VICTORIAN Minister for Planning, Justin Madden has released a State warning in which balconies or decks not properly maintained may fail in the warmer months.
According to the Minister, statistically deck and balcony failure is most likely to occur in the warmer months from October to March. Three people a year in Victoria wind up with serious head and spinal injuries as a result of deck and balcony related accidents.
The Minister says ongoing maintenance of a home balcony or deck rests with the homeowner and if a balustrade fails or the structure collapses, the legal, financial and health implications can be enormous.
Madden says decks or balconies in coastal or hilly regions or areas with a high proportion of dwellings built in the 1960s and 1970s may be at a higher risk of failure.
The Minister says recent Government research by the Monash University Accident Research Centre suggests the three contributing factors to a catastrophic structural failure of decks or balconies. These are a compromised structure, if compromise goes unchecked and if compromised structure is exposed to loads exceeding its capacity.
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