identical” to those used on the London tower. But Thomas Vanover said they pose “zero risk to the fans.”
Vanover said the panels were installed differently and that the venue’s overall cladding includes many materials.
“From these panels and this installation, there’s no risk of anything remotely close to the Grenfell tragedy,” Vanover said.
The Arconic website stated that FirstEnergy Stadium used 100,000 square feet of the bright-silver, aluminum-composite material in its exterior.
The International Building Code adopted by the U.S. requires more-stringent fire testing of materials used on the sides of buildings taller than 40 feet. However, states and cities can set their own rules, said Keith Nelson, senior project architect with Intertek, a fire-testing organization.
The National Fire Protection Association conducts fire-resistance tests on building materials to determine whether they comply with the international code. But Robert Solomon, an engineer with the association, said the group’s records show the U.S.-made Arconic panels never underwent the tests. For that reason, he said, the group considered the products unsafe for use in buildings higher than 40 feet.