I am just about to sign the contract with Plantation Homes and as I was reading through the construction drawing I noticed the word "render over polystyrene cladding" which has me alarmed and I googled - turns out "polystyrene cladding" is used extensively nowadays especially on upper floor. The whole wall is nothing more than a sheet of Styrofoam fixed to the stud wall on the exterior side and then rendered over it!! On the internal side they just fix plasterboard (drywall/gypsum board/gib board - basically just a sheet of plaster glued to paper) to the stud wall.
I am quite alarmed by this, the plasterboard wall is filmsy as it can get, one time I accidentally tripped and my shoulder bumped into the wall and made sizeable hole in it and that wasn't even very hard bump! Now I can't shake this scenerio out of my head that what if I trip and just crash through the walls (plasterboard wall, then through the cavity between the studs and proceed to crash through the filmsy "polystyrene cladding" AKA Styrofoam wall!) on my upper floor bedroom (maybe having very "kinectic sex") and then fall to my death?! I just can't believe the buildings these days that cost over $350,000 on construction cost alone would be made this filmsy! Kids can just play cricket outside and smash a hole right through my house! I mean back in the days houses were made from more sturdy stuff, you know bricks, hardwood and even concrete, and they cost less than $100,000 but nowadays not only is house more expensive to construction it is also as filmsy as it can be!
So forget about your house is your castle! It can't even stop a cricket ball let alone bullets from drive-by shooting!