HVG Facade System Benefits More Than Skin Deep

Australia has more than 3400 buildings with combustible cladding, and the accumulated financial costs of non-compliant cladding (system) extend well beyond rectification works.

Owners of residential and commercial building that don’t replace their cladding are faced with higher owners’ corporation fees, rising insurance premiums, legal fees, correction of sprinkler defects and potential loss of property value.

According to a recent Victorian-wide audit by a government taskforce, of the 2227 buildings inspected, 1069 of these were found to have combustible cladding. It further identified that 72 were at extreme risk, 409 at high risk, 388 at moderate risk and 200 at low risk.

In response to the crisis, the Victorian government is contributing $600 million towards the cost of rectifying some higher-risk apartments. In New South Wales, the government is providing interest-free loans to help owners of an estimated 225 buildings.

To address the requirement to replace combustible cladding on the tower at 8 Exhibition Street, Melbourne, HVG Facades’ MondoClad facade system was selected.

A key player in the team behind the recladding of the property was Sam Goldburg of Casello, a Melbourne-based building services company that specialises in facade cladding.

The decision to use MondoClad in the recladding of the building was, according to Goldburg, straightforward, as it is ideally suited to pre-finishing offsite and also embodies positive features for sustainable construction and the circular economy.

“They’re delivered as pre-painted 3mm solid aluminium flat sheets, and we use our CNC machines offsite to route, cut and fold those panels into pre-designed shapes. When they’re still in the factory, we further apply all the framing, stiffening and angles we need to facilitate mechanical fixing onsite,” Goldburg said.

HVG Facades’ MondoClad facade system is well suited to covering large surface areas and is particularly suitable where colour is used to create bold statements.

It is prefinished with a durable PVDF architectural paint system that allows the sheets to be pre-folded offsite without loss of finish.

MondoClad is made from marine-grade aluminium, is non-combustible and certified to Australian Standard AS1530.1 and AS1530.3.

A direct match to the existing cladding, and the ability to manipulate the product to the desired shape offsite and the ease of installing onsite, further confirmed Goldburg’s decision to specify MondoClad.

“It’s very versatile and can be prefabricated and processed offsite and installed onsite within 24 hours.

“The waterproof aspects of the MondoClad system also helped us to comply with all FP1.4 requirements.”

The decision for Casello to support the specified HVG Facades’ MondoClad was an uncomplicated one, as for every stage of the project.

“HVG Facades team spent a lot of time on their literature, and further gave all required technical data and testing certificates the building surveyor requested for building permit approval. They make it easy.”

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