Is Prefabricated Panel House Safe?
Prefabricated panel houses have many safety hazards and are not safe. The specific reasons are as follows:
Almost zero earthquake resistance: Prefabricated panel houses have poor integrity. There is a lack of firm steel bar connections between the floor slabs and the walls, similar to a house built with building blocks. When an earthquake or shaking occurs, under the action of horizontal forces, the floor slabs and walls are prone to instant separation and sudden collapse. There is no crack warning or deformation buffering, and the entire slab falls directly down, leaving very little chance of escape. In past earthquakes, the collapse of prefabricated panel houses has been the most severe, with the highest casualty rate.
Weak connection points: The connection between the prefabricated panels and the walls is mostly simple overlapping, and the connection between the panels is just simple filling. There is a lack of ring beams and structural columns, and the whole house has no rigid framework. When the foundation settles or the walls crack, the panels are prone to misalignment and loosening. Long-term exposure to wind, sun, heat expansion, and cold contraction can cause weathering at the connections and rusting of the steel bars, gradually reducing their strength. After living in some old houses for two or three decades, the floor slabs become precarious. Adding a little weight or knocking down a wall may trigger a chain collapse.
Substandard materials with cost-cutting: The steel bars in regular prefabricated panels are relatively thin, but many small workshops use thin steel wires instead of steel bars to reduce costs, and the concrete grades do not meet the standards and are not thick enough. Prefabricated panels have the characteristic of brittle failure, unlike cast-in-place floor slabs which have toughness. Once the load-bearing capacity is exceeded, they will break instantly without any warning. Stacking heavy objects, knocking on the ground during renovation, or aging over time can all lead to sudden collapse.
Other issues: Prefabricated panel houses have poor sound insulation and thermal insulation effects. They are hot in summer and cold in winter, and the sounds of neighbors can be clearly heard, affecting the quality of life. The internal structure is difficult to adjust, and it is hard for residents to customize the living space according to their personal needs. As time goes by, cracks appear in the cement components, and the gaps between the components increase, increasing the risk of water leakage between the upper and lower floors. In addition, many prefabricated panel houses built between the 1970s and 1990s have a designed service life of about 30 to 50 years. Many of them have approached or exceeded the predetermined service life and show signs of aging.
