Fire Safety Building Compliance

What You Need to Know

Choose a cladding product that complies with Australian fire safety standards.

With recent cladding fires in Australia and worldwide, it is more important than ever that safe, non-combustible building products are used for all building facades.

To ensure Australian buildings are fire safe, cladding products must comply with the relevant Australian Standards and be installed in a manner which complies with the National Construction Code (NCC). Products must not ignite or contribute to the spread of a fire to be considered fire safe.

Understanding NCC Requirements

The National Construction Code (NCC) sets out requirements for fire safety that must be complied with for all new buildings and building works. Products used on external walls (including cladding) of Type A and Type B buildings must be non-combustible materials or deemed to satisfy NCC requirements for non-combustible materials.

What Are the Australian Standards for Non-Combustible Cladding?

There are two main Australian Standard Tests that building materials must pass to be certified as non-combustible materials: AS 1530.1 and AS 1530.3. These involve testing the products to ensure they satisfy the requirements of the standards. Testing is undertaken by third-party, NATA-accredited laboratories such as the CSIRO.

AS 1530.1: This standard evaluates the fire safety of building materials by determining how combustible they are. Product samples are tested by being exposed to a heat source to determine whether they will combust.
AS 1530.3: This standard determines whether a building product will ignite, release excessive smoke or heat, or spread flame. AS 1530.3 testing involves exposing the building product to radiant heat, to determine whether they will burn, smoke, spark or ignite, or overheat and ignite materials around it.

How does Fire Safe Cladding Comply?

Fire Safe Cladding products including Longboard have been tested to AS 1530.1 and AS 1530.3 and are certified as being NCC compliant by the CSIRO.

Made from solid aluminium, with a non-combustible PowderShield™ finish that will char but not burn, FSC products satisfy NCC building code requirements as a non-combustible material, which can safely be used on Class A and B buildings as well as other Australian buildings.