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I've been over really dreary technical specs and info of some cladding in my old job. The main issue I could see with it is that usually the cladding has a gap of 1/2 foot or so between the main part of the cladding and the old outside wall, in a way it's like building a chimney along/around the outside wall as the heat from a fire will rise up inside the cladding ignoring the fire breaks of floor/ceiling rather than hitting the next floor up and the heat dispersing away from the outside wall into the air.
According to the Piers-Myers paper linked to by @Slascha in https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13689347/, UK building regs require there to be a cavity barrier at the level of every floor, and at every internal wall, precisely to limit that chimney effect.
(OK, it's a method given in the Approved Document as a means of meeting the requirement for the external construction to resist the spread of fire across the face of the building, but although you can choose to use a different method, you'd better be able to show that it's sufficiently effective.)
(@hoefla saying pretty much the same thing.)
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jsabine
I've been over really dreary technical specs and info of some cladding in my old job. The main issue I could see with it is that usually the cladding has a gap of 1/2 foot or so between the main part of the cladding and the old outside wall, in a way it's like building a chimney along/around the outside wall as the heat from a fire will rise up inside the cladding ignoring the fire breaks of floor/ceiling rather than hitting the next floor up and the heat dispersing away from the outside wall into the air. The material the cladding is made of being flamable will make that loads worse but it's that awful design which does it more than anything.
It's well documented, google image search had a pic within a couple of results.
Using it for vanity is a growing and worrying trend, when you pair it with some other awful just barely legal ways of building you get a total deathtrap and sometimes a building that on paper ticks all the boxes but in reality doesn't give anyone a chance.
Hearing some truely awful stories come out, one that's going to stick with me is a baby thrown from a 10th floor window and survived but if the parents made it(or will survive the smoke inhalation) who knows.