FRANKIE DeGROOT | NSW | CONTACT

Acrow-prop sales in NSW have soared by 20% following recommendations from the SES that having a few of the popular support posts on hand could add vital minutes to any impending disaster caused by the shonky materials and under-engineering for which Sydney apartment buildings are quickly becoming famous.

“Although the chances of your hastily-constructed vertical shanty town collapsing are technically less than 10%, it can’t hurt to keep a few acrow-props in a cupboard or spare room where they are ready to go at short notice.” said SES representative Harold Spiegle.

“That way, if you suddenly notice a wall has a crack or is missing entirely, you can quickly deploy the acrow-props to give yourself a few extra minutes to get your family and a few keepsakes out the door before the entire structure is reduced to rubble. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to deploy a few pre-emptively.”

Sydney apartment owners Terrance and Joan Anderson said they had a total of 30 acrow-props in critical load-bearing positions around their apartment, just to be cautious.

“I had an engineer come in and show me the best place to put them to help prevent the whole shebang from ending up in the basement carpark, and I must say it does help me to sleep better at night.” explained Terry.

“At first Joan didn’t like the look of a forest of galvanised posts, but it looks a lot nicer now that we’ve painted them a nice neutral colour. We even made a feature of the ones on either side of the living area by painting them a contrasting cerulean blue colour, which is nice.”

Joan agreed that the extra support had helped overcome her fear of suddenly being crushed to death by tonnes of substandard building materials.

“I’m really happy that we decided to buy an apartment in Sydney. Yeah, really, really happy. Ecstatic.”

