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what next ffs? collapsing concrete shutting schools now, what about all the other building made with the stuff in the same period? or was it a special school grade concrete???
hoping our kids aren't impacted as theirs is victorian era.
hoping our kids aren’t impacted as theirs is victorian era.
Highly unlikely, they were all brick construction.
hoping our kids aren’t impacted as theirs is victorian era.
I am sure Jacob Rees Mogg is thinking the same.
Hospitals and other public buildings may have it too.
I read about it earlier this year in a ‘ticking time bomb’ style of article.
They’ve just said on the news that the government have been warned about this for a few years.
So that means we get a sudden, panicky reaction just before term starts.
Standard for this bunch of idiots in charge.
hoping our kids aren’t impacted as theirs is victorian era
Do you think they'll finish the roof in time......
dunno whether the roof will be finished....guys seemed to be all on their mobiles when I was up there on Tuesday....
do we really need to mess our kids around even more.
and if it was known for a long time I'm going to be even more grumpy. if only there had been a time when we had to close alot of public services down, wouldn't that have been a great time for sorting out all this type of crap?!
no we will wait until it seems we have a gap in the whip parents into a panic cycle, just before the start of the new year would be ideal!
A known problem for years (decades). It always had a limited life and was known as such when used. A cheap and nasty short term material. Always was.
I was at a Red Brick Poly in the 1980s, and some of the non red brick parts were known to have this material and that it had a limited life back then.
But resolution (ie rebuilding schools, colleges, etc PROPERLY) rather than patch up and tell LEAs and schools (who strangely have very few structural engineers in their midsts) to 'make sure they have mitigations in place' (FFS Acrojacks in classrooms holding the roofs up) has been kicked down the road repeatedly. Probably because none of the ministers kids are affected at Eaton or Harrow.
It's quite symbolic of how the country's 'social' services quite literally are falling apart. Oil and gas money from the last 40 years should have been used to build stuff like this properly, for the long term good of the nation. Instead those national assets were flogged off on the cheap to fund short term tax cuts and line the wallets of the few.
Hospitals and other public buildings may have it too.
Plus some private by all accounts. At least on the public side there seems to be some ability to check the history since the same people own it. On the private side though its not so clear cut.
As I understand it was popular since had low costs to the people paying for the build but had the downside it did come with a pretty short lifespan combined with unpredictable failures once that is hit.
Most of our counties policies are short term and not long term or very long term.
So no planning. Just sticking plasters and promises.! This looks like it will esculate!
The timing of the announcement, and leaving local government and schools to deal with it in just a few days… well…
I run a small surveying practice & I'm working on several RAAC replacement schemes for one client.
They had the foresight to commission surveys of all their buildings (hundreds) to identify which had RAAC roofs, and then risk assess their condition and prioritise their replacement programme. The highest risk roofs had internal scaffolds and propping installed and were obviously at the top of the list for replacement.
It's a tough call for schools and hospitals as whilst most collapsed RAAC roofs are those that have suffered water ingress through poorly maintained flat roof coverings, some collapses have happened on roofs that had been inspected and showed no visible signs of failure (cracking, deflection, spalling, rust staining from corroded rebar etc).
Of course, for those that don't even know if they have RAAC roofs, or don't employ the right people to assess & advise them, then that's how they end up in the situation the schools are in now.
Feels like it's just the start of an avalanche of these tbh. One of the theatres my brother regularly works in closed earlier this year as it's mostly roofed with teh stuff, people keep asking when will it be fixed and the answer seems to be that it can't be.
Lots of people alledging costcuttign etc but it also seems to have been a signature material for some architects, kind of like with concrete in the 50s.
It was a cheap 1950s/60s concrete product.
if this has to come from existing school budgets, then the staffing, teaching, or food equation is even harder.
Just after i left school i had a summer job at a concrete product factory (flooring mainly).
They regularly tested the concrete mixes, apparently the concrete increases in strength over some year then at 20yrs the strength drops off a cliff.
They also had a waste water pool that was so alkali they had to add quite strong acid to nutralise it.
I've been keeping half an eye out for it at work. We have ex-government buildings in all towns in the UK, a lot of which are 60s prefab and maintenance is now on a shoestring. We have countless buildings with bad leaks and buckets scattered around and we also tend to cut holes in intermediate floors which it seems is one of the red flags.
Is RAAC always smooth finish? I assume exposed aggregate panels are traditional concrete as otherwise there would be no aggregate to leave as a finish.
The utter incompetence of everyone involved in this shit show is staggering.
It was a cheap 1950s/60s concrete product.
Absolutely - and when it got used the brief was probably 25 year life for minimum upfront cost
Also not really worth celebrating Victorian construction - there's a huge element of survivor bias this. All the rotten stuff fell down and we're left with the good stuff.
We've known about the hospitals for a while - was joking last night that maybe it was a special public services concrete. Maybe the private sector has enough funding for proper building maintenance.
For perspective, no one has been killed by this - yet.
Which Tory minister bought shares in mobile classrooms over the summer.....
The utter incompetence of everyone involved in this shit show is staggering.
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. There are several schools in my local authority that have it including the one I work in. It's been known about for years, they have a rolling inspection programme and its one of the factors considered when deciding which schools are the priority for new builds.
Autoclave bricks have been on the go for years, I remember the unusual steam smell at a brick factory 45 years ago and they weren't rice crispie/aero lightweight thermo light/durox blocks used in many houses
Autoclaves now used to clean the tartar and blood off the the dentist drill but slightly smaller
I mean it's a massive cock up, but why are they not naming the schools that are impacted? it's almost like they want to panic every parent in the country when it's *only* 100 schools that could collapse and kill your kids...
as for short termism, these days it seems it's lucky if a minister is in a position for a year. let alone have a scooby about what the position is they are supposed to be covering
I mean it’s a massive cock up, but why are they not naming the schools that are impacted? it’s almost like they want to panic every parent in the country when it’s *only* 100 schools that could collapse and kill your kids…
This way sells more media, papers, click throughs etc which is great when all your pals work in mainstream media.
Of course, for those that don’t even know if they have RAAC roofs, or don’t employ the right people to assess & advise them, then that’s how they end up in the situation the schools are in now.
This. I was a school site manager and frequently came across poor decisions from the LA surveyors and architects, who had lots of qualifications but little experience and would cheerfully take a % of a build to fund their department.
They would only employ the larger firms for bigger builds and wouldn't consider common-sense smaller builders. This a LA problem and one that successive generations of managers have been sitting on
As far as Victorian schools are concerned the major problems will probably be asbestos, which will be well-surveyed and controlled. We also had lath and plaster ceilings with rusted nails, which were "over-boarded" with wire mesh to hold everything in and modern much-lowered ceilings. These were better for heating and lighting
Hospitals and other public buildings may have it too.
I think you’ll find that’s do have it. I have sat in many meetings about this.
I think it was a collapse at Kings Lynn hospital that brought RAAC into focus.
it’s *only* 100 schools that could collapse and kill your kids…
Correction, they have identified schools that could collapse
They would only employ the larger firms for bigger builds and wouldn’t consider common-sense smaller builders.
There are a lot of good reasons for that though, from having sufficient financials to see a large project out, suitable insurances, a large enough credit facility with suppliers, sufficient management teams etc. The smaller the firm often the more exposed they can be to one large project going wrong and pulling them under, which doesn't work well for them or the client.
Many smaller and medium firms will have these, but finding enough that are interested to make up a wide enough base of tenderers is hard as many tend to stick to what they know. Plus the largest contractors tend to have expert bid teams who know exactly how to nail the qualitative aspect to a bid etc.
Not saying it can't happen as I used to work for an SME contractor and we occasionally took on some pretty big builds, but it wasn't our strength or comfort zone.
Not saying it can’t happen as I used to work for an SME contractor and we occasionally took on some pretty big builds, but it wasn’t our strength or comfort zone.
I should qualify that and you're right, but even a modest extension to the staffroom was considered "too much". If the architect had to draw something then it had to be a bigger company
Local contractors were allowed to repair/replace existing infrastructure, such as steps, fire doors, etc
This isn't the case, but even if it were, perhaps they should do their job and speed up the processing of asylum claims.
Oh wait, then they wouldn't have anything with which to rile up their voter base of credulous idiots.
This fiasco is just another example of them ignoring real issues while spending all their time dishing up culture war bollocks for morons. They have had at least FIVE YEARS to sort this out.
WTF is this thread about?
Any links to shed some light on what it is?
At least on the public side there seems to be some ability to check the history since the same people own it.
I've been searching for this stuff all summer* on behalf of a local council. They have zero information and records of their buildings.
Highlights include going to survey a builing and being told by the bemused current owners that they bought it from the council in 2016; and a structure which had no roof at all being on the "can you check this" list.
*neither I nor any of my colleagues have found any, BTW, so the media have latched on to a few cases and blown it out of all proportion.
Here’s a piece from Loughborough Uni about it
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2023/march/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated–concrete-raac/
Thanks Frank but since been removed interestingly!
As far as I can make out it's aircrete (i.e. like the thermalite blocks they build the inner skin of houses out of) with reinforcing bar in the middle to make a type of reinforced concrete. This has been used as planks for roofs (with longish spans) in public buildings constructed up to late 70s. The reinforcement has debonded/corroded/can't do it's job and this in addition to water ingress weakening the aircrete.
Apparently the thermalite blocks that hold up half the houses in the UK are fine as they're not used as planks and are just blocks in compression without rebar in them.
Once again the governments policy seems to have been ‘let’s cross our fingers, hope for the best and maybe if we’re lucky no children will die’
dan - that's odd; could be coincidence...
I'm guessing it's these things??
https://www.local.gov.uk/topics/housing-and-planning/information-reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-raac
The concrete bits of my old school were collapsing in the 80's. The late 70's build brick stuff was collapsing in the late 90's. Pretty much the whole school was pulled down in the 00s and rebuilt from the ground up.
The only bit that was still functional (and took a lot of tearing down) was the original bit that was built around the turn of the last century. The original "school" opened in the 1890's IIRC. Only problems with that bit of the site were the asbestos and the heating bill...
Then i went to uni, the entire engineering and textiles block was already due for demolition (1960's build) and some of the facilities on the lower floors had their walls tied together with steel bars, and the ceilings supported with acro props/jacks. They were still all there when i graduated. And they were still there when i went to a classmates wedding in 2000.
Interview on R4, seems that there was a known problem they were acting on under advice but they thought only certain types / situations presented a risk (where there was other damage, maybe water ingress AIUI)
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/raac-100-schools-at-risk-of-collapse-ordered-to-close/
Then recent info (some as late as last week) has indicated that's incorrect and so those where there was RAAC but where previously thought to be no / low risk now needs acting on.
I'm no fan of the Gov, and it's easy in hindsight to say they should have gone better safe than sorry, but I'm finding it hard to criticise too much the fact that now it's come to light they are taking steps. Leaving the kids in these classrooms and keeping fingers crossed is hardly a viable alternative. As the interviewee said, it's irrelevant of when this came to light, it has come to light and they need to act - if it had come to light in November they'd do the same and shut classrooms and send kids home while they work out what next.
Yes, argue all you like on funding vs austerity, and whether different decisions should have been made in the past but look at the facts and play the ball, not the man.
if this has to come from existing school budgets, then the staffing, teaching, or food equation is even harder.
Minister said repairs would come from central funds. Of course unless they start following rone's advice, means cuts elsewhere, so may in the end circle back to schools budgets anyway.....
WTF is this thread about?
Any links to shed some light on what it is?
Between about 1950 and 1990 we built large building roofs using a type of concrete that is essentially like a meringue. They material was quick and cheap to put in, but had a limited life. We've reached the end of that life and it can fail with little or no warning bringing a concrete roof down on the occupants. Schools were exactly the sort of buildings where this was used. The industry and government have known about this for a good few years, and been getting increasingly anxious about it. English schools start going back next week so the government announced that over 100 schools have dangerous roofs and probably won't open as normal. To maximise panic they haven't named the schools (but each local authority knows which are their dodgy ones - I assume this is a sneaky move - DFE says "needs mitigation measures" not "school closed" and therefore budget and problem is shifted to the local authority!.
Major UK news story ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66461879). Ridiculous timing. Assume there is something being buried whilst this happens OR they've had grenfell type warnings, ignored them and then some head teachers have come back and said "eh the roof appears to be in the gymn hall". Perhaps its a negotiating tactic with teachers union - you can have 5% and a hard hat.
Can’t afford to spend millions every day feeding and housing illegal immigrants AND repair school buildings.
We could turn them into legal migrants and employ them to help sort the problem. Then they'd by paying taxes, responsible for housing themselves etc. >90% of them will be allowed to stay in the end anyway.
The industry and government have known about this for a good few years
Decades, not years.
No doubt the government will launch a scheme whereby their friends and families can set up makeshift companies to supply emergency equipment to hold up the roofs.
'No safe spaces to learn' - back to school in Ukraine"
Oh the irony of this BBC headline today.
Are these roof panels still being made and installed? If yes, is the stuff being made today any better for longevity?
No doubt the government will launch a scheme whereby their friends and families can set up makeshift companies to supply emergency equipment to hold up the roofs.
Michelle Mone has already set up a company offering underwiring services to help push up concrete roofs.