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Dangerous building materials

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basilio

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Another story has come out today on the use of substandard (or no standard) building materials. The current issue concerns main power supply cable that perishes with heat and stress. If/when it breaks down occupants risk fires or electrocution.

Apparently this cable was used for 3 years around Australia. I wonder how many new homes, apartments and high rises are at risk?

This follows on from the discovery that thousands of apartments have been clad in cheap highly flammable exterior cladding and that the recent use of flexible water connectors also poses a substantial risk when they breakdown after a 5-10 year life. And finally leaky building syndrome is also becoming recognised as a risk in many new apartment blocks.
Does anyone have knowledge of other potentially substandard building components ? Anyone know of the insurance liabilities associated with damage caused by these products ?

Infinity electrical cables still present fire risk for thousands of homes, ACCC warns


A national recall of faulty electrical cabling has only captured 54 per cent of the total 4313 kilometres that were installed, putting thousands of homeowners at risk of house fires or electrocution.

The recall of Infinity electrical cables was launched in August 2013, after it was found the cabling could become prematurely brittle and break when placed under stress near heat sources and roof access areas.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/bus...k-for-thousands-of-homes-20170529-gwfdhz.html

http://www.austech.info/showthread....xible-water-pipe-hoses-My-personal-experience

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4243787.htm

Tagged: leaky building syndrome
Urgent action needed to tackle faulty new apartments and houses
http://www.builderscollective.org.au/tag/leaky-building-syndrome/
 


My dad's friend is an electrician and said he once tried the Chinese-made power cables to wire a person's house. Lucky for the owner the cable was so bad it managed to snapped somewhere during installation so the current didn't go through so he have to remove all the wiring before the plaster goes on. Could have been quite dangerous and costly.

There's these plastic water pipes [not the waste pipes] that's used everywhere now. If you can, ask your plumber/builder to have your water in copper, not plastic. Rats will get to it and it'll leak.

There's also the waffle-pod slab on ground business. Unless your ground is almost perfectly level, don't use it. I mean, it just sit right on top of the ground, no digging or anchoring. And if your land happen to be clayey or hte climate is quite extreme, it could warp and crack walls and stuff.
 
Wow Luutzu!!! The cable didn't even survive the installation! That sounds ridiculously catastrophic. If it is typical of the Infinity electrical cables then no wonder there is serious concern about it. I thought it might just be dodgy rather than outright disastrous.

This invites another question. If the cable is so clearly faulty why didn't the electrical industry get onto it more quickly ? Seems very surprising.
 

Don't know where he bought them from. I'm sure the proper electrical guys won't import non-Aussie standard stuff like that right?

My brother bought in bulk all the downlights from Alibaba for the folk's home and they're all pretty dodgy. Unless you intend to have plenty of holes on the ceiling, you can barely see much with all 8 lights on in a room. And they last maybe 6 months tops.

Certain things just need to be Aussie made. We're stuffing that one up big time.
 
I don't fully agree with your comments on certain things need to be Aussie made. The important point is that products, particularly critical ones, need to be well made regardless of where they are manufactured.

I believe China makes many excellent products. But there is also much nasty rubbish in the mix and not having rigorous procedures to check/test basic building products seems disastrous.
 


Yea, true. Certain Chinese made stuff are of high quality. Just that those things need a certain kind of quality control we can trust. These tend to be the Western branded ones though.

Most non-branded but critical safety stuff... best not to use the made in China. Not now anyway.

I grew up with these White Rabbit lollies from Hong Kong. It was quite a treat to get them. In recent years the tainted milk causing kidney failures in kids... The manufacturer also use those tainted milk too so yea, kinda ruin my walk down memory lanes when I wanted some of them treats.
 
I do a lot of inspections for insurance reports and I've seen it all.
Majority of the time its from trying to build too cheap and fast.

Rule of thumb is you can pick any two.
Cost
Quality
Speed

Eg: If you want it cheap and fast - quality will suffer.
Same goes for materials. Builders are always looking for cheaper and quicker ways to knock a building up.

Just make sure what material you use is A/S stamped or rated.
 
Came across this story about the sale of dangerous products on Amazon.
One of the concerns is that it seems like Amazon just isn't interested in identifying and stopping the sale of dangerous goods.

When Your Amazon Purchase Explodes
Shoddily made lithium-ion batteries can cause serious injury and even death. How do they keep ending up in consumers’ hands?


Nicholas Jones didn’t think twice about purchasing a lithium-ion battery from Amazon in 2016. Like most Americans, he was used to ordering whatever he needed on the site and having it show up at his front door days later. So when his laptop’s battery stopped working, Jones, then a graduate student, went online, found a replacement HP battery for about $15, and bought it.

A few nights later, he was sitting on the couch in his Buffalo, New York, apartment when he heard a sound like a gunshot. His fiancée screamed. The lithium-ion battery in the laptop sitting next to him had ignited, setting his couch on fire. Battery cells were flying all over the living room, leaking acid. “It was like a war zone,” Jones told me. Later, he was treated for first-degree and chemical burns. His computer and hardwood floor were destroyed.

Curious about what had happened, Jones went back online to try to contact the seller and alert Amazon to the problem. Scrolling through reviews, he realized other buyers were reporting fires from the same item. But Amazon seemed unconcerned, he told me: Customer-service representatives treated his report like a new one each time he called, asking for his name, the order number, and the story of what had happened over and over again. Amazon would not put him in touch with the seller and never assumed blame for the fire.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...um-ion-batteries-amazon-are-exploding/587005/
 
sptrawler said:
I wonder if it is a precursor to a bigger problem , maybe an underlying earth movement?
Click to expand...

The other big problem I can see is a financial one.

One faulty building = bad luck.

Another faulty building 6 months later in the same city = that's going to give a lot of people some doubts I expect.
 
SirRumpole said:
Some pretty shocking revelations regarding consumer's rights in this stor(e)y.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-16/mascot-towers-owners-to-pay-for-repairs/11214328
Click to expand...

Absolutely terrifying story.. Everyone who has a high rise apartment should be concerned. Almost all these people will also have a hefty bank loan. Or alternatively this major asset IS their major asset. The bank with the loan is going to be concerned.

All of the people who have shares in banks with a portfolio of loans to questionable apartments should be concerned....

The rest of us who somehow think that tens of thousands of people risking financial ruin and a subsequent loss of confidence in the banking sector is "someone elses problem" should also wake up.
 
From an investment perspective I do think that quality of physical assets in general is a subject that's widely overlooked.

Better quality assets, both in terms of their design and ongoing maintenance and operation, doesn't necessarily mean a higher % return but it does mean a lower risk.

Trouble is that it's not what gets the attention. Most discussion on apartments is about location, fit out and so on not anything concerning the actual building. Likewise most discussion about airlines is about customer service, how good the food is and so on not about how well they do maintenance or train their pilots. And so on. The technical side is often ignored until it goes wrong in spectacular fashion.
 

This seems to be a failure of governance.

Where were the independent building inspectors who are supposed to oversee these constructions ?

Is the "free market" to blame for these shoddy constructions ?

The NSW government appears to be running and hiding from this issue. They pomised a "building commission" but no one has yet been appointed. Maybe all the contenders have dirty hands or are developer hacks.
 
I spoke to a builder of apartment and commercial projects recently. He said the problems with poor construction and flammable cladding became very widespread in the last 15 years and that means nothing can be done. The cost would be far too high, and everyone involved would point the blame at someone else. You can't just pull down hundreds of high rise buildings.

He also said that there's no way for a buyer of an apartment to find out the quality of construction because there's just too many ways the developer and builder can take short cuts and cover their tracks. The only thing one can do is find out who the developer is, then do some homework to find out how quickly they are taking on new projects. If that number is accelerating, walk away.
 

That's scary... Going back to my original point I wonder how long before banks start demanding some sort of assessment of units before loaning funds against purchase ? And going forward how will present and future developments be protected against poor construction practices ? Do we let the market just continue to churn out shoddy products that make millions for the developers/builders but leave the owners and the banks with a toxic mess at the end ?

Serious xhite.
 
It is too early to say if this analysis is correct but the issues I raised earlier of people/banks taking a huge hair cut on units are coming to pass.
Real estate agent reveals hundreds of thousands of dollars ‘wiped off’ unit values
A one-bedroom apartment in Sydney’s embattled Mascot Towers complex was on the market for $740,000. Today, it’s virtually worthless.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/mon...s/news-story/96262d9d117f830f071ac101f4c749d6
 
There were a lot of bribes floating around sydney.
A lot of rushed jobs and off cement being used, instead of getting turned back. There are some things you can't screen for when you are an inspector.
If the building company isn't doing their job then it can be hard to pick up.

And whats worse is that the companies fold in times of trouble.
 
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