Exterior Cladding near you

The flashing rules are the ones worth memorising, because they are visible and they are where wind-driven rain gets in. Openings in external wall cladding exposed to the weather must be flashed with materials complying with AS/NZS 2904. Flashings must extend not less than one hundred and ten millimetres beyond the reveals, and must overlap not less than seventy-five millimetres in the direction of flow, with sealant installed between the laps. Note the order in that last requirement: the flashing does the work and the sealant sits between its laps.

Ground clearance is the second checkable rule and the one most often destroyed after the builder leaves. The bottom of the cladding must clear finished ground level by not less than one hundred millimetres in low rainfall intensity areas or sandy, well-drained areas, not less than fifty millimetres above impermeable paved or concreted areas, and not less than one hundred and fifty millimetres in any other case. New paving, a raised garden bed or a load of mulch will breach that clearance in an afternoon.

Behind the face, the drainage and drying arrangement is what keeps the wall dry once water gets past. Part 7.5 requires vapour permeable sarking complying with AS 4200.1 behind vertical and diagonal timber boards, with sheets overlapped not less than one hundred and fifty millimetres or taped together, and fixed to supporting members at not more than three hundred millimetre centres. Cladding is a screen, not a seal.

New South Wales banned aluminium composite panels with a core comprised of more than thirty per cent polyethylene by mass for use in any external cladding, external wall, external insulation, facade or rendered finish, on buildings of Type A and Type B construction in the specified classes. The instrument is a notice under section 9(1) of the Building Products (Safety) Act 2017, and it took effect on 15 August 2018. That is a product ban, which means it bites on the material regardless of what a particular building approval said at the time.

For a house owner, the direct effect is usually nil: a detached dwelling is not Type A or Type B construction. The indirect effect is not nil. Product bans have made suppliers, certifiers and insurers far more careful about what goes on any external wall, and a proposal to use a composite panel on a house should still come with the manufacturer's evidence of suitability and installation instructions, because a proprietary system outside the deemed-to-satisfy provisions relies on that evidence and nothing else.

For an apartment owner, the effect is the whole story, and it is a body corporate matter. Do not commission work on a facade element in a multi-storey building as an individual lot owner. Ask the owners corporation what the building's cladding status is, whether it has been assessed or registered under the relevant state program, and whether any notice applies to it.

Queensland ran its program as a staged checklist that owners had to complete, which is a useful illustration because it shows what these schemes actually ask of a building. Part 1 was the owner's registration and initial responses. Part 2 required the owner to engage a building industry professional to assess the building. Part 3 was split: Part 3A required engaging a fire engineer and registering their details, and Part 3B required the fire engineer to prepare an assessment and statement. The final compliance date was 3 May 2021.

Where a cladding fire risk is identified through the checklist, the owner is required to display a Form 42 Affected Private Building Notice, and then to submit a Form 76 Compliance Notice with photographic evidence demonstrating to the QBCC that the notice is appropriately displayed. Although the final compliance date has passed, in-scope private building owners are still required to complete any outstanding checklist obligations.

The general lesson for any owner anywhere in Australia is that a cladding question on a multi-storey residential building is a compliance and documentation exercise with named professionals and named forms, not a quote from a cladding contractor. If someone offers to solve it as a supply-and-fit job, that is the wrong answer to the wrong question.

Before anything is ordered, establish three site facts: the age of the house, which drives the asbestos question; whether the address is on designated bushfire prone land and at what assessed attack level; and how close it is to salt spray, which drives the fastener and finish specification more than the board choice does.

Then the sequence. The wall is opened up and inspected, damaged framing is replaced rather than covered, the sarking and flashings are installed and lapped so water is directed outwards at every horizontal junction, the cladding is fixed from the bottom up to the specified lap and fixing pattern, and the corners, openings and bottom edge are detailed last. The clearances at the base and the flashings at the openings are the two things worth standing there and watching.

Get the variation terms in writing before work starts. Rot, termite damage and unexpected asbestos are the three discoveries that turn a recladding quote into a negotiation, and none of them can be ruled out from the outside of a wall.

Queensland issues roof and wall cladding as a specific QBCC trade class covering selecting and installing roof cladding other than terracotta and concrete tiles, fabricating and installing rainwater goods, flashing penetrations through roofs and walls, and designing, fabricating and installing external flashings, metal ceilings and associated soffits and fascias. A QBCC licence is required for building work above the state threshold, and for plumbing and drainage at any value.

In New South Wales, a contractor licence is required for residential building work above the Home Building Act threshold, and the work has to be under written contract once the price passes the contract threshold, with the deposit capped at ten per cent of the contract price for both small jobs and large jobs. Contracts for large jobs must also set out the cooling-off period of five clear business days.

On the approval side, like-for-like recladding is often treated as maintenance, but changing the wall build-up, altering openings, affecting the structure, working on a heritage item or inside a character overlay, or building on designated bushfire prone land can all bring the work into the approval system. Council or a registered building surveyor answers that for your address, and it is a call worth making before materials are ordered.