Grenfell Tower Fire (London England)

[RainbowUnicorn]

tripped over this bbc article

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40283980

so i had a look to see who this cladding company are.

Hidden away in theirs "news" section which is a link and not actually posted for easy reading
is this


http://www.harleyfacades.co.uk/page/8031/article/727

STATEMENT FROM HARLEY FACADES LTD
 
Harley Facades Limited completed the refurbishment work to Grenfell Tower.  This included the installation of exterior cladding. The Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) panels are a commonly used product in the refurbishment industry.  Harley Facades Limited do not manufacture these panels.
Commenting on the fire, Ray Bailey, Managing Director at Harley Facades Limited said:
“This is an incredibly tragic incident.  Our thoughts are with the residents and their families who have suffered such a personal loss.  We will fully support and cooperate with the investigations into this fire.  There will be many questions about this whole incident and so you will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for us to comment or for others to speculate on any aspect of fire or it causes in advance of these inquiries.   At this time, we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower.”

particular note here

so you will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for us to comment or for others to speculate on any aspect of fire or it causes in advance of these inquiries.

then

At this time, we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower.”

now for a construction company that deals with high rise high risk health and safety & extreem material use(sticking it to the side of a high rise safely for decsdes of use)

They seem to be making a statement of scientific beleif when they have just asked others t not speculate.

the (wide ranging different types & angles) video footage (& countless photographs) clearly shows the fire spreading up the cladding.

a company that charges millions for its services delivering such a shady poor quality public statement in such a time is quite a statement in its self i suspect.

the cladding was burning and setting other cladding on fire as it spread up the outside of the building.
"that is an indisputable scientific fact"

Direct Link of indisputable scientific fact ?

additionally ...
the burning walls of cladding falling on the rescuers which directly prevented some people from being rescued seems quite astouding.

[Zinjanthropos]

I think you nailed it RU. TheY ask not speculate but do so themselves. I always suspect organized crime whenever building materials fail. Either that or poor safety practices for company involved. Building code may need updating also.

[RainbowUnicorn]

I think you nailed it RU. TheY ask not speculate but do so themselves. I always suspect organized crime whenever building materials fail. Either that or poor safety practices for company involved. Building code may need updating also.

i was pondering the old days when there was a government testing department that would test such things to ensure they meet nationally accepted norms.
# note nationally accepted norms went over and above any claim by the product sales team and delivered a purely un-biased guide to what the industry should be following.

Globally it 'appears' that since the 90s building codes have been deliberately removed to allow a lower standard of quality.

[C C]

There was a television interview with an expert wonk last week who asserted that a few years ago safety reports about this cladding material's flammability were resting in the office of whatever department evaluates these matters in terms of approval. But the administrator in charge at the time passed over doing anything about it, perhaps due to pressure to meet the EU and the UK standards for energy efficiency.[1] This stuff was apparently already utilized and in wide distribution for accommodating those energy efficiency demands (immense setbacks for the goals if those refurbishments and new projects had to be scrapped / redone).

Another obstacle is that the tenants are often caught between a rock and hard place. If the landlords do offer to accede to their concerns, then there's potential that a building (after meticulous evaluation) will just be condemned rather than completely overhauled or subjected to modification yet again because the last "improvements" were actually risky. Resulting in the edifice being demolished, the property sold, and whatever replaces it being too expensive for the former residents to afford (granting that the latter even is a dwelling complex). So the tenants may nervously back away from their initial demands for remedying their fears via this or that.[2]

[1] Did EU regulation mean deadly cladding was used on Grenfell Tower?

EXCERPT: [...] It underwent an £8.6million refurbishment last year with external cladding put on for insulation purposes as part of a series of improvements enhancing the energy efficiency of the tower. EU regulations set out rules for buildings’ energy consumption with Britain signed up to the 2010 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Under the directive, the UK is required to report to the European Commission on progress towards national energy efficiency targets each year. Article 24 of the directive was cemented into UK law in April 2014 and a Government report says “bringing as many residential and commercial buildings as possible up to a high level of energy performance is a priority for the UK Government”.

Cladding is often used to improve energy efficiency and it is thought there could be up to 30,000 buildings in the UK fitted with similar cladding to that used on Grenfell Tower. Foam boards coated in zinc rainproof sheets were spaced across the 24-storey building as part of the refurbishment. The building’s design and access statement says: “The over-cladding works are an integral part of the upgrade to the heating of the building, while also being a complete overhaul to its appearance.” Experts say the foam panel helped spread the fire quickly with the gap between the cladding and building acting as a chimney.

Express.co.uk asked Geoff Wilkinson, MD of Wilkinson Construction Consultants, if EU laws on improving energy efficiency have any impact on building renovations in the UK. He said: “In short yes the laws did - there is not currently a requirement to retrofit insulation but if you reroof or re-clad a building you are required to upgrade insulation providing it's technically and economically possible to do so.”

[...] Mr Wilkinson wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "These plastic or metal panels are installed to protect a building from weather or improve its appearance, but between them and the wall there is a cavity where rain can run down. "In the event of a fire this acts like a chimney, drawing the hot air up through itself and making the flames burn brighter. In this way fire [travels] all the way up from the base of the building to the very top. "Once spread via cladding, the fire could have caught on curtains blowing through windows left open on a hot summer’s night."

- - - -

[2] Was London's Grenfell Tower Fire Preventable?

EXCERPT: [...] Serhan: Grenfell tenants voiced concerns about safety, writing last year that “only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord.” How common are such concerns when it comes to council housing?

Hanley: People’s concerns about council housing in London to date have been more to do with gentrification and the very intense pressure placed on tenants of council housing to agree to regeneration programs. These often end up in their housing being demolished and then them getting displaced so they don’t get to live in the area or even the borough that they’ve made their lives in and then sort of nominally given the right of return once the estate is regenerated and coming back to find that the housing is unaffordable. Essentially it was a way of getting rid of them so they could build luxury flats on the space.

[...]

Serhan: Some reports suggest the Grenfell Tower fire spread so quickly because of flammable cladding used during the building’s 2015 refurbishment.

Hanley: Yes, the cladding itself that was used was flammable and should have never been used. One of the issues when tower blocks are clad or re-clad in that way is that there is a necessary gap between the cladding and the building itself that allows the cladding to expend and contract in poor weather, but that cavity can also technically mean that if a fire starts the fire can be sucked up like a vacuum between the cladding and the exterior, which appears to be what happened in the case of Grenfall.

- - -

[Zinjanthropos]

Poor engineering? Are the standards setting agencies getting the cream of the crop, can they hold , maintain or even pay the best as far as engineers go. I remember a time talking to a young engineer fresh out of college who showed me this new insulating gasket she was going to use on something she was working on. The gasket was going between two metal flanges and would interrupt any electric current flow to prevent corrosion. I took one look at it and said, "-Are you sure?" I'm not kidding you when I say that it was evident to my eyes that there was obviously metal contained in the gasket material. In the end it turned out I was correct, the gasket was non insulating. I just rolled my eyes once truth was known. Makes me wonder how easy is it to graduate these days? Where do the exceptional end up, where do the the less than gifted end up? Who are the safety standard agencies getting?

[RainbowUnicorn]

Seven residential high-rise buildings in four local authority areas have been found to be covered in combustible cladding following safety tests.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40366646

[RainbowUnicorn]

Poor engineering? Are the standards setting agencies getting the cream of the crop, can they hold , maintain or even pay the best as far as engineers go. I remember a time talking to a young engineer fresh out of college who showed me this new insulating gasket she was going to use on something she was working on. The gasket was going between two metal flanges and would interrupt any electric current flow to prevent corrosion. I took one look at it and said, "-Are you sure?" I'm not kidding you when I say that it was evident to my eyes that there was obviously metal contained in the gasket material. In the end it turned out I was correct, the gasket was non insulating. I just rolled my eyes once truth was known. Makes me wonder how easy is it to graduate these days? Where do the exceptional end up, where do the the less than gifted end up? Who are the safety standard agencies getting?

Diet pills for an economy that will buldoze through greasy takeaways for dinner every night if it makes them more money.

the sociopathic monster is everyone running away screaming "i didnt touch it"

Surely there is a government building manager who is paid and employed to know the regulations & make sure things are safe.

you wouldnt pack a family up in a car that had never been tested and send them on a long road trip.

why is it different with residential buildings ?
... because those making the money off it can wash their hands and run away quickly & blame someone else.

pandering to the smallest profit margin in a punch n judy show of whos the best capitalist fiscal conservative for poor housing ?

or just a bunch of Ego-Centric dummys parading around pretending to know what they are ding ?

One thing i feel confident in saying is that those responsible are unlikely to have intended to be Britains worste mass murderers

[RainbowUnicorn]

800 apartments evacuated
thats around 2000 people give or take.


http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40389148

as an observation watching the cnn footage on the same news item (which i have already seen from several different videos)
i notice the fire on the inside appears to have spread to the outside then back to the inside.

or did it spread through the inside ?

it seems astounding that a fire in 1 apartment has set fire to the entire building.
and... it is not that the cladding has burnt off but the entire upper floors have been completely burnt out.

it leaves me wondering if the gib-board is soo old that it is unable to slow fire adequitly
americans call it dry-wall.

maybe there is soo much fuel in 1 single apartment main room that once on fire it can not be slowed by the internal walls.

i think the council has made the right call evacuating the affected buildings.

external dry risers venting primarily to the only stair well might be a good idea.

[RainbowUnicorn]

update

27 tower blocks have now been identified as having the same cladding..
AND...
it appears they think the insulation of the gas pipes might be out of code which could explain the fire spread speed.
Additionally the fire breaks in the building may not be up to code either.

fire breaks as i have called them are key points where greater fire prevention material should be used along with smoke stop doors which have heat ratings on them to slow fire spread allowing time for evacuation and time for the fire brigade to get the fire under control.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40391395

Cladding on 27 tower blocks in 15 council areas in England has failed fire safety tests, the government says.

just to give an idea of ball park figures soo far at 27 that is aproximately 1.6 billion pounds
That is 2.07 Billion US dollars worth of work that is needing to be re-done at todays prices which may be up to 25% more expensive
US Dollars = roughly give or take 100 million = $2,592,000,000.00
if it is correct that the gas pipes and fire wall/breaks need to be re-fitted that could add another 5% to 10% of the total cost, which is $250,000,000.00

making a grand total soo far to around 3 Billion US Dollars or urgent work.

[Zinjanthropos]

Guess who is getting the bill? If you said taxpayer then congratulations. Smelling more like organized crime as investigation moves forward. Offending company(ies) soon to wave goodbye, just my guess.