Lightweight, cheap and energy-efficient, expanded polystyrene has been used to clad buildings for decades. But its combustibility and ability to produce toxic smoke has firefighters concerned.
As she helped her son brush his teeth one evening in early 2019, Melanie Francese saw a red glow outside the bathroom window. When she looked outside, flames were taking hold of the roof of her neighbour’s home.Fire rips through a house in Beaumaris in February 2019.“I just remember that intensity of it. Windows breaking and popping. Glass exploding and obviously a lot of noise from fire trucks,” she says.
“It’s not a building product, it’s a fuel source,” he says. “There’s no real understanding out there that people are effectively living inside a giant Esky with windows.”After the blaze on the night of February 19, 2019, the house was uninhabitable and what was left was demolished. The family that had been renting it lost most of their possessions.
In one fire, which took hold in a half-built home, the EPS ignited and melted away from its fixings, causing “intense pool fires”. Hot gasses rose on the underside of the timber roof, causing it to ignite. It confirmed that its fire investigators had analysed the role EPS played in several significant fires over the past few years, and found it probably contributed to the speed at the which the fires burnt.
“The fire brigade is in a really awkward position. It’s a really difficult time. And I think the government’s really unclear about what to do next.”Rules dictating what materials can be used to build external walls have existed for hundreds of years. Becher Townshend, the executive director of Expanded Polystyrene Australia, says EPS is regularly used in construction projects as insulation panels. He says the products used are safe, contain a fire retardant, comply with Australian standards, and when installed correctly are not an undue fire hazard.
But there are downsides. Apart from high flammability and concerns about its potential toxicity to firefighters, there have been issues with moisture ingress and condensation if it’s not installed properly. “And, frankly, we’ve got too many matters now that overlap and contradict each other and polystyrene cladding is one of them.”
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