Bulgarian Regional Development Minister orders check of 10 per cent of buildings with new cladding, including for fire safety
Bulgaria’s Regional Development Minister has ordered the National Construction Control Directorate to carry out an inspection of residential buildings on which cladding has been put as part of a national energy efficiency programme.
The June 27 announcement came 13 days after the fire at the 24-storey Grenfell Tower building in London, in which 79 people are known to have died.
The combustibility of the cladding on Grenfell Tower is suspected to be the cause of the inferno spreading so extensively, and subsequent checks have established widespread inadequacy of cladding on several buildings in the UK.
Bulgarian Regional Development and Public Works Minister Nikolai Nankov said that the construction control directorate would carry out inspections of companies exercising control supervision under the National Programme for Energy Efficiency of Multifamily Residential Buildings.
Inspections will also be carried out on buildings about which reports and complaints from citizens have been submitted to the ministry, Nankov said. It is understood that about 30 buildings have been the subject of complaints.
Fifty-six buildings will be tested on a sample basis, two each in the 28 areas where programme funds had been used for the energy efficiency renovation cladding project.
The inspections will be cover the quality of the work carried out, compliance with technological requirements for the laying of thermal insulation on the facades, the execution of the construction and installation work on the roof, the condition of the construction site and the organization of the work of the contractor companies, the availability and qualifications of the workers, the quality of the construction, as well as the inspection of the activity of building supervision in relation to the building.
The inspections are to start on June 28, the ministry said. It is expected that results will be ready in about two weeks.
(Screenshot: BNT)
/Panorama
