Grenfell Tower fire

[Crofter]

It's well known that the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters were fueled by powdered aluminium bound into a resin with an oxidiser. It's extremely reactive stuff, so reactive that it forms an oxidised layer very rapidly and this leads us to consider it durable and not prone to corrosion.

 

Fire safety is likely not a strong point of timber cladding. My build is single storey with means of escape windows in every room, but on a larger build I would think more carefully about the fire risk.

[Jeremy Harris]

I think it's worth putting domestic fire risk into context with a major fire like the Grenfell House tragedy.  The risk in any large building, with many occupants, is massively greater than that in a single dwelling, for several different reasons:

 

-  A fire started in any one of the 120 flats in the building has the potential to kill and injure hundreds of people, so the risk factor is raised because of this.

 

-  Most of the occupants have no control at all over fire safety, they have to rely on the systems in the building and the safety consciousness of their neighbours.

 

-  Fires in single dwelling rarely attack from outside, as this fire did, they are almost always from a source inside the dwelling itself.

 

- The flammability of the outside of a single dwelling is only really a minor risk factor, as there isn't likely to be an ignition source outside.

 

So, as long as we have well-designed fire alarm systems, and have adequate protection from fire and smoke for the time needed to get out of the house, then we should be safe enough.  It's worth watching the half hour video I posted earlier in this thread, as that shows firefighters walking around inside the building, when the fire had been burning on the outside for around an hour.  An hour is a very long time during a single dwelling fire, far longer than is needed to get out.  One lesson we can learn from this fire is that the means of escape from fire that we provide needs to be better than the building regs require, if we can make it so. 

 

Interestingly, the house I grew up in was a 1920's built two storey house, with a veranda and balcony running along the rear elevation.  The bedrooms on that side of the house, including mine, had French windows on to the balcony, and at one side of it there was a wooden box with a chain fire escape ladder.  That wouldn't be required under current building regulations, which may give pause for thought.  As an aside, as a teenager I found that ladder invaluable for sneaking out and back late at night, without my parents knowing................

Edited June 15, 2017 by JSHarris

[Ferdinand]

I hadn't realised that the organisation responsible for running the Housing Stock in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the "KCTMO", which is one of two organisations under the cosh here (the other being RBKC itself), has a majority of tenants / leaseholders on its Board of Directors.

 

I assume this is the standard for Arms Length Management Organisations.

Ferdinand

[Triassic]

As yet we've not had any discussions about the suggested root cause, a defective fridge.

 

How often do we read about domestic fires caused by faulty white goods, yet the manufacturers are getting away with only issuing warnings, followed up with a verrrrry slow repair programme. Maybe as part of the investigation we should be tightening up the white good regulations and giving Trading Standards the teeth to insist that is a product is found to be faulty, in such a way as to cause a fire, the manufacturers are obliged to immediately replace it and not dither about with extended refurbishment programmes that go on for years, in the hope that consumers won't bother.

[Crofter]

There was a piece about Grenfell on Inside Science yesterday.

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, Triassic said:

As yet we've not had any discussions about the suggested root cause, a defective fridge.

 

How often do we read about domestic fires caused by faulty white goods, yet the manufacturers are getting away with only issuing warnings, followed up with a verrrrry slow repair programme. Maybe as part of the investigation we should be tightening up the white good regulations and giving Trading Standards the teeth to insist that is a product is found to be faulty, in such a way as to cause a fire, the manufacturers are obliged to immediately replace it and not dither about with extended refurbishment programmes that go on for years, in the hope that consumers won't bother.

 

You mean like the Whirlpool/Hotpoint/Indesit dryer issue..?? 

 

[personal opinion] As a nation, the British are hopeless at complaining and demanding our rights - I've sat and argued with a large retailer about Sale of Goods etc with a copy in my hand and they have blanked me and said it's up to the manufacturer and even to the point of threatening to call the police if I dumped said item in their store and refused to leave..!

 

But I like one or two others am in the minority - look at the numbers involved in the tumble dryer issue and yet with something like 5-600k units to upgrade and it taking 18 months, Trading Standards say it's acceptable for the manufacturer to behave like that ...! 

 

The issue with any regulation or law in this area is the teeth that the enforcement agency has - it will be interesting to see how this turns out as I think @Ferdinand said, the management of this block was potentially in the hands of directors who are also tenants so it could end up with a share of liability. There is part of me that wonders if sometimes the use of tenants on management committees is to both "show" inclusion but also to "apportion" liability in the event things go wrong.

 

A sad indictment of the times we live in where we find a need to quickly apportion blame  yet when the true cause or fault is found we are very slow to put in place the findings from any investigation. 

 

 

 

  

[ProDave]

34 minutes ago, Triassic said:

As yet we've not had any discussions about the suggested root cause, a defective fridge.

 

How often do we read about domestic fires caused by faulty white goods, yet the manufacturers are getting away with only issuing warnings, followed up with a verrrrry slow repair programme. Maybe as part of the investigation we should be tightening up the white good regulations and giving Trading Standards the teeth to insist that is a product is found to be faulty, in such a way as to cause a fire, the manufacturers are obliged to immediately replace it and not dither about with extended refurbishment programmes that go on for years, in the hope that consumers won't bother.

There are reports floating around (NOT FACT) that the owner of the flat where it started packed his bags before leaving.

 

Yes finding the cause of the fire is important, but the fact remains, however it started, a fire in one flat should not lead to the destruction of the whole block and massive loss of life.

 

I see the manufacturers of the cladding have been identified and are falling back on "it met building regs"  I have not heard one person say "well in that case the building regs are wrong and need changing PDQ"

[DavidFrancis]

And futher to @Ferdinand's post, the chair of the KCTMO board and both vice-chairs are residents (rather than council-nominated or independent board members).  See  http://www.kctmo.org.uk/sub/about-us/20/the-board

[Triassic]

Here are the facts regarding the Lakanal fire, they make interesting reading, including the bit about the Cladding. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Lakanal_House_fire

 

Quote - 

 

The inquest focused on the cladding panels that had been fitted as part of the refurbishment in 2006/07, which were found to offer less fire resistance than the panels they replaced, and enabled the fire to spread more rapidly than expected. According to the jury; ‘This was due to a serious failure on the part of Southwark Council’s building design services, its contractors and its subcontractors’.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Triassic
Quote added

[Jeremy Harris]

As some here know, I've been an open critic of the gross failings in the building inspection system for large construction companies for some years, ever since I first discovered the disparity between the way self-builders projects were inspected and the seemingly lax approach taken on new developments, where there are many, many, examples of new builds and refurbishments failing to comply with even basic building regulations, yet being signed off.

 

I watched a harrowing news item last night, a young man, telling how he had stayed on the phone to his brother, who was trapped in one of the flats, for two hours.  Their conversation ended when his brother stopped talking, probably overcome by smoke.  There was a similar story from the family of another person trapped in a flat.  I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like, trapped for hours and knowing that you were likely to die in your own home, powerless to do anything to save your life.

 

I've always felt strongly about the way the construction industry has been able to ignore building regulations, and the ineffectiveness of the building inspection system.  Friends here will remember that I have quoted before that a building inspector told me a couple of years ago that he felt that around 60% of new builds failed to comply with the building regulations.  Right now I feel bloody angry and frustrated that it has taken a major tragedy to get people to wake up to what's been going on for many years.

[Tennentslager]

On the face of it the Scottish building regulations are stronger re combustion of cladding systems for high rise blocks yet on the local news last night a surveyor was saying there are hundereds of similar systems in both residential and commercial refurbs in Scotland.

The same news programme also reported on the ongoing fatal accident inquiry into a school wall collapsing which led to the death of a young student.

As @JSHarris says, regs are one thing, enforcement another...

[SteamyTea]

Eventhough I started this thread, I have kept out of the conversation (mainly for other reasons).

It seems to me that my initial gut feeling that the cladding system failed was right, that can be easily corrected in the future and I would think that anyone using EWI will use incombustible materials from now on.

 

On a more general note, is it sensible to house people in these types of buildings.  If we relaxed out preoccupation with planning and allowed out town and cities to expand outwards a bit, even building on Green Belts, SSSIs, Heritage areas and AONBs, we could easily house people and improve living standards (maybe a bit of garden.

 

Like Jeremy, I feel angry that this has happened and feel that no hiding behind regulations is acceptable.

[Crofter]

It was asserted by John Humphries on the Today program, this morning, that the extra cost of fire resistant cladding would have been only £5000. No source given for that and it sounds very low given the cladding was a £2.9m job. It would also be interesting to see if an alternative material would have been a straight swap, or if it would have had downsides (e.g. heavier, more difficult to fix, shorter lifespan, etc). But if true, it adds to the mounting body of evidence that this was a wholly preventable tragedy.

[jack]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

... I would think that anyone using EWI will use incombustible materials from now on.

 

What options are there for truly non-combustible materials in this role (retrofitting EWI to high rise buildings)? The main advantage of most rigid insulation materials is that they're cheap, light and completely self-supporting, so ideal for this role other than the fire risk. Are truly non-combustible versions of these materials available?

 

It's far too expensive at the moment, but when aerogel sheet (not the blanket stuff you can get now) eventually becomes available in bulk, it may be suitable for this application, given that aerogel is even lighter than, eg, EPS, has a better U-value than any other common insulation, and is utterly incombustible.

[jack]

9 minutes ago, Crofter said:

... the extra cost of fire resistant cladding would have been only £5000. No source given for that and it sounds very low given the cladding was a £2.9m job.

 

Based on 20 floors at 3m per floor, and guessing that the building footprint is about 25m x 25m, you end up with 6000m² of surface area including windows.² Rough estimate for windows is maybe 25% of the facade, so 4500m².

 

Call it 5000m² and you're looking at £1/m² extra for fire-resistant insulation (assuming no extra costs for installation). Is that a realistic price difference?

[ADLIan]

Glass wool and stone wool both available for this application in slab form and both non-combustible. Additional weight per m² is negligible, certainly for glass wool, compared to the PUR used so this is a red herring.

This problem of combustible insulation in rainscreen cladding and similar systems in high rise buildings is very well documented. See attached from Building Control Alliance from a few years ago (my highlights for my use, not on original doc)

bca_guidance_note_18_use_of_combustible_cladding_materials_on_residential_buildings.pdf

[jamiehamy]

35 minutes ago, Crofter said:

It was asserted by John Humphries on the Today program, this morning, that the extra cost of fire resistant cladding would have been only £5000.

What utter baloney. Sheer and utter unsubstantiated shite (not you - JH!). The media story around this is disgusting and certain politicians are blatantly using it as a political tool - barely disguised. 

 

This thread is quite interesting because we're exploring different views and thoughts on it - whereas the media are causing hysteria, anger, resentment when frankly there are no answers to anything right now. I find it all quite sickening. 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2017 by jamiehamy

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

There are reports floating around (NOT FACT) that the owner of the flat where it started packed his bags before leaving.

 

Yes finding the cause of the fire is important, but the fact remains, however it started, a fire in one flat should not lead to the destruction of the whole block and massive loss of life.

 

I see the manufacturers of the cladding have been identified and are falling back on "it met building regs"  I have not heard one person say "well in that case the building regs are wrong and need changing PDQ"

 

I have seen criticism of building regs starting, in conversations about how people who followed the rules may not be able to be prosecuted.

[Jeremy Harris]

I think we, as a group, are almost certainly better informed than anyone in the media, and probably most in government.  Some of us have looked at the use of external insulation and cladding in depth, and have studied some of the issues that need to be resolved in order to make it a practical proposition.  Some of us are aware of the fairly long history of facade fires that have been facilitated by EWI and cladding systems.

 

Inevitably we're more likely, as a group, to be more analytical of the factors that contributed to this tragic fire than most in the media.  I've been trying, over the past 24 hours, to feed the media with old internet discussions about EWI and fire risk, yet it seems that none have the interest or patience to read through the stories of the many previous instances of facade fires, together with all the information the the BRE has published, together with fire test videos on YouTube, about the facade fire risk.

 

[Ferdinand]

24 minutes ago, jamiehamy said:

What utter baloney. Sheer and utter unsubstantiated shite (not you - JH!). The media story around this is disgusting and certain politicians are blatantly using it as a political tool - barely disguised. 

 

This thread is quite interesting because we're exploring different views and thoughts on it - whereas the media are causing hysteria, anger, resentment when frankly there are no answers to anything right now. I find it all quite sickening. 

 

I think I have seen numbers around the difference between the non flammable and flammable versions being 2% and the cost being 200k.

 

Those numbers which may be wrong give 4K.

[Jeremy Harris]

17 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

I have seen criticism of building regs starting, in conversations about how people who followed the rules may not be able to be prosecuted.

 

I've seen that too.  It seems the big companies involved in this refurbishment are trying hard to deflect blame from themselves onto the regulations.  That may work in the court of public opinion, but in law they have a responsibility for safety that extends beyond the remit of building regulations compliance.

 

As some know, I've been involved, as a witness, in what used to be called gross negligence manslaughter.  The law is clear, and responsibility is not limited to compliance with regulations at all.

[jamiehamy]

15 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

I think I have seen numbers around the difference between the non flammable and flammable versions being 2% and the cost being 200k.

 

Those numbers which may be wrong give 4K.

 

Numbers where? If the source is available and credible I'm happy to be wrong but for various reasons, I'm absolutely not convinced. I've worked on multi-million pound projects and £5k is pocket change and if you stepped forward with an idea to save £5k out of however many million you wouldn't even get a hearing. 

 

Happy to see the source data. 

[Crofter]

I agree that £5k seems completely in the noise against a £2.9m project, and said as much in my post. Hence I mentioned that perhaps it wasn't a straight swap and that there could have be other factors at play.

 

For source data, you'll have to ask R4, they reported it.

[Jeremy Harris]

I think it's also worth noting that the original architects drawings show that the rain screen cladding is zinc composite panels, not aluminium.  It seems that at some point, a decision was made to switch from the more fire resistant zinc panels to cheaper aluminium panels.  One wonders who made that decision, and whether the impact of it on external flammability, was taken into account.

[Onoff]

Seen it reported in the papers as "Celatex 5000".

 

(As in not Celotex)

Edited June 16, 2017 by Onoff