Grenfell Tower fire

[jamiehamy]

20 minutes ago, Crofter said:

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

That's pretty much my point - so much chaff and likely fake news at the moment - far too early. 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

17 minutes ago, Onoff said:

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

 

(As in not Celotex)

 

The specification for the building lists it as FR5000, manufactured by Celotex.  This is a PIR foam with a suitable spread of surface fire rating, but it is not wholly fire resistant, and like all PIR (see the test video I posted earlier in this thread) it will burn under conditions where there is a high temperature ignition source plus an abundance of oxygen, from the chimney effect up the cavity behind the rain screen.

 

There is a great deal of inaccurate media reporting, they are far too lazy and incompetent to fact-check, and when I tried to correct an error in a report yesterday I had a very condescending reply by email. 

Edited June 16, 2017 by JSHarris

[Onoff]

7 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

The specification for the building lists it as FR5000, manufactured by Celotex.  This is a PIR foam with a suitable spread of surface fire rating, but it is not wholly fire resistant, and like all PIR (see the test video I posted earlier in this thread) it will burn under conditions where there is a high temperature ignition source plus an abundance of oxygen, from the chimney effect up the cavity behind the rain screen.

 

There is a great deal of inaccurate media reporting, they are far too lazy and incompetent to fact-check, and when I tried to correct an error in a report yesterday I had a very condescending reply by email. 

 

I was just getting at the media getting the spelling wrong! I emailed Sky actually, with a link to this thread. 

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, jamiehamy said:

 

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. 

 

Eg in Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4609334/Fireproof-cladding-Grenfell-cost-5k-more.html

 

Indy quotes 24 vs 22 ukp per sqm over 2000sqm.

 

Neither is is a reliable source though. Indy pushed the fake cladding chosen to give rich people nice views line, which set off the Twitter trolls.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grenfell-tower-cladding-fire-cause-improve-kensington-block-flats-appearance-blaze-24-storey-west-a7789951.html

 

Only the inflammatory headline appears on Twitter:

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/Independent/status/875003261849399297

 

and is now reporting people repeating versions of the line

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/akala-grenfell-tower-fire-people-died-poor-london-rapper-block-flats-deaths-kensington-a7790906.html

 

F

 

Edited June 16, 2017 by Ferdinand

[jamiehamy]

indeed a newspaper is not a source! 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The bottom line is that the media can't be bothered to fact-check, in their haste to sell a story, social media is just very fast and wide-spread gossip, and mainly entertainment, not a source of facts and the only way to find out anything that approximates to the truth is to spend a lot of time filtering out the false information, outright lies and misunderstandings that fill a large part of the information resources we have access to.

 

As a side point, one of my frustrations with trying to find facts stems from the inherent advert-related bias and promotion of paid-for stories that dominates all internet search engines.  The majority of the stuff that turns up from a quick search seems to be false or misleading, something that probably doesn't help anyone who may be trying to produce an accurate media story.

[Ferdinand]

46 minutes ago, jamiehamy said:

indeed a newspaper is not a source! 

 

 

 

 

They will have the numbers from somewhere but may misquote, cannot add up if written by Arts graduates, and do not cite. 

 

Decent bloggers more reliable.

 

On Twitter it is very much a mixture, John Band and Unity who wrote the Ministry of Truth blog have been reliable nonsense debunkers for a decade.

 

One myth that is perhaps about to collapse are the claims about empty foreign owned flats in London that the current Mayor campaigned on and Mr Corbyn wants to confiscate for refugees from Glenfell Tower.

 

Mayor Sadiq commissioned a report from LSE which seems to be about to report that there basically aren't any left as empty land banks .. less than 1% of foreign bought homes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/almost-no-evidence-london-homes-owned-foreign-buyers-left-empty/

 

and on the lse website Yesterday.

 

http://lselondonhousing.org/2017/06/overseas-investors-and-londons-housing-market/

 

The report for the London Mayor was dated 2017 May

https://www.london.gov.uk/moderngovmb/documents/s58640/08b2b LSE Overseas Investment report.pdf

 

But Mr Corbyn made his demand to requisition the non-existent empty homes yesterday, but should have had access to the report

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40285994

 

And I have been hearing people talking about requisitioning these homes on R5 this morning.

 

But 5-10 years of political campaigning against a non existent groups of foreigners vanishes into thin air.

 

My conclusion is that a lot of statements get made regardless of available evidence, and that is essential to look at the original data.

 

Please to check and tell me if I am wrong.

 

There is also the slight problem that these people claim to believe in the Human RIghts Acts which forbids confiscation of property without a major legal process.

 

IMO it is pretty much all popularise politics.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

Edited June 16, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Triassic]

It's just a shame that although there have been a number of cladding fires over the years, the learning from these events has not been acted upon. Here an article that deals with such a cladding fire in the UAE http://www.probyn-miers.com/perspective/2016/02/fire-risks-from-external-cladding-panels-perspective-from-the-uk/

 

quote - "The exterior of the supertall (302m) The Address was consumed in flames and thick black smoke, with more than 40 storeys burning simultaneously at one stage.  Investigations are in hand, but the fire in Dubai’s 18th tallest tower appears to be similar to the fires in the external cladding of the 352m Marina Torch residence (21 February 2015) and of the Tamweel Tower (18 November 2012).  Fire spread in external cladding has been the primary issue not only in these three major Dubai fires, but in others in the Middle East and China.

 

It is widely suspected that the presence of combustible aluminium composite panels was responsible for the fire spreading alarmingly rapidly up the exterior of The Address.  Composite panels are made of a thin outer metal skin of steel or aluminium and cores of insulating material, which historically have included combustible materials such as expanded polystyrene (EPS) or polyurethane (PUR), but the Dubai fires involved polyethylene (LDPE) cores."

[Declan52]

So if and when the inquiry starts and if as what looks like the cause is the cladding then what happens to all the rest of the people living in similar tower blocks. In Dublin there was the priory hall app block that was built in the boom that was basically condemned due to fire risk, where lots of other reasons as well , Google if you want. The residents who lived there fought for years to get the council to step in and buy them out which eventually after a long court case they did. The spent near 30m gutting the complex to get it up to standard and then have sold/rented out the finished apps. What happens now then if some fire authority says another tower is at risk will there be a similar outcome considering the debt the country is in.

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, Triassic said:

It is widely suspected that the presence of combustible aluminium composite panels was responsible for the fire spreading alarmingly rapidly up the exterior of The Address.  Composite panels are made of a thin outer metal skin of steel or aluminium and cores of insulating material, which historically have included combustible materials such as expanded polystyrene (EPS) or polyurethane (PUR), but the Dubai fires involved polyethylene (LDPE) cores."

 

So the LDPE is a worry - it becomes self sustaining and is a complete nightmare to extinguish as we had real issues with silos of poly granules burning even when the silos had been flooded with CO2. In the end we had Halon flood systems fitted and also nitrogen purge running when they were being filled as the static was horrendous. 

 

Does make you wonder what testing some of these panels go through !

[Jeremy Harris]

4 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

So the LDPE is a worry - it becomes self sustaining and is a complete nightmare to extinguish as we had real issues with silos of poly granules burning even when the silos had been flooded with CO2. In the end we had Halon flood systems fitted and also nitrogen purge running when they were being filled as the static was horrendous. 

 

Does make you wonder what testing some of these panels go through !

 

 

Therein lies the major problem!

 

Fire resistance testing involves one of several different ignition methods, depending on the product and its intended use.  It's unlikely that a product intended solely for external cladding would be subject to the same ignition source when being tested as a product more widely used, say as interior wall cladding in a public space.

 

In addition, some materials are not tested at all, but achieve a classification based on historical safe use.  Metal cladding is one such example, I believe.  Whether a composite cladding panel is treated as the much greater fire risk that it is, I don't know., but, given all the skulduggery that surrounds self-assessment and testing for product approvals, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that some approval elements had been read over from other sheet metal products.

[ADLIan]

The cladding panels themselves are only 4-6mm thick - any potentially combustible core (only 3-5mm) is nothing compared to the fire potential of the 150mm of polyurethane foam behind it. The 150mm foam would be the critical part in the early development of a fire. If intense enough, then as mentioned before, the al cladding would add to the problem.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

10 minutes ago, ADLIan said:

The cladding panels themselves are only 4-6mm thick - any potentially combustible core (only 3-5mm) is nothing compared to the fire potential of the 150mm of polyurethane foam behind it. The 150mm foam would be the critical part in the early development of a fire. If intense enough, then as mentioned before, the al cladding would add to the problem.

 

 

 

The foam wasn't PUR, apparently, it was Celotex FR5000 PIR, so a bit less flammable, but still a source of flammable gasses as it broke down under heat.  From the photos, it looks like a lot of the charred PIR is still on the building, which suggests that the foam wasn't the primary fuel for the fire.  Also, looking at the flames when the tower was alight, there are clear signs that a lot of the external fire was probably the aluminium itself burning.  As aluminium burns at a very high temperature, there probably aren't that many materials that could have withstood the heat.  I'm surprised that there seems to be so much charred PIR left, but that may well be because most of the photos that show enough detail are of the lower levels, where the temperature may well have been a lot lower, due to the incoming fresh air updraft.

 

Apparently the new windows all had PVC cills and surrounds, and this may well have been the initial fuel that fed the cladding fire: http://web.archive.org/web/20161223144358/http://www.kctmo.org.uk/sub/assets-and-regeneration/153/grenfell-tower-q-and-as-windows-and-heating

Edited June 16, 2017 by JSHarris

[ADLIan]

PUR and PIR are manufactured to the same BS and fire tested to the same standard (BS EN13501-1) and achieve basically the same rating of Euroclass C or D (combustible). I can assure you PIR does burn! The charred and crazed remains left in some parts of the building, noted shortly after the fire subsided, were a clue to it being PUR/PIR, - see my post earlier in this thread when I would not speculate on the insulation used.

 

Interestingly the Celotex RS5000 product used has 'no performance declared' for fire performance under its CE Mark, Read into this that it is combustible and that's what it must be classed as when assessing its suitability for use in any particular application.

[Jeremy Harris]

30 minutes ago, ADLIan said:

PUR and PIR are manufactured to the same BS and fire tested to the same standard (BS EN13501-1) and achieve basically the same rating of Euroclass C or D (combustible). I can assure you PIR does burn! The charred and crazed remains left in some parts of the building, noted shortly after the fire subsided, were a clue to it being PUR/PIR, - see my post earlier in this thread when I would not speculate on the insulation used.

 

Interestingly the Celotex RS5000 product used has 'no performance declared' for fire performance under its CE Mark, Read into this that it is combustible and that's what it must be classed as when assessing its suitability for use in any particular application.

 

Which is precisely why I posted this facade fire test video of PIR earlier in this thread, to demonstrate exactly this point:

 

 

Also, the product used was FR5000, the more fire resistant form of Celotex PIR, not the slightly more flammable RS5000, as I mentioned in this post earlier in this thread:

 

 

[ADLIan]

@JSHarrisPlease check the Celotex website - its RS5000.

 

Whilst there also check the CE Mark & Declaration of Performance document for this and other Celotex products and for fire performance most are 'No Performance Determined' i.e. it must be classed as 'combustible' when assessing its suitability.

 

I have seen other PUR/PIR manufacturers claiming Euroclass C or D (still combustible). One difference between PUR and PIR is a higher auto ignition temp for the PIR - still burns though.

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, ADLIan said:

@JSHarrisPlease check the Celotex website - its RS5000.

 

Whilst there also check the CE Mark & Declaration of Performance document for this and other Celotex products and for fire performance most are 'No Performance Determined' i.e. it must be classed as 'combustible' when assessing its suitability.

 

I have seen other PUR/PIR manufacturers claiming Euroclass C or D (still combustible). One difference between PUR and PIR is a higher auto ignition temp for the PIR - still burns though.

 

In that case, that's another deviation from the original specification, along with the change from zinc to aluminium cladding, and that raises still more questions.  The original spec was definitely for FR5000 with a zinc composite rainscreen, not RS5000.

 

I'm aware of the chemistry difference (my first degree was chemistry)

[Ian]

I thought this prescient article by Probyn Miers may be interest to some:

They are architects with specialist expertise in this area of construction. The article was written about 6 months ago and is titled "Fire Risks From External Cladding Panels – A Perspective From The UK"

http://www.probyn-miers.com/perspective/2016/02/fire-risks-from-external-cladding-panels-perspective-from-the-uk/

[Mr Punter]

Both RS5000 and FR5000 are PIR and seem to have identical properties.  Both claim " Class O fire performance".  I suspect they are identical.

[ADLIan]

Some insulation manufacturers continue to use Class 0 or Class 1 which relates to surface spread of flame under BS 476.

For all of the mainstream insulation materials this is totally irrelevant as the manufacturing standards do not reference this standard - the common fire test is in BS EN 13501. For whatever reason Celotex have not tested their products to this standard.

@Ian A quick skim though the report confirms my points above - PUR & PIR both burn! Looking at photos of the PIR on the tower the insulation looks to have been totally consumed by fire, the 'charring' offering no protection.

[Jeremy Harris]

15 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

Both RS5000 and FR5000 are PIR and seem to have identical properties.  Both claim " Class O fire performance".  I suspect they are identical.

 

According to the data for FR ("Fire Resistant") 5000, it is designed to be more fire resistant than their standard PIR.  This isn't the surface spread of fire rating, both are Class O, not that that means anything in this application, it seems that FR5000 has a higher resistance to breakdown at high temperatures, so off-gasses more slowly and the spread of fire through the material (not along the surface) is slowed down.

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, ADLIan said:

A quick skim though the report confirms my points above - PUR & PIR both burn! Looking at photos of the PIR on the tower the insulation looks to have been totally consumed by fire, the 'charring' offering no protection.

 

I posted a PIR facade insulation fire resistance test video on the first page of this thread, that illustrates this well:

 

 

[SteamyTea]

As most things can be burnt at a high enough temperature, what temperature does aluminium burn at? and if it was next to a bit of PUR/PIR (insert insulation of choice) would that also burn at that temperature.

 

When we sent samples of furniture foam to Hemel (the old BSI testing place), we could sent 3 identical samples, two would fail and one pass.  We never observed a test, so don't really know what the procedure was, but it was always frustrating as we never really knew if our foams were safe and compliant (was all new legislation after the Woolworths' fire).

Car seats did not have to be fire resistant at all back in the mid 80's, not sure if that has changed.

 

[Mr Punter]

14 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

According to the data for FR ("Fire Resistant") 5000, it is designed to be more fire resistant than their standard PIR.  This isn't the surface spread of fire rating, both are Class O, not that that means anything in this application, it seems that FR5000 has a higher resistance to breakdown at high temperatures, so off-gasses more slowly and the spread of fire through the material (not along the surface) is slowed down.

 

FR5000 and RS5000 are identical.  The RS5000 is marketed for rainscreen cladding and has been "tested to meet the performance
criteria set out in BR 135 for rainscreen clading systems."

 

Both have better fire resistance than the standard PIR.  They also have thicker texture aluminium facings.

[ADLIan]

If FR = fire resistant (I don't think it does) and it has an enhanced fire performance compared to their standard PIR why not measure that performance in accordance with the BS and state it in the technical characteristics. As it stands most, if not all, Celotex products look to be 'No Performance Determined' (NPD) for fire performance.

 

If you don't measure it you cannot state product x is better than product y!

 

The PIR video on the first page shows it at Euroclass E. I have also seen PIR at Euroclass C or D. So different grades, manufacturer, composition etc can be differentiated by the BS. The Euroclass rating goes from best at Class A (non combustible) and worst performance is Class F (highly flammable/NPD).