In recent years, building bonuses have increased renovations significantly. In Italy, such a large number of houses in the pipeline have never been seen before, thanks to the incentives provided, among others, by the Superbonus and Bonus facades. Thermal coating is one of the most common interventions and among those that can provide the most energy savings. But so many jobs may have overlooked quality and increased risks: the consequences for safety are potentially disastrous. There is actually a fire risk among these, but there are also situations that may lead to new interventions and therefore new costs. Today.it analyzed the issue, thanks to contributions from Confedilizia and Cortexa, to understand its causes and consequences.
why a jacket
Thermal coating is one of the main interventions to access Superbonus and allows you to enable facilitation defined as “driving”, that is, to which you can connect other energy saving work such as photovoltaic panels. The 110 percent Super Bonus was born to change the face of the outdated and inefficient Italian real estate stock, but we know it didn’t go as expected: overall, building bonuses worsened government accounts to renovate only a small percentage of buildings, and thus with regard to energy efficiency, which is the measure’s goal. produce minimal results.
The mantle is one of the most applied interventions with Superbonus and together with other elements such as luminaires allows you to significantly improve the energy class of a building. In addition to saving energy, insulation also contributes to the livability of a building because it insulates it from outside noise and increases its economic value. For Enea, the mantle is “undoubtedly the most effective solution for insulating a building”.
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The cladding is applied directly to the facade of the building and usually consists of insulation panels and other accessory components such as cladding and fixings. In addition to the listed benefits, the warranty period is at least 25 years if the insulation work is done properly. A study conducted by the Cortexa consortium, which brings together the most important companies of the insulation sector in Italy, confirms that this is the most applied intervention with Superbonus. Ideally, the jacket is the perfect intervention: but the transition to the practical level hides the pitfalls.
Jacket and problems
The spread of the jacket may have produced unforeseen risks. Installation of an insulation system must comply with current legislation and materials must have definitive certificates. Problems may arise if the work is not done skillfully: how can this be?
The Cortexa consortium interviewed more than 500 planners for “the largest research ever conducted in Italy on energy efficiency in buildings”. The answers show some criticism of some of the work done with Superbonus, especially on thermal coating. The quality of energy redevelopment interventions is essentially “compromised by the delivery of assembled products to the job site”, thus “Materials of disparate origin are supplied bundled and without ETA, not Exterior Cladding Systems supplied in kit form by a single manufacturer”. certificates – ie European technical assessment – and CE marking”.
In fact, it is necessary to understand the coating as a “constructive system”: certification of individual components is not enough, it is also necessary to consider how different materials coexist and react with each other. Add to this the “inexperience and lack of preparation of practitioners” and “the regulatory complexity of home perks and the constant changes that need to be implemented and managed”. Only 44 percent and 31 percent of the interviewees stated that they knew the standards for the design and installation of the thermal insulation system.
In addition, the quality of the interventions is affected by the absence of “detailed projects”: 41 percent of the interviewees report that they seldom receive a detailed project for the external insulation system while acting as construction manager. This forces the contractor to find “solutions” on site, exposing the project to serious risk of error. Added to this problem is the lack of specialized companies and practitioners, and the difficulty of finding certified systems supplied as kits by a single manufacturer (46 percent).
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Overall, the vast majority of interviewees complained of greater complexity “due to constant regulatory changes and unknown factors shaking up the market, such as credit allocation.” These critical issues can cause problems in the success of a topper, leading to new costs, but also potentially dangerous situations.
Does the jacket increase the risk of fire?
Some news has raised doubts about the fire hazard associated with thermal coating. In the meantime, it should be said that the materials of a jacket have fire certificates as required by law.
As we have said before, the problem arises when the top coat is treated as a separate element: “After fires in some buildings, the legislator gave the designer the responsibility to ensure that there is no fire in a building and escape in case of danger – Balsamelli, technical coordination engineer for Lorenzo Confedilizia He told Today.it, “The problem lies in the composition of the materials understood as a system. A coating made of glass wool is impossible to ignite, but it can coat other materials, be flammable, and interact with those of the coating”.
The fire that destroyed a skyscraper in London in 2017, Grenfell Tower, is representative of these risks. The material covering the façade, not the cladding, had caused the fire to spread and then disintegrate, causing a hail of flaming debris that engulfed the inhabitants. There are certifications in Italy, but “Many do not take into account the ETA directives and do not verify that the insulation system does not collapse in the event of a fire: Certification must be done as a system – said Balsamelli. 110 percent lack of professionalism. The firefighting consultant is scarce, only on large construction sites and with large professional teams. “Combat advisors are rare,” he said.
The other problem is the firefighting consultant’s lack of professional – and therefore economic – understanding; this is an unattractive number: “No one envisions professional service as firefighting advice: the engineer from Confedilizia mistakenly thinks that the designer and construction manager have independently come up with solutions with firefighting materials,” says the engineer from Confedilizia.
“As if from tomorrow all the farmers will start producing flax without knowing anything.”
Underlining Balsamelli, these issues concern smaller construction sites “€1 million and under”: it’s hard to have a fire prevention consultant out there, there are those who don’t want to pay less, or the figure isn’t even foreseen. -.The problem is informative: sometimes it is not clear that following the instructions is not enough, a fire consultant is needed. The superbonus brought work that required a certain professionalism, which was not so common before it came. It’s as if all the farmers had started flax production with subsidies and didn’t know about it… This bubble forced so many people to work in jobs they didn’t know.”
Confedilizia’s data confirms the lack of attention to fire regulations: “Out of the 2,000-3,000 requests for advice to the most important Confedilizia desk – the one in Turin – very few are fire prevention: we’re in the rankings of units. As soon as prevention comes in, it doesn’t attract”, admits Balsamelli.
Finally, to the risk of fire, we must add the danger of mold and moisture, which can create discomfort in the home and increase costs. The reason is the same: “misperforming” due to inadequate skills. And controls? They are not there, they only come in case of problems, which, as we have seen, can also be flames in some cases. In addition to the hole in the state budget, we will soon be able to realize much more damage caused by Superbonus.
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Source: Today IT
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
