Grenfell Tower fire

[ProDave]

46 minutes ago, gravelld said:

Seems to back you up:

 

 

I think the second one is wood fibre isn't it? My russian ain't very good.

The right hand one, the second one they put the blowlamp to, looks like the sort of wood fibre board I used.  After several minutes of the blowlamp, when they took it away, it smouldered a bit and that was it.  I will sleep easy.

 

P.S i love the pump up blowlamp, my dad had one a bit like that.

[Ferdinand]

8 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Bad news indeed for Knauf, as the links to their news story on this refurbishment are all over the place, leading many, including me, to conclude that Knauf supplied the insulation.  I'll edit the references to Knauf out of earlier posts, and suggest others do the same.

 

True. Fairly weak original story. Plus editing the existing page, or replacing it with a "we were not involved" statement, would be 10 times better than just removing it and leaving a hole.

[Temp]

Would you stay put..

 

Edited June 14, 2017 by Temp

[Barney12]

Rydon comment

A spokesperson from contractor Rydon, which undertook the £9.7m refurbishment of Grenfell House said that the work met current building regulations: “We are shocked to hear of the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower and our immediate thoughts are with those that have been affected by the incident, their families, relatives and friends.

“Rydon completed a refurbishment of the building in the summer of 2016 for KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation) on behalf of the Council, which met all required building control, fire regulation and health & safety standards.  We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their enquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time.

“Given the ongoing nature of the incident and the tragic events overnight, it would be inappropriate for us to speculate or comment further at this stage.”

[Barney12]

Building regs under fire again!

 

In October last year Mr Barwell, who this week was appointed as Theresa May’s new chief of staff, announced a review into Part B of the Building Regulations 2010 that cover fire safety in tall and wooden buildings. However, the review has yet to be launched. In March, a spokesperson for the DCLG said the review would be undertaken “in due course”.

 

The Part B review was due to look at how fire safety measures could be improved following a major fire at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London, in 2009, in which six people lost their lives.

 

(Source: Construction News)

[Jeremy Harris]

6 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

Rydon comment

A spokesperson from contractor Rydon, which undertook the £9.7m refurbishment of Grenfell House said that the work met current building regulations: “We are shocked to hear of the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower and our immediate thoughts are with those that have been affected by the incident, their families, relatives and friends.

“Rydon completed a refurbishment of the building in the summer of 2016 for KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation) on behalf of the Council, which met all required building control, fire regulation and health & safety standards.  We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their enquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time.

“Given the ongoing nature of the incident and the tragic events overnight, it would be inappropriate for us to speculate or comment further at this stage.”

 

The problem is that the spread of fire elements of building regs are not as good as they should be when it comes to external wall insulation.  The concern has been focussed on "surface spread" for years, and there has been a general acceptance that covering a flammable material with a non-flammable layer, capable of withstanding a given amount of heat for a given time, is OK.

 

This doesn't really apply well to EWI, where a fire can spread very rapidly behind the external sheathing, with air being fed from below.  There is work that has been done by BRE and others, regarding the provision of fire stops around openings etc, but sadly there seems to be a growing amount of evidence, from other fires, that these are not as effective as they should be.

[Barney12]

Interesting comment:

 

Eric Pickles said: “In relation to Building Regulations, I have noted your concerns about the difficulties that some of those involved in the inquests had with the interpretation of Approved Document B.

“I can assure you that my department is committed to a programme of simplification. However, the design of fire protection in buildings is a complex subject and should remain, to some extent, in the realm of professionals.

“We have commissioned research which will feed into a future review of this part of the Building Regulations. We expect this work to form the basis of a formal review leading to the publication of a new edition of the Approved Document in 2016/17.

“I am grateful for your recommendations and can assure you of my commitment to ensuring that the safety of residents in high-rise buildings continues to be a priority.”

 

https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/ec-decisions-on-fire-resistance-of-composite-panels-4April2013.pdf

 

I guess Mr Pickles got distracted eating pies?

 

[ProDave]

Just watched some of the news reporting.

 

The main message was from the fire chief who said they had never seen a fire spread so quick in a high rise before.

 

They are all being politically correct and not speculating on the cause until the enquiry.

 

I predict 2 things will come of this:

 

This type of EWI will be banned from high rise, and may even retrospectively be removed where already fitted.

 

And (cynical I know) domestic insurers will slap a premium on anyone with EWI on their house.

[jamiehamy]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

They are all being politically correct and not speculating on the cause until the enquiry.

 

It's okay Dave - the answer is on social media - it's Tory cuts to the Fire Service wot caused it. And I'm not joking - that's already being used by certain types. 

 

3 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

This type of EWI  .... may even retrospectively be removed where already fitted.

 

It's everywhere - can't see that happening. I can think of ten I know of and I pay little attention to works on high rises and don't have many down here....can you imagine? 

[ProDave]

What did stand out is the inability to tackle a fire so high up a building from the outside, which of course is why there is so much emphasis on containing a fire to stop it spreading and fighting it from inside. 

 

The fear now has to be a 9/11 type collapse of the building after the stress it has endured. I can't see anyone going inside for some time.

[Jeremy Harris]

What I find astounding is that facade fires exactly like this have been happening all around the world, on tall buildings fitted with EWI, for many years.  They've been openly discussed on building-related forums for many years (witness the 5 year old AECB thread that @PeterStarck linked to).  There are many YouTube videos of facade fires, other than the one I linked to.  There are just as many fire resistance test videos around showing how fire can easily spread inside EWI on tall buildings.

 

Despite all the evidence, no one seems to have done a damned thing to try and prevent fires like this.  Why does it take a major UK fire, that has probably killed and injured many people, to get building regulations updated and enforced?

Edited June 14, 2017 by JSHarris

[gravelld]

Because, as we know Jeremy, regulations are not "what is right" they are "what is acceptable to stakeholders". The residents are just one stakeholder.

[jfb]

I would be interested to know more about the fire retardancy of different types of EPS. I specifically ordered fire treated EPS for my build and understood that to mean that if lit it doesn't go up in flames as non fire treated EPS would but just gently smoulders. I understood it to be something added to the whole board not just coated on the exterior of the board.  Whether or not under very high temperatures they all just go up in flames I don't know or for that matter what was used in this terrible fire. 

[jfb]

I wonder how well the residents of two tower blocks near me will sleep as they are just finishing an EWI retrofit. Luckily for them I think they used wood fibre/render on two sides and rock wool/cladding on the other two sides (intentionally I think!) so if what is suggested above about wood fibre board being ok then I guess they shouldn't be such a fire risk.

Edited June 14, 2017 by jfb

[ADLIan]

Terrible fire and as mentioned we've seen them before!

 

As regards insulation generally if it's plastic (EPS, XPS, PUR, PIR etc) it will burn. The term to look for is the 'Euroclass' under BS EN 13501 - this grades the product from A to F. The top of Euroclass A (A1) is 'non combustible' - everything below this is combustible to a degree. Mineral wool is generally A1, expect PUR at C and XPS/EPS at E or F (burns readily or no product performance declared). Adding flame retardants does not impact on these classes to any great degree.

 

Do not take any notice of 'Class 1' or 'Class 0' as this relates to surface spread of flame as is not used in current  manufacturing standards for insulation products.

[ProDave]

^^ Interesting.

 

I have just found the Pavatex wood fibre board I have used has a Euroclass of E which doesn't sound any better than XPS or EPS, yet that Russian bloke with the blow lamp could not set fire to it. That makes me question the rating applied in my case? I'll bet his blowlamp test would have been VERY different with a sheet of EPS or XPS

[gravelld]

So anyone know how many incidents of this type have occurred in domestic low rise (2-3 storeys) scenarios?

 

Is the render-applied-to-insulation approach common in UK EWI less prone to this, with fewer air channels - or is it another argument for continuous ribbons of adhesive sticking insulation to the wall?

[Ferdinand]

Wondering whether a sprinkler system would have stopped this, as an outside-in fire.

 

Observing a politician on the box creating space to talk about cuts tomorrow.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

The issue seems to be mainly one of preventing, or limiting, oxygen getting to any potential fire in the insulation.  The reason that materials like wood fibre and cellulose have a poor Euroclass is because the test assumes that oxygen will be readily available.  The blowtorch test is flawed, as the area around the blowtorch flame has very little free oxygen, much of it is consumed from the air immediately around the flame in order to keep the fuel burning.  It's an impressive-looking test in a video, though.

 

The blowtorch test does quickly set fire to flammable foam, because that melts around the immediate area of the blowtorch flame and then burns freely further away, where there is a greater amount of oxygen available.

 

The conventional wisdom, with all sorts of flammable building materials, is that if they are encased within a fire resistant barrier material then they are usually far more fire resistant than just the material in open air.  This is a principle that has been around for a long time, and predates the use of EWI.  Initially, EWI was treated much like any other flammable building material, and just a layer of non-flammable material over it was considered adequate when it comes to making it sufficiently fire resistant.  After several facade fires, this approach was revised, and new regulations covering the use of better fire barriers, especially around edges and above openings in the EWI.  One problem seems to be that there are still inadequate provisions for preventing the vertical spread of fire within EWI, possibly because there is a bit of a conflict between the need to provide fire spread protection and the need to minimise thermal bridging through the insulation, I'm guessing.

 

Because the main problem with EWI seems to be the chimney effect that occurs on tall buildings, which feeds large volumes of air into the bottom of the fire, I'm pretty sure that domestic scale (2 to 3 storey) EWI is reasonably safe, as long as there are good fire barriers above all the openings, so no escape routes are compromised.  The priority with fire protection in the home has to be an effective alarm system, combined with a fast and accessible escape route.  Saving the structure is very much a secondary concern, once the occupants have escaped safely.

 

When it comes to sprinklers, then I believe they would have helped, particularly if they had been mist systems.  When I was looking at fitting a sprinkler system, one of the points I noted about the fine mist systems was that they aided smoke suppression, as well as fire suppression.  The very fine water droplets tend to wash out larger smoke particles, improving visibility a little.  There are reports from eye witnesses that the firefighters were struggling to get access to the dry riser in this building.  If this building is like many 1970's tower blocks, then the dry riser may well be connected directly to sprinklers.  There are reports than the fire alarms failed to activate in some parts of the building, and there seems to be no evidence that the sprinkler systems were activated.  All the photos of people who had left the building seemed to show they were dry, and there are no mentions that I've read of the sprinklers having activated.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2017 by JSHarris

[ADLIan]

Important to differentiate between systems.

 

Low rise with insulation and render finish tends to be safe provided installed correctly (correct fixings, including metal, not all plastic, cavity barriers etc). Here the insulation (any fire performance) tends to be well encapsulated so protected from fire and even if breached the oxygen supply is limited. I believe in Scotland only non combustible insulation is allowed in any high rise cladding system, irrespective of cladding system, as a result of several fires many years ago.

 

With rainscreen cladding and similar systems there is a ventilated void behind the cladding - add combustible insulation plus chimney stack effect and we can see the results. Simple solution - systems like this should only incorprate non-combustible, Euroclass 'A1', insulation products. Assuming the cladding itself is non combustible too!

[gravelld]

9 minutes ago, ADLIan said:

Assuming the cladding itself is non combustible too!

 

I was going to bring that up.

 

In the UK, most EWI in low rise situations is render on insulation block. But cladding approaches do exist (we sometimes discuss Larsen Truss). And where they do, people often put timber cladding...

 

So being a total noob, is timber cladding fire treated? Doesn't silvered timber have a low moisture content?

Edited June 14, 2017 by gravelld

[Jeremy Harris]

Something like wood fibre or cellulose, clad with OSB on the outside, and then clad with timber on battens, is reasonably fire resistant from the outside. 

 

Most domestic fires start inside, though, and the fire protection inside is provided by the combination of plasterboard and the internal board on the frame that protects the insulation layer.  The main thing that limits internal fires is often the availability of oxygen.  There are often small room fires that just burn out, without setting the house on fire, because they use up all the available oxygen in the room. 

 

Certainly a timber frame will burn, but it takes time for fire to gain hold, and the regs, and safety requirements, are really targeted at limiting the spread of fire for a certain time, long enough to get the occupants out is probably all that's needed. 

[Onoff]

Wasn't there an EWI fire abroad in Holland or Germany where bins lent against the render of a tower block caught fire, the render cracked and the EWI went up?

 

Faulty fridge I've just seen mentioned on one of the channels. BEKO???

[Jeremy Harris]

9 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Wasn't there an EWI fire abroad in Holland or Germany where bins lent against the render of a tower block caught fire, the render cracked and the EWI went up?

 

Faulty fridge I've just seen mentioned on one of the channels. BEKO???

 

 

Yes there was, and I believe it caused a change in the regulations there regarding fire stops to reduce the chance of vertical spread within the wall.

 

I have also wondered whether it was a defrosting fridge problem.  One of the residents that was interviewed said that the cause of the fire was a fridge in a flat on the same floor as his flat, having been told that by the occupant.  Apparently the fire spread out of the open window near the fridge and perhaps that was what caused the EWI cladding to ignite.  It sounds plausible, especially give the safety warning that's been put out about that make of fridge freezer.

[Triassic]

Let's hope they treat the root cause, faulty consumer goods. How many fires have there been of late, all down to poor quality consumer goods. I'd make the manufacturers take them all back and replace them, if they go bust in the process, good!