Massive fire in London - Grenfell Tower in Shepherds Bush

[SIMMO SAYS]

I'm not sure what planet Camden Council are on if they think they can strip and reclad 5 tower blocks in "3-4 weeks" !

Absolutely no chance.

Absolute Farce

 

[SIMMO SAYS]

Absolute Farce

May should resign now - put Boris in charge of this Circus

 

[clapham_gull]

I'm not sure what planet Camden Council are on if they think they can strip and reclad 5 tower blocks in "3-4 weeks" !

Absolutely no chance.

I think your presence sums up what great about NSC. Someone who knows what they are talking about regarding something as obscure as cladding.

I also noted the grief you took

Out of interest I was looking at some "cladding" today. The cladding in the fire - it the core "encapsulated" by the metal outer or is that just primed to one side.

.. and how thick is the metal outer.

 

[East Preston Gull]

Is Lily Allen leading the March?
Are the UN aiding in safe passage of refugees.
****ing shambolic Republic of Greater London.

This City is a stain on our nation, maybe the home counties can vote to leave in a referendum and this precious place can do one and stay in the EU

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

 

[SIMMO SAYS]

I think your presence sums up what great about NSC. Someone who knows what they are talking about regarding something as obscure as cladding.

I also noted the grief you took

Out of interest I was looking at some "cladding" today. The cladding in the fire - it the core "encapsulated" by the metal outer or is that just primed to one side.

.. and how thick is the metal outer.

Have you just left the pub

 

[Butch Willykins]

I think your presence sums up what great about NSC. Someone who knows what they are talking about regarding something as obscure as cladding.

I also noted the grief you took

Out of interest I was looking at some "cladding" today. The cladding in the fire - it the core "encapsulated" by the metal outer or is that just primed to one side.

.. and how thick is the metal outer.

NSC has most bases covered!

ACM cladding is generally 4-6mm think. The two outer skins of aluminium are about 0.5mm thick. The edges are not sealed so if you look at it in profile you can see the core. From a flat sheet it is fabricated into a cassette by notching (scoring) the back and folding it into shape.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

SKY NEWS:

800 families being evacuated tonight from 5 tower blocks in Camden due to no guarantee of fire safety from London Fire Brigade.

This seems to be a decision that is at odds with the standard risk assessment methodology that I was taught. The likelihood of a major fire breaking out tonight is small, surely? Would it not be sufficient to draft in a team of fire wardens to watch for a fire and, should one arise, instigate evacuation procedures?

 

[clapham_gull]

Have you just left the pub

nah, working

 

[trueblue]

At least the Daily Mail is prepared to get to the heart of the problem:-

View attachment 86547

Oh the irony. As well as being complete CJTC's, there's no hyphen in misspelled (according to the Oxford English Dictionary).

 

[Thunder Bolt]

This seems to be a decision that is at odds with the standard risk assessment methodology that I was taught. The likelihood of a major fire breaking out tonight is small, surely? Would it not be sufficient to draft in a team of fire wardens to watch for a fire and, should one arise, instigate evacuation procedures?

Once an inspecting officer deems a building/factory/hotel is unsafe, it is closed down immediately. My son did inspections foe two years.

 

[neilbard]

Fire risk assessments for council tower blocks take place every year? If so why wasn't this picked up?

Fire safety certificates were discontinued in 2005. Instead they conduct fire risk assessments, why were Fire safety certificates discontinued in 2005?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

According to the Argus ( yes, yes, I know ) the Amex cladding is being checked.

 

[Randsta]

According to the Argus ( yes, yes, I know ) the Amex cladding is being checked.

Makes sense - wasn't Tyson involved with the building work at the Amex? Let's hope they didn't scrimp!!!

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[wellquickwoody]

Just why do Tragedies always happen under Tories .

Good question , anybody here know why .

Because a left wing political activist told them so.

 

[sjamesb3466]

am i right in thinking the doors they installed no longer comply to current specs as opposed to they deliberately fitted the wrong ones?

I remember years back having my work place inspected annually by the fire brigade, you could then find out about impending changes etc and do what was needed.
Then the self assessment fire risk assessment regime came in, annual inspections stopped overnight,had one gap of 4 years before anyone visited. He said your fire doors are now crap and so is your risk assessment, you have six months to put it right.So we put it right and all ended nice.
The fire chap also said self assessment was ridiculous......asking small business owners to assess fire risk when unqualified and muddle through a template form was madness.
can you imagine how much this happens up and down the country.

I doubt they deliberately fitted the wrong doors. I suspect one of a couple of possibilities although please note this is just from some industry experience rather than any knowledge or information from Grenfell. A. The least likely is that have either not been upgraded in 20-30 years and the doors don't meet current standards. B. Rules regarding what is and isn't acceptable as a fire door can be open to interpretation (usually door frame design/spec) and the people who have been tasked with installing and fitting didn't really know what they were doing. C. Many fire doors, especially in blocks of flats like these are designed to restrict fire but are not as smoke resistant. For example the doors I make all come with a low aluminium threshold that has a rubber seal that compresses against the front and bottom of the door. This combined with rubber gasket around the inside perimeter of the door alongside intumescent strips will prevent fire and almost all smoke for a designated time.

The other problem is that the companies fitting often have little idea of what they can or can't do. For example in the last 6 months I made 100 doors for a local authority up north and the fitters decided to cut big notches out of the frame so they could bypass cables/pipes that ran inside the structural opening of the entrance. This therefore takes material out of the thickness of the frame, reducing their volume and therefore invalidating their certification. It was only because we were supplying a new customer that I decided to visit site to make sure they were happy with the product that I saw what they had done and had to withdraw our certificate from all the doors. If I hadn't attended and seen this then it is likely that it may never had been picked up and I could not guarantee how the doors would perform in the event of a fire.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Once an inspecting officer deems a building/factory/hotel is unsafe, it is closed down immediately. My son did inspections foe two years.

I understand the principle. But, in other areas of life, it's isn't the case that finding a situation that is "unsafe" leads automatically to a decision to close down a facility.

For example ... a railway station platform is "unsafe", if it gets overcrowded. The solution to this problem isn't to close the station. The solution is to supervise access to the station and restrict access if safety limits are exceeded.

Closing the station completely creates other hazards that need mitigation just as much as the original identified problem. I'm not convinced that, on this occasion, the balance of risks was fully taken into account.

To return to the railway example, I recall the King's Cross Underground fire. One of the contributory factors to the death toll was that there was a fault with the fire alarm system. London Underground initially dealt with this finding by deciding that every time a fire alarm fault was found, the station would be closed until the fault was fixed. This was soon realised to be the wrong decision, when it was realised that forcing thousands of people out of the underground system created its own set of hazards, far outweighing the risks that a fatal fire might ensue. Reviewing fire safety doesn't require complete closure of facilities.

 

[neilbard]

Once an inspecting officer deems a building/factory/hotel is unsafe, it is closed down immediately. My son did inspections foe two years.

I understand the principle. But, in other areas of life, it's isn't the case that finding a situation that is "unsafe" leads automatically to a decision to close down a facility.

For example ... a railway station platform is "unsafe", if it gets overcrowded. The solution to this problem isn't to close the station. The solution is to supervise access to the station and restrict access if safety limits are exceeded.

Closing the station completely creates other hazards that need mitigation just as much as the original identified problem. I'm not convinced that, on this occasion, the balance of risks was fully taken into account.

To return to the railway example, I recall the King's Cross Underground fire. One of the contributory factors to the death toll was that there was a fault with the fire alarm system. London Underground initially dealt with this finding by deciding that every time a fire alarm fault was found, the station would be closed until the fault was fixed. This was soon realised to be the wrong decision, when it was realised that forcing thousands of people out of the underground system created its own set of hazards, far outweighing the risks that a fatal fire might ensue. Reviewing fire safety doesn't require complete closure of facilities.

I think it maybe an insurance issue too.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Fire risk assessments for council tower blocks take place every year? If so why wasn't this picked up?

Fire safety certificates were discontinued in 2005. Instead they conduct fire risk assessments, why were Fire safety certificates discontinued in 2005?

Post #704 has a link to the RIBA statement that does explain some of this, plus the loss of the client Clerk of Works on site, Design &Build procurement etc.

 

[neilbard]

Fire risk assessments for council tower blocks take place every year? If so why wasn't this picked up?

Fire safety certificates were discontinued in 2005. Instead they conduct fire risk assessments, why were Fire safety certificates discontinued in 2005?

Post #704 has a link to the RIBA statement that does explain some of this, plus the loss of the client Clerk of Works on site, Design &Build procurement etc.

Thanks this explains some of it albeit a little after the horse has bolted the whole thing is a right mess.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Thanks this explains some of it albeit a little after the horse has bolted the whole thing is a right mess.

I started studying architecture in 1992, and it has been a slow process of deregulation, step by step, almost without noticing, there has been a slow erosion of the checks the industry used to have from the local fire officer, building control officer, architect, the client's on site clerk of works, layers of checking, inspecting and certifying. It was also an expensive way of procuring a building, requiring the client to appoint an architect, CoWs etc. and contractor's started saying, hang on, we can hire our own architect and do this checking more cheaply. So we had the rise in Design and Build contracts, the almost extinction of the CoW, and a tendering model that only ever seems interested in the lowest tender.

This was exemplified when Building Control Services were deregulated so that they could be provided by private companies as well as local authorities. The conflict of interest in a private company with a regular client being asked to ensure they enforce the regulations to the letter at the risk of upsetting what is effectively their client! It is a perverse thing to have happened, and it is no surprise that developers and contractors have their preferred private company building control over the local authority.

We've only just started to see the impact of the industry from this, and rightly the repercussions are going to last years, and may well transform the industry as a whole, reevaluating the building procurement models we have.