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This was covered on 'PM' on R4 last evening. A fire safety specialist chartered surveyor and an industry journalist; I wasn't paying full attention but they said I think that the types of cladding typically used is 'within regulations / passes testing' but it's known in the industry that the testing proves nothing in the real world, and that the regulations need total overhaul.
But that 3 successive ministers have been told this and done nothing, including the last one promising a review in October 2016(?) - it's now June.
Now, a review and regs change is one thing but that wouldn't necessarily change this situation, it's not as if one day you can change the regs and the next day magic wand everything into 'fixed'.
But when companies are being held accountable and in some cases prosecuted with corporate manslaughter charges for faulty / non-compliant equipment; when are the officials that set the regs, have been repeatedly TOLD that those regs aren't adequate and yet still do nothing when are they going to be held accountable for the poor sods that die as a result, and for the lives of our firefighters and rescue personnel that they risk.
W@nkers. And yes that is filter avoidance, because they are utter incompetent w@nkers.
19:30 onwards here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tbf1y
Disgusted in Corbyn who's used this to have a swipe at Tories blaming this on cuts on services. There's a time and place for that and it's not now.
Disgusted in Corbyn who's used this to have a swipe at Tories blaming this on cuts on services. There's a time and place for that and it's not now.
He may be politicising this to an extent, but he asked a question, if cuts could be to blame, the same question was asked yesterday on the news websites, social media and news analysis shows like newsnightas I pointed out above it was a Tory MP implying that cost savings may have been at fault
Thank God these monstrosities in Glasgow are all coming down, a truly grim place to put people.
There's a time and place for that and it's not now.
When is it, then? After everyone's moved onto the next media event? After the next tragedy? When? That sounds a lot like the US response after every gun tragedy.
This is political. Of course it's desperately sad and horrible, but it is also political - someone made the decisions about the construction and renovation of this building, someone decided on the material used, someone made the safety regulations, someone decided how much emergency response cover this area needed, someone decided that the residents' repeated concerns should be ignored. And some people - politicians, because they're the ones who make the decisions - got it very, very wrong.
Thank God these monstrosities in Glasgow are all coming down, a truly grim place to put people.
Not all, a bunch are being renovated. Hopefully with different materials - I've heard, though haven't seen confirmation, that Scottish planning regs are quite a bit stricter than in England.
Flats can be a great solution - just look at places where they're desirable, like New York. The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos.
The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos [i][b]and then polish the turd by covering them in 'unfit for purpose' cladding to make the problem look nice[/b][/i]
FTFY
bencooper - Member
When is it, then?
When the fire services have done their job (the place is still burning), families and friends have news of their loved ones (100s missing), when the dust has literally settled and the investigation can start and we then get to see what the cause is.
Corbyn's swipe at cuts is irresponsible and an insult to the 200 strong fire crews who turned up within minutes and risked their lives. There's no evidence that cuts affected their job.
Your right sadexpunk we'll never get to keep the payfreeze of the last 7 years if they see that pic
Not all, a bunch are being renovated. Hopefully with different materials - I've heard, though haven't seen confirmation, that Scottish planning regs are quite a bit stricter than in England.
Must've changed then, I distinctly remember about 4 or 5 years ago the statement being made that they were all coming down?.
Your right sadexpunk we'll never get to keep the payfreeze of the last 7 years if they see that pic
If people shut up, "because now is not the time", politicians will move on the public will forget and the pay freeze will continue. Heard anything about the cuts to police numbers for a few days?
There will always be another news item, attention will move on.
I know that it is not time to be political, but there is something inherently wrong when an MP like Craig Mackinlay can be charged with fiddling his expenses and still be allowed to stand as an MP, but a fireman (police and NHS workers also) have had their numbers slashed and their pay frozen for so long.
bencooper - Member
Thank God these monstrosities in Glasgow are all coming down, a truly grim place to put people.
Not all, a bunch are being renovated. Hopefully with different materials - I've heard, though haven't seen confirmation, that Scottish planning regs are quite a bit stricter than in England.Flats can be a great solution - just look at places where they're desirable, like New York. The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos.
The 5 royston ones are all clad. You'd hope somebody is out testing and assessing..
If it's substantiated that the safety concerns which were continuously ignored were relevant to this horrific event, then it will be very political indeed - but more about the way public housing is managed than fire service cuts IMO.
Whether the fire service response was hampered by cuts is another very valid issue, of course.
The trick is to not make them on the cheap and turn them into vertical ghettos and then polish the turd by covering them in 'unfit for purpose' cladding to make the problem look nice
This is simplistic emotive rubbish, and no better than than the political point of which Corbyn is being accused.
Concrete buildings are not cheap, and modern high rise buildings are now almost invariably steel framed instead, which potentially is much more difficult to bring up to the levels of fire resistance of a concrete building.
The reason for the cladding, which was part of a project which included new double glazed windows and a new heating system, was to improve the thermal performanace of the buildings. In other words to insulate the flats and make them better places to live, as well as improving energy efficiency, which is essential to reducing our consumption of fossil fuels and addressing the risks of climate change.
We will continue to need to keep doing similar projects, so it's vital that we understand the underlying causes of this fire.
Superficially it could be argued that the inherent fire safety of a 1970s non-combustible concrete high rise tower block - which makes it possible to have a single stairwell exit route - is not compatible with retrofitting modern insulation systems which use expanded plastic foam. I don't think that is the case: there are expanded plastic foam products which have very good fire resisting performance. I understand that BBC's Newsnight reported last night that the version of the cladding affixed to Grenfell Tower was one with a low or no fire rating. Before we talk about the current Regulations being inadequate, we need to establish first whether they were breached at Grenfell Tower, and how we can better ensure that Regulations are complied with.
Moreover, there is more to this fire than just the cladding. Even with the outside of the building on fire, people should still have been able to evacuate inside safely, and we need to understand everything that went wrong, what it's impact was, and how best to prevent it happening again.
I would like to see more of the fire fighters shown in the photographs above spending their time on safety inpections and enforcement activity. A photograph of a a fire safety officer undertaking an inspection, writing up a report, inspecting building works, reviewing plans etc. is a lot less dramatic than the photographs above, but that activity is potentially far more valuable and will save more lives. We will always need the sort of fire fighting and rescue capability that the Brigades showed yesterday, but we need to be better at prevention rather than cure.
As this cladding is a basically a skinned version of the Kingspan type insulation sheeting and fixed using the same method with battens. As the many threads on here have recommending it for anything from garage to house roof insulation to wall lining prior to plastering as the method of keeping heat within the building.
Is this the new asbestos scandal waiting to break and who is now removing this material from their home which is now widespread in its use and method of fixing?
Not arguing that point, the point is whether the materials used are appropriate, which in turns asks both whether they are approved but also if that approval is appropriate. And the experts (whoops, we love them!) on the radio I heard last night were saying that the review process to evaluate that had passed through 3 minister's hands now and was still being avoided.The reason for the cladding, which was part of a project which included new double glazed windows and a new heating system, was to improve the thermal performanace of the buildings. In other words to insulate the flats and make them better places to live, as well as improving energy efficiency, which is essential to reducing our consumption of fossil fuels and addressing the risks of climate change.
That is IMHO criminal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40283980
deadkenny - MemberCorbyn's swipe at cuts is irresponsible and an insult to the 200 strong fire crews who turned up within minutes and risked their lives.
The pay freeze- ie real world pay cut- is an insult to them. Not sure how saying pay them better and resource them better is an insult. If "now is not the time" then how about 2 days ago:
https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2017/06/13/firefighters-call-immediate-end-pay-freeze
Or, how about last year when the inquiry was supposed to go ahead, but didn't? May's promising an enquiry but clearly "now is not the time", years ago was the time.
(No expert - just a guess really)
Would the UPVC windows also be a potential issue, since a fire was up the outside? The advice to stay in a flat was based on fire not spreading up stairwell due to internal protections of fire doors etc- not a fire outside with no protection...
The 5 royston ones are all clad. You'd hope somebody is out testing and assessing..
In mineral fibre insulation which is entirely non-combustible...I have full drawings, specifications, BRE testing certificates and reports from the fire brigades safety inspector for those 5 blocks and about 70 others in Glasgow if you'd like a look at them.
Edit: There has also been three fires (that I know about) in those 5 blocks since they were overclad. The cladding system performed as predicted.
it is a horrible tragedy, all we can hope is that lessons will actually be learnt and that there is a serious review of similar buildings, I lived on the 17th floor of a tower block for a couple of years in my 20's in Leyton, East London and it was a genuine worry about what the hell would happen in the event of a fire.
Would the UPVC windows also be a potential issue, since a fire was up the outside? The advice to stay in a flat was based on fire not spreading up stairwell due to internal protections of fire doors etc- not a fire outside with no protection...
Yes they are an issue inasmuch as the frames are plastic and will melt/burn and fail, and allow fire spread from outside into the building. However, it's always important to consider the behaviour in a fire of any one component in the context of all the other components (as a package). So even if the frames were instead fire resisting, the glass isn't (as far as I am aware Australia may be the only country that does require fire resisting glazing for high rise buildings), and you would also need to consider the window fixings and any other potential points of entry for fire in the external wall, e.g. ventilation grilles, trickle vents etc. The whole thing is only as good as it's weakest link and you have to assess how it performs as a package, not as an individual component. Even if it was practical to improve the fire resistance of the windows, it would probably not be the best use of resources.
Yes they are an issue inasmuch as the frames are plastic and will melt/burn and fail, and allow fire spread from outside into the building.
It's summer - many of the windows will have been open anyway.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) said a ruptured gas main in the block had to be isolated before fire crews were able to put the blaze out and bring it under control by 1.14am.
If that's the case, then there is more to this than simply the cladding going up.
Not arguing that point, the point is whether the materials used are appropriate, which in turns asks both whether they are approved but also if that approval is appropriate. And the experts (whoops, we love them!) on the radio I heard last night were saying that the review process to evaluate that had passed through 3 minister's hands now and was still being avoided.That is IMHO criminal.
To call it 'criminal' without waiting for an inquiry and giving the ministers and the department an opportunity to explain why things have been delayed, is again lazy emotive and simplistic - it's the same sort of knee jerk outrage that makes it possible for the likes of the Daily Mail to continue to stay in business by pedalling sensationalist manipulative rubbish.
It's possible that there is some Machiavellian motive for the delay, but I doubt it. Sometimes things are complicated and difficult, and there are no easy answers, and sometimes it is necessary to wait and see rather than taking a decision to do something because 'something must be done'.
It's easier to make a bad decision, than to undo the consequences of one, and with something like fire safety progress is often necessarily slow and painstaking to ensure that optimal decisions are taken.
slowster is right - this is a multi-faceted event and the full jigsaw of lack of containment, spread, and finally emergency egress is yet to be established.
But in a 'Defend in Place' type of building, the fabric and layout needs to protect residents. Materials that add to the fire-load of the building in common parts, apartments and cladding seems counter to this principle. This is especially important in refurb where the layout cannot be altered. Eg additional smoke lobbies to the core etc. So yes, PIR is worse than mineral fibre, but this is only part of the issue here I suspect.
We won't know the full picture for a while, but I support a review of both part B and increased inspection at both installation and during a building's operation.
Truly devastating and thoughts to all affected and the emergency services for their incredible efforts.
Emotive words maybe, but the fire isn't necessarily the "criminal" act but has brought the focus on to it.
The bit that is, is again the fact that there are known fire issues with some types of cladding, the industry has been saying so for many years and the coroner recommended a review after the fire at Lakanal Hse in 2009. And it hasn't been done.
If a mechanic told you your steering was faulty and needed fixing, and you didn't, continued driving, it failed and you hit someone......
I know "experts" are out of vogue but The Fire Protection Association have issued a statement related to the event:
Essentially they are saying that the material likely used can't propagate a fire unless it has frequent penetrations. Which it most likely will do for vents etc. They're saying it's been a big area of concern for them but has not been addressed adequately in the regs.
What I don't get is the cladding would burn very quickly as it doesn't have huge mass like wood. This would account for the fire moving so quickly. But how did the fire then actually get inside the building. If it is a concrete building with cladding on the outside, how come the inside burnt so badly, concrete doesn't burn. As the insulation is a plastic I would also expect it to burn at quite a low temperature on the outside of the building.
Also this isn't to do with austerity or government cuts. They just spent £8m on the building. Bad decisions on how to spend the money, maybe, lack of updated fire regulations and controls, maybe. But not austerity, that's just jumping on the political band wagon.
Flashover would occur inside an apartment if the temperatures were sufficiently hot due to the cladding/window fire. All materials have a flashover point and furnishings etc would have reached this.
They just spent £8m on the building. Bad decisions on how to spend the money, maybe, lack of updated fire regulations and controls, maybe. But not austerity, that's just jumping on the political band wagon.
depends whether £8m is a lot or a little, was the local council inspecting properly, were the contractors on the cheap?
its a question at the moment , nothing more, there are lots of questions and people are genuinely angry
who knows if austerity was a factor?
What I don't get is the cladding would burn very quickly as it doesn't have huge mass like wood. This would account for the fire moving so quickly. But how did the fire then actually get inside the building. If it is a concrete building with cladding on the outside, how come the inside burnt so badly, concrete doesn't burn. As the insulation is a plastic I would also expect it to burn at quite a low temperature on the outside of the building.
Concrete doesn't burn but open windows , curtains, window frames, wall penetration (e.g. for bathroom / kitchen vents) provide a means to get the fire inside. The problem is you can set up a "chimney effect" between the layers on the outside so the combustible buts can burn very vigorously.
@slowster. Thanks for the informative posts pushing back on some of knee jerk stuff (understandable though). Some don't really appreciate how sofisicated fire protection equipment and systems can be in this type of building post a refurb. The full investigation will be where the facts and failings will come out. Like the Kings Cross tube fire of the 90's I suspect there will be a convergence of factors.
Anyway this is all so sad.
The eventual investigation may flag up aspects where austerity could have had an influence, but I agree it's not wise to rush to judgement.
I wonder if there's a possibility that Brexit and the resulting shitshow could have pushed this safety review out of the administrative queue, but even if it was the case I'm sure it'd never be acknowledged.
Is this the new asbestos scandal waiting to break and who is now removing this material from their home which is now widespread in its use and method of fixing?
In high rise, possibly. In standard homes? No. Your average plaster or plasterboard linings will give you at least 30 minutes protection before the insulation starts to go up, which will be adequate to get out of the building. Therefore, I don't see any point in removing it.
It may be that all future projects may move towards using Rockwool, but it is more difficult to achieve the necessary u-values without very thick insulation.
I should think Kingspan and Celotex etc will continue to be used in standard domestic, one and two storey builds. Above that, a rethink may be required.
@slowster. Thanks for the informative posts pushing back on some of knee jerk stuff (understandable though). Some don't really appreciate how sofisicated fire protection equipment and systems can be in this type of building post a refurb
Slowster's posts are informative and he clearly knows his stuff. I think for many the issue is that high rise buildings can be really good in terms of fire protection with each flat designed to contain the fire and stop the spread, sprinkler systems etc. What seems to have happened here is that they addressed the insulation with the cladding which ultimately made the building more thermo-efficient and look smarter, but the actual layout of the building wasn't changed, still a single staircase etc, where they not just "tarting up" an old building of antiquated design? Learnt a lot though from reading many of the posts.
It just amazes me that the fire service managed to get right to the top of that building under those circumstances, i had a fortnight covering some of the lesser jobs they do in a Green Goddess in the army and have every respect for them, it takes a certain type of man or woman to enter into a building like that and place their safety on the line. I remember being sat in the back of a Land Rover in Libya ferrying oil people about when 9/11 happened and finding it so surreal and past comprehension, made more surreal by my surroundings and watching it on a laptop where the signal kept dropping.
perchypanther - Member
The 5 royston ones are all clad. You'd hope somebody is out testing and assessing..
In mineral fibre insulation which is entirely non-combustible...I have full drawings, specifications, BRE testing certificates and reports from the fire brigades safety inspector for those 5 blocks and about 70 others in Glasgow if you'd like a look at them.Edit: There has also been three fires (that I know about) in those 5 blocks since they were overclad. The cladding system performed as predicted.
cool, good to hear, was generally meaning that as I hope someone is starting a proper investigation into all these towers btw, not just those.
Essentially they are saying that the material likely used can't propagate a fire unless it has frequent penetrations. Which it most likely will do for vents etc. They're saying it's been a big area of concern for them but has not been addressed adequately in the regs.
They are referring to External Thermal Insulated Cladding Systems (ETICS) or External Insulated Finishing Systems (EIFS), which is an insulation material affixed to the wall, like polystyrene or mineral wool, covered by a thin render, which is probably the system used on the Royston flats that perchypanther describes above. These systems are much more common in some other countries than the UK, e.g. Germany and the USA. Where the insulation is highly combustible like polystyrene, then as the FPA say, vents through the cladding or damage/deterioration of the render as a result of wear, tear and aging, exposing the polystyrene, increase the risk. In reality you cannot design out such penetrations or the risk of the polystyrene being exposed as a result of deterioration of/damage to the render, so you have to install horizontal fire barriers of mineral wool or similar at every floor level to interrupt the polystyrene, or (as most people in the fire safety industry would much prefer) use mineral wool as the insulation rather than polystyrene. At the end of the day, all products have their advantages and disadvantages, and there are some applications where the properties of polystyrene (or other expanded plastics) make it the best choice. It's not as simple as just saying polystyrene bad, mineral wool good.
The system at Grenfell Tower does not appear to have been an EIFS system or to have used polystyrene. Apparently it was an ACM cladding system, and the reports are saying that the cladding was not a single metal skin, but was a composite panel with a polyethylene insulation sandwiched between an inner and outer metal skin. A photograph in a newsletter I linked to above also shows a foil faced polyisocyanurate/polyurethane insulation board being affixed to the concrete walls, which was then presumably covered with the cladding panels, possibly with an air gap in between.
We don't know the precise mechanisms that were at work in the fire on the outside of the building, i.e. was it the inner combustible polyethylene core of the panels that was the major factor, or did the the air gap (flue) cause the foil faced panels to burn much more quickly and intensely than they normally ever would, or was it some other particular combination of materials and circumstances surounding their installation.
I am slightly surprised that a polyethylene composite panel may have been used at Grenfell Tower: most composite panels in the UK have polyisocyanurate foam cores, and most of those will have passed a large scale fire test ('LPCB Approved'), which is far more demanding than the BS476 surface spread of flame test that is all that is required by Building Regs. The LPCB test came about as a result of a large number of fires in the 1980s and 1990s involving composite panels. Insurance companies will expect any new building to use LPCB Approved panels as a matter of routine, and I think all the composite panels made by Kingspan for example are LPCB Approved. According to Newsnight, the panels were made by a French company, but I would not read anything into that for the moment: a lot of the panels used in the UK are manufactured by non-UK companies and undergo LPCB testing, and conversely Kingspan panels are widely used in Europe.
What I don't get is the cladding would burn very quickly as it doesn't have huge mass like wood...As the insulation is a plastic I would also expect it to burn at quite a low temperature on the outside of the building.
Plastic releases far more heat energy when it burns than wood (think about it - it's a product of the petroleum industry: your car isn't powered by wood but by a petroleum derivative). If you turn it into an expanded plastic foam containing lots of air bubbles you have the perfect combination of a fuel source and oxygen, with the maximum surface area of plastic exposed to air inside the foam. If the fire is outside the building it will continue to have a ready source of oxygen, and if it's in a flue created by an air gap between cladding and the building, it will draw air in and the heat from the fire lower down the building will be drawn up the flue very quickly, heat up the insulation material etc. higher up the building, and so rapidly increase the rate at which fire spreads up the side of the building.
If it is a concrete building with cladding on the outside, how come the inside burnt so badly, concrete doesn't burn.
Take a look around you: our homes are full of combustible material, especially plastic. Your upholstered furniture may be made with fire retardant synthetic fabrics and plastic foam, but fire retardant does not mean non-combustible: it takes longer to ignite and saves lives being lost as a result of careless dispoal of cigarette ends etc., but when it is involved in a major fire like yesterday, it burns as fiercely as non-fire retardant plastic.
Another probem may have been the lack of fire blocks between floors for things like services that was reported to have been a concern of one of the builders working on the refurb.
Things like intumescent collars and putty around water and cable ducts that activate in a fire and seal off holes should be used but the cost does add up and they have to be installed correctly.
I was amazed by how it spread throught eh building but a combination of the above + windows cracking/frames melting from the intense fire on the outside will easy lead to the fire jumping floors.
What is odd is how the fire got to the outside of the building in the first place from inside a flat. I did wonder if it was a gas leak ignited by a fridge or some other appliance and the mention of a ruptured gas main early on in the event could also point towards that but that leak could also be secondary and caused by the first event or the fire.
For the fire to get outside to the cladding them maybe it passed out through a service duct or maybe they had the window open or the window cracked/fell out.
Hat raised.
Definitely so.
There was some guy from the Fire Service on the radio this monrning explaining what it feels like as a fire fighter turning up to a job.
He basically said they plan in their minds before what they are going to. Unfortunately they wouldnt have been planing for what they were met with. To still go in and try and save lives, surrounded by an inferno, and with thoughts that the building could still collapse.
Amazing skill and bravery, incredible to think they got to nearly every floor 😯
What is odd is how the fire got to the outside of the building in the first place from inside a flat.
As said above, lots of windows were open on a hot night.
I the the firefighters must have faced something truly horrendous as they were in contact with and aware of many families trapped inside, some of whom it seems they were unable to reach in time.
Cant imagine the effect that must have on them, the survivors, other emergency services and local residents all in the area at the time
[quote=FunkyDunc ].
Amazing skill and bravery, incredible to think they got to nearly every floor
and the government want firefighters male and female old to do that up to the age of 60yrs, I'm 52 and I'm starting to slow down and struggle to keep up with the younger FF's and don't cope with the heat as well. To continue to do that until you are 60 is bonkers and there will sad to say probably be a death on duty.
and the government want firefighters male and female old to do that up to the age of 60yrs, I'm 52 and I'm starting to slow down and struggle to keep up with the younger FF's and don't cope with the heat as well. To continue to do that until you are 60 is bonkers and there will sad to say probably be a death on duty.
Totally agree with this, whilst they are skilled professionals, they are also human beings and something like yesterday will stay with them for life.