Grenfell Tower Block Fire

“Boris Johnson said in 2009 that safety fears were making the UK safe for ‘extremely stupid people”

“Tory figures congratulated themselves for slashing fire checks for businesses from six hours to just 45 minutes.”

Metro: http://tinyurl.com/ybse44ek

Its just been on the radio that the cladding was more than likely banned in the UK.

Would be nice to deal with peoples needs right now and also start a much needed enquiry before marching for the government to fall dont you think ?

I was waiting for this thread to come along. I’m really intrest in what drezha makes of this.

I am waiting for the results of a propper enquiry. Knee jerk reaction is for ten year olds and the usuall marks bross tits.

A subject that I’ve been avoiding on here because frankly, I’ve been dealing with it elsewhere. At least no one here has jumped on the lefty “social cleansing” conspiracy theory that I’ve seen on Facebook. And no one has mentioned sprinklers or given me grief about single stair flats or point blank accused me of being a killer.

Firstly, Class 0 materials don’t actually exist – though technically, the requirements are met by being incombustible. Materials such as mineral fibre achieve this, but need some form of support which may be combustible. This should be tested to BS 8414. Buildings over 18m with a boundary greater than 1m distant can be Class 0, or Class 1 (with additional specifications). So in theory, you can have a combustible material on the side of the building fine. The Class rating comes from a BS 476 flame spread test, which measures the flame spread across a material. I used to work (before moving to Manchester) for the firm that does various testing (and wrote BR 135).

In terms of who is at fault, I think that no one will end up going to court because it’ll come down to a number of people having a minor role in causing the issues. The building may have been treated as a material alteration, rather than a material change of use when it had planning granted for the refurb works. This will mean that the current Building Regs would not be required to be met, only that the works made the building “no worse” than existing. That would be a Building Control (having worked with RBKC Building Control, they’re quite fastidious so it may have been an Approved Inspector). That might have had an effect. The contractor may have installed the panels badly, negating the fire protection (as there should be fire protection to prevent fire entering the walls and cavities). The biggest issues will come if the contractors deliberately misled on what cladding was fitted. The management company will come under flak for their fire risk assessments and if that was carried out by a competent person on behalf of the management company, then they would likely find themselves under fire (and possible imprisoned – as a fire risk assessor, I can be fined and sent to prison for poor fire risk assessments so from dropping a 6 hour inspection down to 45 minutes as one of the earlier links is just crap. Maybe if they’re a cowboy.) Mind, fire risk assessments of flats only cover what is within the common spaces, so if there’s issues between two flats, it’ll never be picked up. The fires appeared to be inside and outside the building from what I’ve seen – how the fire spread back in needs to be investigated. Or if it spread internally, it needs to be investigated. I’ve heard rumours (and until it’s proven, it’s a rumor), that gas works had been undertaken. Chances are, they breached compartment walls. Which are usually designed to prevent spread of smoke and fire into surrounding areas – currently flats are designed to contain it for 60 minutes.

As mentioned elsewhere, there is also a skills shortage in the construction industry and fire resisting materials are required to be installed exactly as per the instructions otherwise they wont work. I’ve even seen competent installers cock things up and I had to pick this up in a fire risk assessment.

No chance of using the US codes. They’re a mess and likely wouldn’t have helped – Dubai was built to the same standards and they’ve had issues with cladding.

No doubt we will see some updates to the guidance for fire (so an update to the Approved Document) but I doubt the Building Regulations will be updated (because they’re about 8 pages and the bit relating to fire essentially says “Buildings should be safe in a fire”. However, we’ve had new guidance issued (and updated) since ADB was updated – BS 9991  (Flats) and BS 9999 (Buildings other than Flats). So not sure what will be updated.

My old colleagues will no doubt be appointed to carry out the investigations and I wish them all the best (I’d probably be involved as well, had I not left last month!)

Drezha wrote:

As mentioned elsewhere, there is also a skills shortage in the construction industry and fire resisting materials are required to be installed exactly as per the instructions otherwise they wont work. I’ve even seen competent installers cock things up and I had to pick this up in a fire risk assessment.

This is an issue at the moment on some sites I have worked on, there is not the skills to sign off work properly and firms abdicate responsibility to the specialist installer. Its penetrations through the compartmentation that cause me most concern on projects, particularly where things get hidden. Fire stopping in the external wall cavity is another one, there are always a few difficult areas to detail. How can you tell whether every joint is built correctly when hidden by the panels.

The trouble is the market perpetuallly wants to squeeze money out of projects, including consultants and dont want to pay for a full service. The biggest loss to the industry is a clerk of works.

This along with the problem with schools in Scotland (collapsed walls), is indicative of stored up problem where the chickens will come home to roost eventually.

We have lost too many skilled people through successive recessions and obsession with cost inefficiencies.

I was trying to explain to the Mrs last night that the fire shouldn’t have come into the building from outside.  I’m not totally sure of this because all the windows appear to be missing on the building, even ones on the edge of where the fire was so I suspect they were flammable or easily melted.  Many of the flats seem to have large windows with multiple rooms so it may be that the fire spread through one window and out another or perhaps people left their front doors open because the fire was outside and the building updraught drew the fire in that way.  It is counter-intuitive that with a fire outside you’d be safer if you shut your front door – the only escape route.

Ed P wrote:

Maybe this is a case where the HSE could earn its salt for once and issue appropriate prohibition orders. Someone needs to step up to the plate – the ‘strong & stable’ Government has already shown itself to be totally incapable of such action.

HSE wouldn’t have anything to do with it, because it’s not a workplace and doesn’t fall under the HSE regulations, except perhaps where the building is staffed.

The legislation exists to do so mind – it falls to the Fire and Rescue Services though. Issues could be raised under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and the brigades could raise enforcement notices against the buildings (which requires work to be updated within a specific time frame) or even a prohibition notice that would either limit or prevent people accessing part or all of a building.