The Grenfell Tower Fire

[Robin]

Hang on a minute... You seem to be suggesting that the product did not meet the standards required, its producers claimed it met the standards required, and independent testing would have revealed that it did not meet those standards?

That would be a rather serious allegation and not one I've seen backed up in any way by the news.

What I've seen is the suggestion that this material is made as building cladding and is legal under some building standards but not under others and may have been used either knowingly or unknowingly by contractors for purposes for which it did not meet building standards.

The company (which I'd read was Arconic, formerly Alcoa, and I don't know what the connection to Saint-Gobain is) says it has now withdrawn the product because of inconsistencies in building codes across the world. That may suggest that it's legal to use for tower blocks, but not in Britain. It could be that Arconic has supplied the cladding knowing it was unsuitable for the job (except they wouldn't know what the job was), or assuming it was due to legality elsewhere (except, again, they wouldn't know what the job was), or just supplied it to a client. I've never been asked if the bricks I'm buying are to be used in a castle, garage or barbecue, because suppliers don't ask or need to know, so I suspect it's just the latter.

All 70 of tower blocks now independently tested have failed. They have not revealed if these fails have been due to the cladding not meeting standards, or it not being the right type of cladding for this application in the first place. None of this is allegation, it's hypothesising where the weak link was based on the limited information we have so far. Is it so far fetched that the materials might have been improperly produced? I personally think it's highly unlikely given the company concerned but nothing should be disregarded at this point.

Have you watched Channel 4 News? They have pointed the finger at everyone from the very top to the very bottom.

The product on Grenfell Tower was Saint-Gobain Celotex FR5000 cladding.

 

[Danoff]

All 70 of tower blocks now independently tested have failed.

This suggests that a sample from each of these was taken to a lab and set on fire. I seriously doubt it. My guess would be that someone who knows took a look (possibly at a cross-section) and recognized that it wasn't the right stuff. Again, this is pure speculation, but it seems more probable than that a piece of 70 buildings was each transported to a testing facility.

 

[Famine]

The product on Grenfell Tower was Saint-Gobain Celotex FR5000 cladding.

Celotex is insulation, not cladding. I've got a load of it under my extension floor (and in the ceiling hopefully this week). The cladding is Arconic Reynobond PE, an aluminium sandwich with a plastic core thought to be responsible for the spread of the fire due to combustibility and the chimney effect of the air gap.

They have not revealed if these fails have been due to the cladding not meeting standards, or it not being the right type of cladding for this application in the first place. None of this is allegation, it's hypothesising where the weak link was based on the limited information we have so far.

Yeah, that is hypothesising. This comes across much stronger that hypothesis:

Thing is this wasn't some sus cheap brand of cladding. It was made by Saint Gobain (a name you have probably seen on car windscreen glass) and you would think a serious company like that would make something that meets the standards it claims to meet.

It seems at no point did anyone think to independently test these materials for the situation in which they would be used (high rise vs low rise etc). If they had indeed not met a certain specification that would have been identified as part of the testing. It could very well be that a contractor has misused the material either by accident or on purpose to save money.

That looks far more like an overt suggestion that a large company (and the wrong company) purposely - or incompetently - gave materials a certification that they shouldn't have.

I'm not sure that anyone is making that allegation right now (and if Channel 4 is, its corporate lawyers will be having kittens). I concur that it's a possibility in the chain of "How did a building material that shouldn't have been used in this application end up being used in this application", but it's not something that should be thrown round quite that firmly.

Personally, I think it'll come down to a contractor cock-up, from someone who's used this material in low-rise renovations (hospitals, local government buildings) and never thought to check that there were different regulations above the fourth floor. Councils like Kensington and housing associations like KCTMO accepted their bids tendered for the work without looking too closely and cladding that shouldn't be on tower blocks ended up on tower blocks nationwide. That'll still be criminal negligence, billions in damages and reparations and many, many counts of corporate manslaughter though.

Did 70 (presumably different contractors) all make the same decision/mistake?

I'd suggest that it's more likely that all of the renovations were carried out by the same handful of companies (or possibly even just one), as that's the nature of government contracts.

 

[prousonhairy]

On towers and high rises in Britain, do they use engineering firms that design them and specify what materials to use?

That's how it usually is here stateside. On something that large they usually use the materials that the engineering firm specify. It's not like building a house, where the general contractor can pick lesser grade materials and charge them for something better, then pocket the money.

To me, that would fall on the engineering firms responsibility.

 

[Famine]

On towers and high rises in Britain, do they use engineering firms that design them and specify what materials to use?

That's how it usually is here stateside. On something that large they usually use the materials that the engineering firm specify. It's not like building a house, where the general contractor can pick lesser grade materials and charge them for something better, then pocket the money.

To me, that would fall on the engineering firms responsibility.

This was a renovation in 2015. The original building was put up in 1974, designed in 1967.

 

[Robin]

Celotex is insulation, not cladding. I've got a load of it under my extension floor (and in the ceiling hopefully this week). The cladding is Arconic Reynobond PE, an aluminium sandwich with a plastic core thought to be responsible for the spread of the fire due to combustibility and the chimney effect of the air gap.

Although both are to blame the police seem the think the insulation was a bigger culprit here. Also the air gap where the funneling occured is between the insulation and the inner aluminium panel igniting the Celotex which spread the fire, nothing to do with the plastic core of the cladding which, although was a factor, wasn't the main one.

McCormack said: “Preliminary tests show the insulation samples collected from Grenfell Tower combusted soon after the tests started. The initial test on the cladding tiles also failed the safety tests.”

She added that the insulation proved “more flammable than the cladding”. McCormack said police would investigate how the tiles were installed.

That looks far more like an overt suggestion that a large company (and the wrong company) purposely - or incompetently - gave materials a certification that they shouldn't have.

I'm not sure that anyone is making that allegation right now

So why are numerous news sites and the even the Chancellor claming the cladding is already illegal in the UK? = Allegations of miscertified materials for UK use.

 

[Famine]

So why are numerous news sites and the even the Chancellor claming the cladding is already illegal in the UK? = Allegations of miscertified materials for UK use.

No, that's saying that materials which were used were not legal to use in that application. It's not an allegation that the company that makes it claimed it was legal...

And of course Celotex is flammable - it's PIR foam! It's basically polyurethane but it melts at higher temperatures. It's the cladding that shouldn't be and is legally required not to be on buildings over 18m, but was because the PE type of Reynobond - with a plastic core - was used instead of FR.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So why are numerous news sites and the even the Chancellor claming the cladding is already illegal in the UK? = Allegations of miscertified materials for UK use.

Below 5 stories in height the cladding (including insulation and fitting components) has to resist combustion for 30 mins. Above 5 stories it has to resist combustion for 60 mins. That's to give fire services time to arrive and extinguish any fire and to cool the surroundings. It seems clear that the cladding did not resist combustion for even 30 minutes at the height of the original fire - as I understand it the burning fridge was beside a window which is how the cladding was initially exposed to fire.

We also know that Camden council who have the same type of cladding (fitted by the same renovation company) have explicitly stated that their contract specified that the materials should satisfy the appropriate regulations (Fire Regulations Part B, I've linked it here twice already). Now the local fire service don't think they could contain/evacuate that building in the event of a similar (or maybe any) fire and this is the reason they've emptied the affected buildings of residents.

Moving on to how many buildings' cladding is failing the tests: I linked a good answer to your question earlier but you may have missed it. Several experts worry that the small pieces chopped from the cladding of each inspected building aren't sufficient in size to be properly testied and that the test itself isn't representative of the performance of a larger piece in a realistic fire (think of the fire resistance of logs versus kindling). The government have received serious stick for the mis-handling of the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire and must now be seen to be acting decisively with immediate results, the problem with a quick-thinking government is that they aren't always good at thinking quickly and the results of such thought aren't always accurate.

 

[Robin]

Moving on to how many buildings' cladding is failing the tests: I linked a good answer to your question earlier but you may have missed it. Several experts worry that the small pieces chopped from the cladding of each inspected building aren't sufficient in size to be properly testied and that the test itself isn't representative of the performance of a larger piece in a realistic fire (think of the fire resistance of logs versus kindling). The government have received serious stick for the mis-handling of the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire and must now be seen to be acting decisively with immediate results, the problem with a quick-thinking government is that they aren't always good at thinking quickly and the results of such thought aren't always accurate.

Thing is I don't agree that the government tests are too simplistic regardless of the criticism they may be under. I have every faith that after their mishandling of the aftermath they would test these panels properly and that if they deem taking one panel from here and there is enough then its enough. Surely it would be in their interest to have less, not more blocks, fail so if they are doing a poor job they certainly haven't done it in their favour!

 

[TenEightyOne]

Thing is I don't agree that the government tests are too simplistic regardless of the criticism they may be under. I have every faith that after their mishandling of the aftermath they would test these panels properly and that if they deem taking one panel from here and there is enough then its enough. Surely it would be in their interest to have less, not more blocks, fail so if they are doing a poor job they certainly haven't done it in their favour!

Experts have warned that far more comprehensive tests on the entire cladding system are needed to establish if buildings are as at-risk as Grenfell was, including the insulation and design details such as fire stops. The shadow housing secretary, John Healey, told the House of Commons that “cladding is not the whole story”.

“The government is fundamentally flawed in its use of the BRE to conduct overly simplistic and limited fire test samples and not the complete cladding assembly,” said Stephen Mackenzie, a fire risk consultant. “The small scale tests on external panels need to to be extended to a full disassembly.”

He said he had observed the removal of panels in three locations, including in Camden, and said he was worried that “we could be pulling off cladding systems that are potentially OK”.

Tens of thousands of people are facing uncertainty over whether they will be able to stay in their homes and hundreds have already been evacuated from the Chalcots estate towers in north London.

Barry Turner, director of technical policy at Local Authority Building Control, which represents council building control officers also asked: “I would like to know just what tests these panels are failing.”

“For any material to undergo a fire test as laid down in BS476 [which grades fire resistance] or one of the EU equivalent standards, you need a specific panel size, it needs to be mounted in a specific way,” he said. “There are fire tests done on individual products, but you need to test them combined [including insulation, cavity and fire stops] to see if they meet performance criteria for the job as a whole. That is how these systems are assessed for compliance with the building regulations.”

One architect responsible for some of the projects where cladding has been ruled to have failed, asked: “What are they testing to what standard? This could be a massively costly and disruptive error to thousands of residents.”

On the Chalcots estate, the assembly is said to have been designed with the approval of building control and has been tested in two real fires, the latest in 2012, in which the fire did not spread beyond a single flat. This could have been because of the way the panels were combined with non-combustible mineral fibre insulation, fire breaks. Cutting off and testing a piece of the aluminium cladding would not tell the government’s testers anything about that wider context.

I'm not saying they're doing the testing rightly or wronly, just that there are clear concerns from experts in the field about whether or not 25cm x 25cm is enough material to test for purpose.

Why might the government throw themselves at this? Firstly they were strongly (and rightly) criticized for their part in failing to react to the needs of the Grenfell survivors. Secondly they might just be burying some even worse news as Theresa May is busy doing the two worst deals in British government history: the Brexit discussion in Brussels and the DUP collaboration in, well, Hell I guess.

 

[Liquid]

That'll still be criminal negligence, billions in damages and reparations and many, many counts of corporate manslaughter though.

For whom? KCTMO or the Arconic contractor?

 

[Famine]

For whom? KCTMO or the Arconic contractor?

Good question. There's a lot of steps that went into the process of getting unsuitable building materials onto buildings. It might start with the materials being mis-certified (on purpose or not) by the manufacturer and it might end with the building contractors who screwed (or bolted) them in place, and there's myriad groups, steps and people in between, including the council that signed off on the completed work, and the building's owners.

If the materials were labelled as suitable, it's the manufacturer at fault. If they weren't, it's someone else - and there's a lot of someone elses.

 

[Touring Mars]

Good question. There's a lot of steps that went into the process of getting unsuitable building materials onto buildings. It might start with the materials being mis-certified (on purpose or not) by the manufacturer and it might end with the building contractors who screwed (or bolted) them in place, and there's myriad groups, steps and people in between, including the council that signed off on the completed work, and the building's owners.

If the materials were labelled as suitable, it's the manufacturer at fault. If they weren't, it's someone else - and there's a lot of someone elses.

The NYT article posted by @Dotini has a good synopsis of the situation - it would appear that the manufacturer states that the flammable version of their cladding should not be used over a certain building height in countries where that is the law (e.g. the US), but in the UK it depends on "local building codes"... which suggests that they are at least compliant with the law. One might have thought they could have added to that a strong recommendation that these products should not be used over a certain building height in any circumstances, but there you go - clearly, they are of the opinion that if the law allows a stupid decision to be made, then who are they to talk them out of it?

 

[Famine]

The NYT article posted by @Dotini has a good synopsis of the situation, it would appear that the manufacturer states that the flammable version of their cladding should not be used over a certain building height in countries where that is the law (e.g. the US), but in the UK it depends on "local building codes"... which suggests that they are at least compliant with the law. One might have thought they could have added to that a strong recommendation that these products should not be used over a certain building height in any circumstances, but there you go - clearly, they are of the opinion that if the law allows a stupid decision to be made, then who are they to talk them out of it?

That begs the question of who the hell is right then - it can't be both legal (but not recommended) and illegal as Hammond claimed.

 

[Dotini]

Edit: For those lacking the time to read even my excerpt of the article, I have bolded the parties to which you must direct your attention.

Key portions of the long article cite the long list of people you want to sue, prosecute, or otherwise condemn:

'The building they entered was built in 1974 in an architectural styleknown as Brutalism, and the original concrete structure, built without cladding, was designed to contain a fire in one apartment long enough for firefighters to prevent it from spreading very far. But the building’s floor plan gives a picture of what happened. Refrigerators in most apartments appear to have been positioned against an exterior wall, next to a window and just a few inches from the cladding installed in the renovation.

When the refrigerator on the fourth floor burst into flames, the fire ignited the flammable cladding and shot up the side of the building. The London police confirmed that on Friday and identified the refrigerator brand as Hotpoint. But experts who saw footage of the blaze had known the culprit at once. “You can tell immediately it’s the cladding,” said Glenn Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

The first well-known use of aluminum cladding on a high-rise was on the Alcoa Building, in Pittsburgh, erected as the manufacturer’s headquarters. Makers of cladding promoted it as both aesthetically striking and energy-efficient, because the aluminum surface reflects back heat and light. Demand for cladding surged with rising fuel costs and concerns about global warming, and over time, producers began selling it in a thin “sandwich” design: Two sheets of aluminum around a core made of flammable plastics like polyethylene.

The cladding is typically paired with a much thicker layer of foam insulation against the building’s exterior wall, as was the case at Grenfell Tower. Then the cladding may be affixed to the wall with metal studs, leaving a narrow gap between the cladding and the insulation.

But by 1998, regulators in the United States — where deaths from fires are historically more common than in Britain or Western Europe — began requiring real-world simulations to test any materials to be used in buildings taller than a firefighter’s two-story ladder. “The U.S. codes say you have to test your assembly exactly the way you install it in a building,” said Robert Solomon, an engineer at the National Fire Protection Association, which is funded in part by insurance companies and drafts model codes followed in the United States and around the world.

No aluminum cladding made with pure polyethylene — the type used at Grenfell Tower — has ever passed the test, experts in the United States say. The aluminum sandwiching always failed in the heat of a fire, exposing the flammable filling. And the air gap between the cladding and the insulation could act as a chimney, intensifying the fire and sucking flames up the side of a building. Attempts to install nonflammable barriers at vertical and horizontal intervals were ineffective in practice.

As a result, American building codes have effectively banned flammable cladding in high-rises for nearly two decades. The codes also require many additional safeguards, especially in new buildings or major renovations: automatic sprinkler systems, fire alarms, loudspeakers to provide emergency instructions, pressurized stairways designed to keep smoke out and multiple stairways or fire escapes.

And partly because of the influence of American architects, many territories around the world follow the American example. But not Britain.

Safety vs. Cost
British schoolchildren study the Great Fire of London, in 1666, the way American pupils might learn about the Boston Tea Party or the first Thanksgiving. But the legacy of the fire is also still felt in Britain’s building codes, experts say. London’s original great fire leapt across wooden buildings. And since then, British building codes have focused primarily on the principle of stopping the spread of flames between buildings or, within larger structures, between units.

With fire prevention in Britain, “you put all your eggs in one basket,” said Edwin Galea, director of the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich. And for decades, this was fairly effective. Britain has long reported far fewer deaths from fires relative to population than the United States, and typically, fewer than 350 residents die each year in fires (compared with more than 3,000 in the United States).

But as early as 1999, after a fire in Irvine, Scotland, British fire safety engineers warned Parliament that the advent of flammable cladding had opened a dangerous loophole in the regulations. The Irvine fire saw flames leap up panels at Garnock Court, a 14-story public housing block. One resident died, four others were injured and a parliamentary committee investigated the causes.

“To a certain extent, we are hoisted by the petard of what happened here in 1666, the Great Fire of London, and we look at fire as a horizontal problem, with a fire in one building affecting the exterior of another building,” Glynton Evans, a fire safety adviser to the firefighters’ union, said to Parliament. “The problem with cladding is that it will, if it is able, spread fire, and it will spread it vertically.”

The firefighters and engineers warned Parliament that British codes required only that the aluminum used in cladding resist ignition, even though the heat of a fire would breach the surface and expose the flammable material inside. Nor did the British rules require a test to evaluate risks in real-world conditions.

“If the cladding cannot resist the spread of flame across the surface, then it will vertically envelop the building,” Mr. Evans warned, in testimony that now seems prophetic. “In other words, the fire will spread to the outside of the building, and it will go vertically.” Many other fire safety experts would repeat those concerns in the following years.

But manufacturers argued against new tests or rules. Using fire-resistant materials was more expensive, a cost that industry advocates opposed.

“Any changes to the facade to satisfy a single requirement such as fire performance will impinge on all other aspects of the wall’s performance as well as its cost,” Stephen Ledbetter, the director of the Center for Window and Cladding Technology, an industry group, wrote in testimony to Parliament.

“Fire resistant walls,” he added, “are not economically viable for the prevention of fire spread from floor to floor of a building,” and “we run the risk of using a test method because it exists, not because it delivers real benefits to building owners or users.” (In an interview last week, Mr. Ledbetter said his group had updated its position earlier this year to warn against the type of cladding used at Grenfell Tower.)

Business-friendly governments in Britain — first under Labor and then under the Conservatives — campaigned to pare back regulations. A 2005 law known as the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order ended a requirement for government inspectors to certify that buildings had met fire codes, and shifted instead to a system of self-policing. Governments adopted slogans calling for the elimination of at least one regulation for each new one that was imposed, and the authorities in charge of fire safety took this to heart.

“If you think more fire protection would be good for U.K. business, then you should be making the case to the business community, not the government,” Brian Martin, the top civil servant in charge of drafting building-safety guidelines, told an industry conference in 2011, quoting the fire minister then, Bob Neill. (“Should we be looking to regulate further? ‘No’ would be my answer,’” Mr. Neill added.)

Mr. Martin, a former surveyor for large-scale commercial projects like the Canary Wharf, told his audience to expect few new regulations because the prime minister at the time, David Cameron, wanted to greatly reduce the burden on industry, according to a report by the conference organizers.

Two years later, in 2013, a coroner questioned Mr. Martin about the application of building regulations in the case of another London fire, which killed six people and injured 15 others at a public housing complex called Lakanal House. Mr. Martin defended the existing regulations, including the lack of a requirement for meaningful fire resistance in the paneling on the outside of an apartment tower.

A questioner told him that the public might be “horrified” to learn that the rules permitted the use of paneling that could spread flames up the side of a building in as little as four-and-a-half minutes. “I can’t predict what the public would think,” Mr. Martin replied, “but that is the situation.”

Moving to a requirement that the exterior of a building be “noncombustible,” Mr. Martin said, “limits your choice of materials quite significantly.”

After the coroner’s report, a cross-party coalition of members of Parliament petitioned government ministers to reform the regulations, including adding automatic sprinklers and revisiting the standards for cladding. “Today’s buildings have a much higher content of readily available combustible material,” the group wrote in a letter sent in December 2015 that specifically cited the risk of chemicals in “cladding.”

“This fire hazard results in many fires because adequate recommendations to developers simply do not exist. There is little or no requirement to mitigate external fire spread,” added the letter, which was first reported last week by the BBC.

In 2014, the Fire Protection Research Foundation, an organization in the United States, counted 20 major high-rise fires involving cladding. In at least a half-dozen — in France, Dubai, South Korea, the United States and elsewhere — the same type of panels installed at Grenfell Tower caught fire. A 2014 fire in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in multiple investigations into the dangers of combustible cladding. Another fire broke out in Dubai, around a 60-story skyscraper, on New Year’s Eve of 2015, and yet another, around a 70-story skyscraper there, this April.

But in Britain, still no changes were made. “The construction industry appears to be stronger and more powerful than the safety lobby,” said Ronnie King, a former fire chief who advises the parliamentary fire safety group. “Their voice is louder.”

As recently as March, a tenant blogger, writing on behalf of what he called the Grenfell Action Group, predicted a “serious and catastrophic incident,” adding, “The phrase ‘an accident waiting to happen’ springs readily to mind.”

For many tenants, an object of scorn was Grenfell Tower’s quasi-governmental owner, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization. It was created under legislation seeking to give public housing residents more say in running their buildings, and its board is made up of a mix of tenants, representatives of local government and independent directors. But Kensington and Chelsea is the largest tenant management organization in England, a sprawling anomaly supervising roughly 10,000 properties, more than 30 times the average for such entities. Tenants came to see it as just another landlord.

The organization had promised residents of Grenfell Tower that the renovation last year would improve both insulation and fire safety. Board minutes indicate that it worked closely with the London Fire Brigade throughout the process, and local firefighters attended a briefing afterward “where the contractor demonstrated the fire safety features.” During a board meeting last year, the organization even said it would “extend fire safety approach adopted at Grenfell Tower to all major works projects.” '

Edit: For those lacking the time to read even my excerpt of the article, I have bolded the parties to which you must direct your attention.

 

[Touring Mars]

That begs the question of who the hell is right then - it can't be both legal (but not recommended) and illegal as Hammond claimed.

The manufacturers merely state that use of the flammable version of their product "depends on local building codes", so they don't say that it's legal; but nor do they say it is not recommended. Hammond has claimed that use of flammable cladding is illegal (but was later reminded that it is only illegal to use on building that are over 18m high). The manufacturers do at least state that the use of that material 'depends on the law' and presumably consumers should act accordingly. The big question is whether those in charge of buying these materials knew that using the cheaper, flammable option was not legal on high rise flats, but went ahead with them anyway because they were cheaper - or whether they were simply unaware of the law regarding the use of such products, or the fact that the product they opted for was flammable.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The manufacturers merely state that use of the flammable version of their product "depends on local building codes", so they don't say that it's legal; but nor do they say it is not recommended. Hammond has claimed that use of flammable cladding is illegal (but was later reminded that it is only illegal to use on building that are over 18m high). The manufacturers do at least state that the use of that material 'depends on the law' and presumably consumers should act accordingly. The big question is whether those in charge of buying these materials knew that using the cheaper, flammable option was not legal on high rise flats, but went ahead with them anyway because they were cheaper - or whether they were simply unaware of the law regarding the use of such products, or the fact that the product they opted for was flammable.

Or the regulations fell short and the materials were legally acceptable to use.

 

[TenEightyOne]

The manufacturers merely state that use of the flammable version of their product "depends on local building codes"

That's true in the UK insofar as the regulations differ across NI, Scotland and England & Wales.

Or the regulations fell short and the materials were legally acceptable to use.

Flammable options can be entirely legal but must resist combustion for 60 mins (or 30 mins below 5 storeys) as stated in the Part B regulations that I've linked in this thread a few times. It seems clear that the Grenfell cladding didn't display that mandatory property and was therefore illegal under the "building codes" for England & Wales.

But as early as 1999, after a fire in Irvine, Scotland, British fire safety engineers warned Parliament that the advent of flammable cladding had opened a dangerous loophole in the regulations. The Irvine fire saw flames leap up panels at Garnock Court, a 14-story public housing block. One resident died, four others were injured and a parliamentary committee investigated the causes.

“To a certain extent, we are hoisted by the petard of what happened here in 1666, the Great Fire of London, and we look at fire as a horizontal problem, with a fire in one building affecting the exterior of another building,” Glynton Evans, a fire safety adviser to the firefighters’ union, said to Parliament. “The problem with cladding is that it will, if it is able, spread fire, and it will spread it vertically.”

I covered the Irvine fire earlier, and it wasn't addressed as a single "British" issue as that country definition has no place in respect of UK fire laws. The recommendations made in 2000 for England and Wales were based on the Irvine fire and are in the Part B fire regs (I wonder if anybody here read them?). Scottish regulations were similarly amended.

Two years later, in 2013, a coroner questioned Mr. Martin about the application of building regulations in the case of another London fire, which killed six people and injured 15 others at a public housing complex called Lakanal House. Mr. Martin defended the existing regulations, including the lack of a requirement for meaningful fire resistance in the paneling on the outside of an apartment tower.

Again, the requirement is for a minimum of 60 minutes resistance to combustion. Whether or not that is "meaningful" is a subject that will surely be well covered in the coming weeks and months. In the case of Grenfell it's a moot point - none of the cladding came close to that minimum performance requirement.

And since then, British building codes have focused primarily on the principle of stopping the spread of flames between buildings or, within larger structures, between units.

Boundary regulation is as important as structural regulation, but I wouldn't say that boundary provision forms the bulk of England & Wales' regulations by any means. Read them and see if you agree.

A questioner told him that the public might be “horrified” to learn that the rules permitted the use of paneling that could spread flames up the side of a building in as little as four-and-a-half minutes. “I can’t predict what the public would think,” Mr. Martin replied, “but that is the situation.”

Panelling perhaps, cladding... no. Read the bloody thing

But manufacturers argued against new tests or rules. Using fire-resistant materials was more expensive, a cost that industry advocates opposed.

And yet fire resistant materials are exactly what have been prescribed for nearly 20 years.

That begs the question of who the hell is right then - it can't be both legal (but not recommended) and illegal as Hammond claimed.

If it meets the criteria of the Part B regulations then it's legal to use. We need to see proper testing of the materials under appropriate test conditions to know if the materials specified in each of the projects in question meet that legality. In my opinion it's very likely that any materials that perform similarly to the Grenfell cladding will fall far short of those minimum legal requirements for use.

 

[Danoff]

Flammable options can be entirely legal but must resist combustion for 60 mins (or 30 mins below 5 storeys) as stated in the Part B regulations that I've linked in this thread a few times. It seems clear that the Grenfell cladding didn't display that mandatory property and was therefore illegal under the "building codes" for England & Wales.

Just to throw more fuel on... uh... to add one more possibility to the discussion... it may be that the material was certified as meeting the 60 min combustion due to a test that doesn't adequately ensure that that is the case.

One of so many possibilities that still seem to be available.

 

[adamp93]

The article @TenEightyOne posted states one of the buildings evacuated recently had a fire 5 years ago that didn't spread beyond one flat. Surely that's testing enough unless the cladding/insulation system has changed since?

 

[Johnnypenso]

The article @TenEightyOne posted states one of the buildings evacuated recently had a fire 5 years ago that didn't spread beyond one flat. Surely that's testing enough unless the cladding/insulation system has changed since?

It could simply mean the windows were closed and the fire never migrated outside of the unit.

 

[Liquid]

There are a lot of fears for people who live in tower blocks elsewhere in the UK. There's one in Flint, the town next to where I grew up, but residents have been assured that there isn't a danger because the cladding in that block isn't the same as the one used on Grenfell and thusly, no additional testing is needed.

I don't know about you but I wouldn't necessarily be reassured by that.

Oh, but the fire station in the town where I did grow up apparently is cladded with the same material as Grenfell.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Oh, but the fire station in the town where I did grow up apparently is cladded with the same material as Grenfell.

That's okay, they never burn down

 

[Dennisch]

I don't know about you but I wouldn't necessarily be reassured by that.

I would rip off a piece of cladding and try to set it on fire. And film it of course.

 

[TenEightyOne]

@Famine's had a busy day splitting this thread's posts out from the Britain thread - thank you Famine

The leader of Kensington council has just resigned (I thought he already had). Meanwhile there are strong suggestions that the cladding type of Grenfell tower was "downgraded" during the specification process. Kensington council have also been rebuked over their attempts (foiled by a rushed High Court application) to hold their meetings in private.

 

[Famine]

@Famine's had a busy day splitting this thread's posts out from the Britain thread - thank you Famine

Aside from the three posts I had to clone into both threads, it wasn't too much of a trauma

 

[Danoff]

@Famine's had a busy day splitting this thread's posts out from the Britain thread - thank you Famine

The leader of Kensington council has just resigned (I thought he already had). Meanwhile there are strong suggestions that the cladding type of Grenfell tower was "downgraded" during the specification process. Kensington council have also been rebuked over their attempts (foiled by a rushed High Court application) to hold their meetings in private.

And yet, there's this nugget:

Despite their differences, both types of cladding have the same official fire rating.

If you were on a council that was being shown a $300k savings in exchange for a material with the same fire rating...

 

[TenEightyOne]

If you were on a council that was being shown a $300k savings in exchange for a material with the same fire rating...

Definitely. Further to that there's an interesting article at the BBC about how the fire rating for the "bad" cladding might have been achieved - a "desktop study". I've worked on large petro-chem plants and I've never ever seen a desktop study that's led to an installation without physical testing evidence, it's only ever one part of a design process. If it's true that this cladding was approved by desktop study (and one paid for by the supplier at that) then to my mind it would be a good illustration of why such a process is fundamentally flawed.

 

[Liquid]

A very thought provoking recording from a Grenfell meeting. The first minute and a half is about the chairwoman talking about how people shouldn't be recording, then the lady with the badges has a 4 minute monologue detailling the conditions some people are put under.

They're already being told that accepting donations will affect their housing benefit and other DWP benefits. Some people are being evicted at 2 in the morning with no warning.

It's terrible. Whatever way you look at it, it's terrible.

 

[Lizard]

I used to live here.

http://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/ntu-students-evacuated-after-cladding-143874