My heart goes out to all the people and families who may have lost loved ones and their homes in the devastating fire. We hear talk of new cladding not up to spec, poor access, problems with fire risers, poor sealing of apertures between flats, etc, etc.
I remember the days when in charge of a building, a Fire Certificate had to be obtained and maintained. That Certificate was only given after inspection and approval by the local Fire Officer. Nowadays, it is all "self cert" by local management. That is where the problem lies. It is all too slack now.

Bob 10MY (Sept 09) TD4 HSE Auto in Stornoway Grey (Now Gone)

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tragic, shouldn't have went up like that, investigation should reveal reasons.

too shocking for words.

Iain

I bet the Construction Company and in particular the contractor that installed the cladding are filling their pants right now as it seems as though the cladding caused the rapid spread of flame. I doubt very much if the cladding panels are the cause - they would have been tested, tested and tested again and met with every building regulation requirement even before someone would specify it to be fitted. I am guessing (and it is guessing) that the installation technique might be a contributing factor and I hope that the contractor who installed it did so to the letter because if they have used the wrong fixings or cut corners to save a few quid then they will be found out and prosecuted (there are enough panels at low level that were unaffected that could be checked).

Seems as though maintenance even on a recently refurbished building was poor, one of the residents complained that during a recent power cut half of the emergency lights on the stairwell were not working....

Finally - speculation is a fridge exploded in one of the flats - I wonder if it was one of Hotpoint's Tumble Dryers????

Condolences to all those affected and those that have lost loved ones in this terrible incident Now - 2017 BMW X3 M Sport Carbon Black
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It's being said these are the same panels involved in fires in France and Dubai. If so, I'm very angry that something like this can be allowed to happen in the 21st century. Whoever was responsible should be locked away, but sadly that won't undo what's happened. This is what happens when councils don't have the resources to carry out their statutory duties

We had a building burn in Melbourne a few years ago.

On the radio here today someone from the CSIRO (a well respected, by the pubic, government science organisation in Australia) said there are about 2500 high rise buildings down under with this material.

There are two versions, fire & non fire rated. To save money a lot of non fire rated version of the material has been used. CSIRO did a sample inspection of a few hundred buildings a year or so ago & about half did not have the fire rated version. So it is probably a similar percentage around the world.

How many people does it take to die & others with lifetime injuries to get this world wide problem fixed! Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

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i would think the construction company has tendered for the work, to the level set by the council

as they have started the work was carried out to the required level, thats the floor in the work the required level looks have to not been good enough, be that the spec requested, the lack of fire safety in the matterial etc

lots of question no answers at the moment Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Tim, can you explain more as I'm a bit lost as to why you think this all came about because of a lack of council resources

I think that what he means is that due to lack of council funds, when they put the tender out for the work (any work) to be done, it will go to the lowest possible bidder and not necessarily the best available product.

Any work that will have been done will have been done to the current bare minimum safety and design requirements, but will be have been legal according to the relevant legislation in place. (at least I hope it will have been)

its far too early to start pointing the finger of blame, but from the looks of it the new cladding actually accelerated the vertical spread of the fire by allowing it to jump up floors on the outside.

The base concrete construction of the tower block would have restricted and slowed the floor-by-floor spread of the flames, but the fire just found another route to destroy.

My own council no longer enforces building regulations. It is left to private "accredited" companies to approve designs and the council has little or no powers to oversee them. I suspect, but have no proof, that they have very little involvement during the construction phase either.

This new culture of "self regulation" is basically a blue-print for corruption, sub-standard workmanship and lack of accountability in the building industry.

I can guarantee that somewhere during the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower someone knowingly spec'd, purchased and installed panels that were not fire-retardant and said to themselves "oh goody, we can save some money here". Whether that was the architect, the building contractor, or the council themselves (or all 3)will only come out in the public enquiry, but I am absolutely certain that we will see manslaughter charges being brought against someone at the end of the process.

What lovely person had the responsibility for signing of the C of C for this so called cladding?

If he's got any sense he'll be on a plane to South America by now!

maybe that the contractor failed to install the compartimental firestops?

up here in Scotland the contractors failed to install wall ties in schools which has resulted in walls collapsing.

but how could this be missed?


Iain

The material may well be fire retardant and be of the correct specification, it also may be installed correctly, however the conditions on the building when the fire started may well have not been tested when the material and installation were accepted. Various conditions such as building height, number of windows all go to reduce the fire retardant efficiency of the material, given the right wind conditions and other materials you can get rock to burn. my PC is slightly to the right of Genghis
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tim_roberts wrote:

My own council no longer enforces building regulations. It is left to private "accredited" companies to approve designs and the council has little or no powers to oversee them. I suspect, but have no proof, that they have very little involvement during the construction phase either.

anyone seen this

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=che...7967400213