It is unknown how many of the doors are contaminated by asbestos.
Multiple major construction sites across New Zealand have been impacted by an asbestos contamination scare.
The full number of fire doors sent to buildings across the country that may be contaminated is not yet known, but several multimillion-dollar projects have come to a brief halt while investigations are carried out.
Industry workers have expressed fears for their futures after revelations they have been drilling and cutting into possibly-contaminated doors for an unknown period of time.
An asbestos expert has also weighed in, saying there is no known safe level of exposure to the fibre, and that it can kill people decades after they inhale it.
“Asbestos fibres are very, very small particles and generally a lot smaller than normal dust. They’re also very sharp, when you look at them under a microscope,” Hazmat owner Chris Saunders said.
“The problem is when we breathe asbestos fibres in, because of the nature of their size and how sharp they are, they can penetrate quite deeply into our tissue.
“Because they’re a mineral, our bodies aren’t able to break them down, they’re just too hardy, so it can cause quite a lot of damage and our bodies can’t seem to get them out.”
Saunders could not say how much of the fibres had to be inhaled to cause health issues.
“There’s no really known safe limit,” he said, comparing it to smoking cigarettes.
“Somebody might smoke two packs a day for 40 years and show no health issues, whereas someone might only smoke once or twice and end up having lung cancer, so there’s really no known safe level.”
For people who do develop an illness, this might show up anywhere from five to 40 years later.
“That’s why it’s so dangerous and that’s why it is regulated,” he said.
“It doesn’t harm everybody or you may breathe in asbestos without having any ill effect which is true, but I’m sure that doesn’t give much comfort to people that are diagnosed with an asbestos disease.”
Earlier this week, the Herald reported that Christchurch’s Te Kaha Stadium and the Sky City International Convention Centre were caught up in the contamination scare.
Christchurch City Council has confirmed that it is undertaking asbestos testing on each of the $683 million stadium’s 104 fire doors.
Fletcher Building announced on Thursday it was “undertaking investigations” that it also had some of the fire doors in the potentially-affected category in its under-construction convention centre in Auckland.
“Surface testing undertaken to date has confirmed no asbestos residue in occupied or public areas, and the current advice is that potentially impacted doors are safe in their current, installed state,” the company said in an NZX announcement.
The Herald is aware of several more buildings confirmed to have doors that may be affected.
Port Otago confirmed work on the site for Whare Rūnaka, the Otago Regional Council headquarters in Dunedin, had stopped for a day so they could investigate.
“Testing confirmed that asbestos was present in some fire-rated doors, mostly on the ground floor of the building.
“The site reopened after testing was completed with exclusion zones for the ground floor and two small areas of level one and the mezzanine,” they said in a statement.
“The site is now back to full operation as the fire doors have been fully encapsulated and a site management plan is in place which restricts any further work on the doors to ensure the health and safety of all workers.”
The new Dunedin Hospital outpatient building contains one double-leaf door supplied by the affected company and Health NZ were still assessing the “suitability” of the door.
The Te Whare Toroa building at Base Ōhakea near Palmerston North has not confirmed yet whether their doors, installed by December 2024, are impacted.
“We will continue to work with our contractors as more information comes to hand,” the NZ Defence Force said in a statement.
One company impacted by the scare said they were “deeply concerned” at the news.
ARA Group, which installs hardware into the doors, said the safety and wellbeing of their workers, subcontractors and everyone they worked alongside was their priority.
“We are taking every precaution to ensure people’s safety.”
They stopped work immediately on all affected doors until they could be sure they did not contain traces of asbestos.
“We are in contact with Assa Abloy and its subsidiaries, Pacific Door Systems and Pyropanel, and WorkSafe, and are awaiting further information about the extent of the issue.
“In the meantime, we will continue to keep our people informed and take all necessary precautions to protect their health and safety.”
Pacific Door Systems (PDS) is at the centre of the nationwide scare after discovering some fire door cores – imported from an overseas third party – have asbestos contamination. The scale and timeframe of the contamination is not yet known, but dates back at least one year.
WorkSafe was notified of the problem on June 30 and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was officially notified a month later, but the general public was not told until PDS put a safety notice on its website on August 22.
PDS business unit manager Sean Crowley said the company initially thought the contamination issue had impacted only more recently imported FRB core, and it contacted customers it believed at the time were most likely to have been affected.
“As further information became available, primarily through additional testing, we issued a public statement via our website. We will continue to update our website as further information becomes available.”
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.