Has the tenant of the flat where the fire started been implicated in the fire in some way?

There is obviously an issue with the cladding, which should not have been fitted to a building such as this, but has been in nearly 100 similar buildings according to the report that I saw.

Metro is reporting this:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/15/man-whose-flat-started-grenfell-blaze-packed-luggage-before-raising-alarm-6710853/

So mattsccm – if as has been suggested the fire started with a fridge who is to blame? Surely the owner of a fridge can’t be to blame if he was using it as intended? You are saying is just as blameworthy as if they lit a match – can you tell me what it is YOU do to stop your fridge catching fire?

Can you imagine the guilt that guy whose fridge it was must feel?
Actually, do we even know if he survived?

Just saw that Theresa May interview. Wow.
She is truly awful. Professionally and personally. A “publi servant”?
Can’t believe that after their knock back in the election and then the handling of this fire and the way everyone is looking at is as a reflection of austerity policy that that is our “strong and stable” leader going off to start our Leaving the EU negotiations tomorrow.

It’s looking like the key cause of the severe external fire was the specification of a composite panel which did not meet Building Regs.

Having in the distant past, worked for the main contractor in charge of the overall contract, I’d be surprised if this was the case, but I guess it will become clear in time.

Can you imagine the guilt that guy whose fridge it was must feel?

well I’d be feeling terrible about the whole disaster. But guilt no, not unless I’d tampered with the fridge or was somehow using it as not indented.

I’ve never heard of polyethylene cored panels being used in the UK before, and the likes of Kingspan invariably use polyisocyanurate (PIR). Moreover, not only will the UK panel manufacturers’ panels probably all meet the European or BS476 standard, most of them will meet the even more stringent standard required by insurers (LPCB Approval).

https://www.arconic.com/aap/north_america/catalog/pdf/brochures/Reynobond_Brochure.pdf

Façade

I think, this is actually quite common, from memory, this is not neccessarily insulation but a core within the skin of the material. As mentioned Ash and Lacy for one use an Aluminium composite material (ACM) to make there facade, an insulation layer that can be glass or mineral can then be used as insulation.

The PIR that Tata Kingspan et al used is bonded to a skin but can be pretty crap when you are trying to get a VERY flat surface as you need to make as facade panel

You can see the blackened charred polyethylene foam in the panels where the outer metal skin has delaminated in this BBC photograph:

Without further information this is going to be hard to guess, but that may be a PIR material you are seeing, and it is the polyethylene ACM skin that acted like a candle wick.

I think mattsccm could do us all a service here by sharing the details of his own fridge testing procedures and schedule. Personally I just plugged it in and then periodically put beer in and take beer out. I’d like to know what I should be doing in order to avoid being responsible for 100 deaths?

If you think that there will be one single cause if this disaster then I’m afraid you are being hopelessly naive.

Nope. Lots of different people will be able to be prosecuted.

Looks like may is going back down to meet the people affected today.

Presumably her advisors have told her that she can still regain some credibility third time around.

I don’t think she is actually a bad person. I think she is out of her depth and totally reliant on people who ‘manage situations’. Unfortunately those people are often full of shit and their cost-benefit calculations are easily overridden by cataclysmic events where instinct and humanity are more important.

Can you imagine the guilt that guy whose fridge it was must feel?
Actually, do we even know if he survived?

I read an article that said he raised the alarm to the immediate neighbours, and on floors above him.
whoever it was who told this to the reporter had said when they looked through his door, they could see the fire but it was quite minor at that point .

I don’t think she is actually a bad person.

I think she actually is. She is leading the country down a disastrous path that she knows is wrong, just because it benefits her personally.

I think she actually is. She is leading the country down a disastrous path that she knows is wrong, just because it benefits her personally.

This is the thing that i find conflicting, she must realise she is incompetent in the role she finds herself, she may not intentially mean harm, but her desire for power and her obvious inability to wield it are a disaster.

The sooner she walks and is replaced with someone more capable the better, problem is who is that someone!

If you have no means to tackle a fire, then you need to follow the instructions given to you, I.e close the doors , sound the alarm and get out. How many of us have the means to put out a fire ?. How many know not to throw water on to an electrical fire ? Would it be sensible to install a decent sized powder extinguisher into all properties in Tower blocks ( powder being safe to use on most fires).

Mrmo, thank you.

Without further information this is going to be hard to guess, but that may be a PIR material you are seeing, and it is the polyethylene ACM skin that acted like a candle wick.

Looking again I think you’re right. So those are the remains of the foil faced Celotex PIR insulation boards affixed to the spandrel panels, and the outer ACM panels completely detached from the building. I have never seen polyethylene insulation in a panel, and visual identification of many types of insulation is often difficult, i.e. PU, PIR and phenolic are often a similar yellow colour.

They will doubtless be assessing whether the Celotex contributed significantly to the fire (it’s supposed to be slow burning, but as you say the heat from the burning polyethylene may have acted to accelerate combustion of the Celotex, especially if there was an air gap behind the ACM panels that acted as a flue). However, the fact that there are virtually no remains of the ACM panels suggests that the polyethylene insulation was the main contributor. Looking at Google images of polyethylene foam, it looks like it can have a very open cellular structure, which would probably result in very rapid fire spread from one end of the panel to the next.

I think, this is actually quite common, from memory, this is not neccessarily insulation but a core within the skin of the material. As mentioned Ash and Lacy for one use an Aluminium composite material (ACM) to make there facade, an insulation layer that can be glass or mineral can then be used as insulation.

That’s interesting. I see the Ash & Lacy panels meet Class 0, but they too presumably do not meet the requirements for ‘Materials of Limited Combustibility’ as required by Approved Document B for building heights over 18m.

Given the nature of the external fire at Grenfell Tower, I suspect the market for polyethylene cored panels in UK construction projects has now vanished. Even if it’s permitted by Building Regs for buildings below 18m, insurers are likely to make it clear to their commercial sector and public sector customers that such panels should not be used.

Metro is reporting this:

Yeah metro is same people as mail, so probably lies anyway !

DrJ – Member 
For heavens sake jamba – just shut up for once. Please.

He has a valid point, and I do agree there is a large amount of political bashing at the moment, especially from Corbyn’s camp, when Labour themselves could have a role in it over the years.

So, for heavens sake, enough with the Jamba bashing 😉 . If anyone else had said what he said, the lynch mob wouldn’t be out. Not saying I always agree with what he says, but he can just say it’s a nice day today and you’ll lay into him. Just chill 😀

poly – Member 
Just to be clear: currently the suggestion is the fire started in a residents flat as a result of a fault with a fridge? Are you suggesting the owner of that fridge is to blame for the fire? Or the person who designed/built it possibly 10 years ago?

Who knows at this stage, but it’s not beyond realms of possibility that the owner of the fridge has some responsibility. If it was a legit purchase from a reputable store and it just burst into flames, then no. If it was from dodgy bloke down the pub or ebay, then who knows what condition it was or whether it’s been made with safety standards that apply to the EU.

Or maybe it was an overloaded socket.

Who knows. At this stage you may as well blame Mrs May, as she’s obviously to blame for everything anyway.

That and evil corporates. Yes, Corbyn did say this was corporate manslaughter. Again, without evidence. Though we all know he thinks all businesses are evil if they make profit.

On that note, somewhat disgusted at the Daily Fail’s latest attack at the owners of the business that supplied the cladding. They’ve gone through all the owners, their family, relations, even their kids, and laid into them massively for being rich tax avoiders, owning nice cars and houses, going on nice holidays, kids in nice schools. What does it have to do with supplying the cladding as specified and meeting the council’s spec and requirements? Somewhat surprised also on their attack given these would be the Tory rich they’d normally defend.

Speculation and regurgitating from news outlets is, at best, unhelpful
The same can be said of attempts to politicise such a tragedy – in this forum and elsewhere.
Can we please just stick to the facts – few though they are at this stage.
Criticise May or not showing visible compassion – that’s a personal failing.
Criticise kensington council for ineptitude in every regard since 1am tuesday – that is inexcusable.
Other than that I have nothing more to say about this – until the facts are established.

For context, what jamba said was :

Trying to make this party political and something about May personally is absolutely disgraceful.
Labour passed a law in 2007 requiring all high rise new build to have sprinklers, why not existing buildings ?

So is making party political comment “disgraceful” or not?

but he can just say it’s a nice day today and you’ll lay into him.

If he says it’s a nice day I’ll be sure to take my coat.

One of the Guardian articles mentioned a less than £5k saving on cladding material by a contractor. (I’m slightly out of it due to an infection so my source may be incorrect).
If that’s true and people died for the sake of £5k then someone needs making an example of.

Good to see the good old british Knee Jerk reaction still in full effect:

What we think we know:

1) it was the conservatives fault
2) It was Labours fault
3) it was some ethinic minorities fault
4) It was some fat cats fault
5) It was (insert your own favorite here) fault

What we actually know:

1) a fire started
2) that fire spread to the whole building
3) A number of people were killed by that fire

The more we break out the Blame Throwers the less the chance we have of actually preventing this sort of thing happening again (oh, and eventually it will, happen again that is, because that’s life. There’s 5B of us on the planet, and someones going to die due to something happening, no matter ‘whose fault’ we believe it to be…..)

Lots of confusion in this thread on what is insulation and what is cladding.

ACM does not attempt to provide any insulation properties. The PE core is a structural part of the panel and at 3mm thick is not designed to provide any insulation.

The insulation properties of the wall construction will be provided by the insulation product used behind the cladding and ventilated cavity.

A class 0 rating refers to the speed at which a flame spreads across the surface of the product and isn’t related to how combustible it is. In the case of ACM, this will be how fast a flame spreads across the surface of the pvdf coated aluminium external skin of the material, not whether the core material itself will burn.

Approved doc B places limitations on the combustibility of insulation and filler materials used in external wall constructions when a building has a habitable floor level of more than 18m above external floor level (unless another route to compliance has been sought).

There have been quite a few recalls on fridges

http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/product-recalls/2013/11/samsung-fridge-freezers/

1) a fire started
2) that fire spread to the whole building
3) A number of people were killed by that fire

Umm no. We know that a fire started. That it spread very quickly – much more quickly than had been anticipated when safety guidelines were drawn up. We know that the fire spread via the cladding. We know that a variety of cladding are available, not all of which are highly fire retardant.

Beyond that we know that a lot of people lost their homes (I refer to the lucky ones). These people did not receive adequate support in the immediate aftermath of the fire

We know that the Queen visited the scene and met victims. We know that Theresa May did not.

So – that’s for starters.

Things like this really bring out the best of people, the comments urgh
https://mobile.twitter.com/DVATW/status/876012267476848640

Lots of confusion in this thread on what is insulation and what is cladding.

My fault, apologies for that – I’m more used to cladding panels that do provide insulation.

ACM does not attempt to provide any insulation properties. The PE core is a structural part of the panel and at 3mm thick is not designed to provide any insulation.

I’m genuinely curious: why is PE used as opposed to PIR, PU or other materials?

green tricky, i knew i shouldn’t click on your link, FFS what is wrong with some people!

The government/councils response so appears to be a shambles, at least that’s how it’s being perceived by some of the survivors and reporters

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40312564

+1mrmo

@slowster, i can try and explain i used to work for Corus Building Systems a few years ago so was involved in supply side.

First you need to achieve a flat surface for a facade and i mean flat, this is one of the big issues with composite panels, and why most of the PIR panels have traditionally been microrib and not flat. Very easy to make a crap flat panel that when lit by the sun is anything but flat.

The material comes off a coil and the tension is VERY hard to remove.

There are various ways of making the panels one method is ACM, you can then use a cutter to v notch the sheet which allows nice corners to be formed, and it keeps stiffness that you wouldn’t get out of .5/.7 or even .9 steel and alumnium. Obviously as the material is aluminium it is light which helps with the loading on the building. The way our panel was made was as a aluminium honeycomb and a skin bonded on. Bit more flexibility that way, but as most specs are pretty conservative colour, doesn’t really matter

DrJ We know that the fire spread via the cladding

Actually, we don’t KNOW that. We SUSPECT that is the case, but as we haven’t yet set fire to a full scale identical replica without cladding we don’t KNOW that!

This is the difference between using real engineering facts and getting tied up in Politics and finger pointing.

What i’m sure WILL happen is that, using small scale tests and no doubt a lot of simulation, Thermal engineers will work out the exact effects of the cladding, and i bet it turns out to be not a simple as a lot of people suggest right now(the Swiss Cheese effect, so often found in aircraft accidents).

Unfortunately, removing the bodies, and then inspecting the remains of the tower will take months, and then the proper scientific studies and there conclusions yet more months. But apparently according to the press “people want ANSWERS” today. Well, guess what, they cant have them because a fire like this has many, many, complex interactions and effects, most of which can be somewhat obvious in hindsight, but generally are far less obvious amongst the ‘noise’ of real life before events take place.

Fire fighters view on how it went:
https://www.facebook.com/STUKFS/posts/1447285685292169

Unfortunately, removing the bodies, and then inspecting the remains of the tower will take months, and then the proper scientific studies and there conclusions yet more months. But apparently according to the press “people want ANSWERS” today.

Trouble is, there have been other fires, not least Lakanal House, that did lead to an inquiry, and a report and advice from people at the inquest that the regs needed review and overhaul. But they didn’t get that through successive administrations, and instead the people in charge of this area have diverted, avoided, and weasel-worded out of why it never happened (refer eg: Sajid Javid on Today program on Friday am)

And now this has happened and we’re being told we need an enquiry and not to jump to conclusions.

What faith should we have in the people saying that?

What could have been done since 2009 and wasn’t because of incompetence, and what is the price on that? Because hundreds of people’s lives isn’t apparently high enough.

I can perfectly see why people are fed up with being told not to jump to conclusions, and anger is high. Because i’m not even ‘affected’ and i’m **** livid.

The last high profile inquiry May set up is on its 3rd? leader and had victims groups disavowing it.
Historical child abuse obviously different, but it didn’t instill faith.

@mrmo, thank you again. It never occurred to me that there might be a technical reason for the microrib finish – every day’s a school day. As for the ACM PE core, I presume that would be cheaper than the aluminium honeycomb core used by Corus.

3mm or 4mm of expanded PE foam, even over all the external walls, seems relatively little: I would have expected it to burn intensely and rapidly spread fire through the panel, but also to be consumed very quickly. As you say, it may be its interaction with the PIR boards behind that is key to this, which will require a lot more investigation and probably large scale tests to simulate the fire. That is going to take time. In the meantime local authorities in the UK are currently checking the cladding on their tower blocks, but presumably all they know to check for at the moment is that none have PE core cladding.

These issues have been raised as far back as 2000. The Blair government mandated sprinklers for new builds but not to retro fit. Clearly that looks to have been a poor decison in hindsight which subsequent governments should have addressed. The cladding is there to provide insulation / energy efficiency, as I said before a poor set of priorities. Cladding £2.6m, sprinkler system £150k 😥

. The Blair government….

Politicising it again ?

Somehow trying to blame environmental concerns, is ridiculous, here’s a thought, could it not possible to improve housing stock while at the same time improving fire safety?

The way Germany managed to mandate sprinklers and safer cladding, ignoring the lessons from lakanal house deaths was a choice
It all plays in to the right wing obsession with deregulation and ‘Health & Safety Gone Mad’ ( I actually heard a posh old guy say this out loud to his wife as he read the telegraph in a cafe n Chiswick)

Maybe this tragedy will see the end of that ridiculous phrase (history would indicate not tho)

It all plays in to the right wing obsession with deregulation and ‘Health & Safety Gone Mad’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/5754533/Health-and-safety-fears-are-making-Britain-a-safe-place-for-extremely-stupid-people.html

Sorry, if it costs £2.6M to fit some cladding to the outside of that block, no way would a complete and effective sprinkler system be retrofitted for just £150k!

Politicising it again ?

so you link to 2009 essay that has nothing to do with building regs or fire safety, but is by a politician who you regard as the enemy.

Again, we have been going through a long period in which lobbyists have demanded that pedestrians be segregated from the streets with big steel railings; and though this may seem sensible in some ways, the railings produce perverse results. They add greatly to the hassle of getting around on foot. They make the streets less permeable to pedestrians – and by doing their bit to discourage walking, they may even be encouraging a fatal rise in obesity.

In any case, they are certainly a serious health hazard for cyclists, who are in danger of being crushed or scraped against them by vehicles. The same point can be made about some of the forest of black-poled signs that we allow to sprout in our paths, overloading us with non?information and creating a new collision risk to those who use the streets.

so you link to 2009 essay that has nothing to do with building regs or fire safety, but is by a politician who you regard as the enemy.

Yes I’m politicising it, not hypocritical enough to describe it as shameless, then immediately blame labour & Blair etc, in this case politicians HAVE failed the people they are supposed to serve

& I’m not gonna take any notice of Johnson, who turned the cycle super highway scheme into a giant advert for Barclays, painting some of the most dangerous roads in London blue, instead of segregating them as originally planned

Reading the link that Greenticky provided above really brings home just how under valued our Emergency Services are. It got pretty dusty in our living room whilst I was reading that heroes account of that terrible night.