Breaking news fire in tower block in London with cladding..
Discussion
Didn't seem that mega - fire in one unit causing damage to those above. Lots of dramatic words and not a lot else.
Maybe some external fire suppression spray built in would be a good idea for some of the towers just to limit easy spread as the heat from flames out the windows in one unit ignites the stuff above - there's not that much separation.
On a related note is the scorched ruin of Grenfell coming down any time soon or is it too useful as a billboard?
Maybe some external fire suppression spray built in would be a good idea for some of the towers just to limit easy spread as the heat from flames out the windows in one unit ignites the stuff above - there's not that much separation.
On a related note is the scorched ruin of Grenfell coming down any time soon or is it too useful as a billboard?
Good thing it happened at a low storey, (just) within the reach of the ladder platform, or else it would have spread much further. The pics I saw from Twitter showed the fire was clearly burning externally two stories above the flat with the fire by the time the platform got there.
Hopefully this will give the campaigners extra ammo to hold the government to account over their broken promises to fix this without forcing leaseholders to pay for the cock ups of others.
Hopefully this will give the campaigners extra ammo to hold the government to account over their broken promises to fix this without forcing leaseholders to pay for the cock ups of others.
Blue Oval84 said:
Hopefully this will give the campaigners extra ammo to hold the government to account over their broken promises to fix this without forcing leaseholders to pay for the cock ups of others.
It seems insane that builders can make and sell properties with unsafe materials but the purchasers are unable to get the same builders to fund fixing it.. Anyone want to suggest which government put that into legislation ?gavsdavs said:
It seems insane that builders can make and sell properties with unsafe materials but the purchasers are unable to get the same builders to fund fixing it.. Anyone want to suggest which government put that into legislation ?
It was a series of regulatory failures over a number of years from what I understand, with no single government specifically carrying the can for it.However, the Tories have just last week forced through legislation to specifically state that regardless of what someone's lease says, it's always the leaseholder who is liable for the costs. Apparently they wanted to make sure that works weren't held up by disputes over payment.
Quite spectacular that even if you are one of the vanishingly rare people with a lease that makes it clear your freeholder can't charge you to rectify build errors, the part of home ownership have overridden your contract with legislation.
There wouldn't even be such a crisis had they not cocked up with poorly thought through "advice notes" that have made thousands of properties unmortgageable and created a backlog of (often uncessary or grossly exagerrated) works that will take years to clear.
Lotobear said:
There's absolutely no evidence of this being linked to flammable cladding, though the media won't let that get in the way of a sensationalist headline.
There is clear footage of the fire having spread up the exterior wall system and/or balconies to the levels above. That is absolutely not supposed to happen.It may not be cladding, it may be combustible balconies, or maybe it's missing cavity barriers. None of that is acceptable and is all down to shoddy contruction, piss poor regulation, and poor oversight from building control.
Blue Oval84 said:
There is clear footage of the fire having spread up the exterior wall system and/or balconies to the levels above. That is absolutely not supposed to happen.
It may not be cladding, it may be combustible balconies, or maybe it's missing cavity barriers. None of that is acceptable and is all down to shoddy contruction, piss poor regulation, and poor oversight from building control.
The point is non of us know at this stage and anything is pure speculation - flats are a risk in any fire even when built to the required standards and some degree of spread between them is inevitable. The trick is ensuring that occupants have sufficient time and warning to safely evacuate via a protected route(s) before fire breaches their compartment - that's mostly, but not solely, a matter of design.It may not be cladding, it may be combustible balconies, or maybe it's missing cavity barriers. None of that is acceptable and is all down to shoddy contruction, piss poor regulation, and poor oversight from building control.
What does however seem quite clear from the media footage is that the cladding is not on fire and/or causing the fire to spread. That has not however stopped the usual suspects using words such as 'with cladding' and 'with cladding similar to Grenfell' in their straplines to try and link the two.
Lotobear said:
The point is non of us know at this stage and anything is pure speculation - flats are a risk in any fire even when built to the required standards and some degree of spread between them is inevitable. The trick is ensuring that occupants have sufficient time and warning to safely evacuate via a protected route(s) before fire breaches their compartment - that's mostly, but not solely, a matter of design.
What does however seem quite clear from the media footage is that the cladding is not on fire and/or causing the fire to spread. That has not however stopped the usual suspects using words such as 'with cladding' and 'with cladding similar to Grenfell' in their straplines to try and link the two.
Quite it’s best not to speculate without knowing the facts. Fire risk isn’t something you can design or construct out. What you can do and should do is design and construct with occupant safety in mind. Buildings are replaceable, people are not.What does however seem quite clear from the media footage is that the cladding is not on fire and/or causing the fire to spread. That has not however stopped the usual suspects using words such as 'with cladding' and 'with cladding similar to Grenfell' in their straplines to try and link the two.
The cladding does on first glance look like terracotta panels which would be very different to Grenfell being non combustible, of course the insulation behind could be combustible but that isn’t obvious.
Blue Oval84 said:
gavsdavs said:
It seems insane that builders can make and sell properties with unsafe materials but the purchasers are unable to get the same builders to fund fixing it.. Anyone want to suggest which government put that into legislation ?
It was a series of regulatory failures over a number of years from what I understand, with no single government specifically carrying the can for it.However, the Tories have just last week forced through legislation to specifically state that regardless of what someone's lease says, it's always the leaseholder who is liable for the costs. Apparently they wanted to make sure that works weren't held up by disputes over payment.
Quite spectacular that even if you are one of the vanishingly rare people with a lease that makes it clear your freeholder can't charge you to rectify build errors, the part of home ownership have overridden your contract with legislation.
There wouldn't even be such a crisis had they not cocked up with poorly thought through "advice notes" that have made thousands of properties unmortgageable and created a backlog of (often uncessary or grossly exagerrated) works that will take years to clear.
It's akin to a car manufacturer selling cars with unshielded fuel lines or splitting fuel tanks and then insisting purchasers are the ones liable for the replacement costs (i.e. "nowt to do with us, gov")
Lotobear said:
What does however seem quite clear from the media footage is that the cladding is not on fire and/or causing the fire to spread. That has not however stopped the usual suspects using words such as 'with cladding' and 'with cladding similar to Grenfell' in their straplines to try and link the two.
People do get hung up on cladding, when in fact that's only one part of the safety crisis affecting those of us in blocks.That said, the footage I saw on Twitter seemed to show that the grey panels were indeed on fire, as were the balcony areas.Certainly the fires weren't limited to the interiors of the flats, the outside of the building was burning, and it is not supposed to. The block is "20% clad" in ACM, which I would guess (and it's just a guess) is the grey stuff.
Compartmentation in blocks like this is supposed to hold for, IIRC, 30 minutes minimum before allowing spread to another property. That's the entire basis of the "stay put" policy that cost so many lives at Grenfell.
I agree it's sometimes best not to speculate, but if it walks like a duck..
Apparently the cladding was due for removal next week. Unfortunate timing. For the cladding to be removed the block would have failed it's EWS1 survey with a B2 rating, which means the surveyor deemed the structure and materials to represent an unacceptable risk of allowing fire to spread up exterior surfaces. Looks like they were correct in their assessment!
Blue Oval84 said:
People do get hung up on cladding, when in fact that's only one part of the safety crisis affecting those of us in blocks.
That said, the footage I saw on Twitter seemed to show that the grey panels were indeed on fire, as were the balcony areas.Certainly the fires weren't limited to the interiors of the flats, the outside of the building was burning, and it is not supposed to. The block is "20% clad" in ACM, which I would guess (and it's just a guess) is the grey stuff.
Compartmentation in blocks like this is supposed to hold for, IIRC, 30 minutes minimum before allowing spread to another property. That's the entire basis of the "stay put" policy that cost so many lives at Grenfell.
I agree it's sometimes best not to speculate, but if it walks like a duck..
Apparently the cladding was due for removal next week. Unfortunate timing. For the cladding to be removed the block would have failed it's EWS1 survey with a B2 rating, which means the surveyor deemed the structure and materials to represent an unacceptable risk of allowing fire to spread up exterior surfaces. Looks like they were correct in their assessment!
They were only correct in that assessment if the cladding was the cause of the fire spread but, as far as I can see, it was not however best wait for the inquiry.That said, the footage I saw on Twitter seemed to show that the grey panels were indeed on fire, as were the balcony areas.Certainly the fires weren't limited to the interiors of the flats, the outside of the building was burning, and it is not supposed to. The block is "20% clad" in ACM, which I would guess (and it's just a guess) is the grey stuff.
Compartmentation in blocks like this is supposed to hold for, IIRC, 30 minutes minimum before allowing spread to another property. That's the entire basis of the "stay put" policy that cost so many lives at Grenfell.
I agree it's sometimes best not to speculate, but if it walks like a duck..
Apparently the cladding was due for removal next week. Unfortunate timing. For the cladding to be removed the block would have failed it's EWS1 survey with a B2 rating, which means the surveyor deemed the structure and materials to represent an unacceptable risk of allowing fire to spread up exterior surfaces. Looks like they were correct in their assessment!
Whilst I am a chartered building surveyor and therefore have a passing interest, it was the depressing and all too familiar 'knee jerk reaction' of the press which caused me to post and not my interest in the fire, or cause, per se. The sense that because of Grenfell, all multi story residential blocks therefore suddenly became unsafe overnight as if by magic and that it's clearly all the fault of the Government.
Lotobear said:
Blue Oval84 said:
There is clear footage of the fire having spread up the exterior wall system and/or balconies to the levels above. That is absolutely not supposed to happen.
It may not be cladding, it may be combustible balconies, or maybe it's missing cavity barriers. None of that is acceptable and is all down to shoddy contruction, piss poor regulation, and poor oversight from building control.
The point is non of us know at this stage and anything is pure speculation - flats are a risk in any fire even when built to the required standards and some degree of spread between them is inevitable. The trick is ensuring that occupants have sufficient time and warning to safely evacuate via a protected route(s) before fire breaches their compartment - that's mostly, but not solely, a matter of design.It may not be cladding, it may be combustible balconies, or maybe it's missing cavity barriers. None of that is acceptable and is all down to shoddy contruction, piss poor regulation, and poor oversight from building control.
What does however seem quite clear from the media footage is that the cladding is not on fire and/or causing the fire to spread. That has not however stopped the usual suspects using words such as 'with cladding' and 'with cladding similar to Grenfell' in their straplines to try and link the two.
Oct 2018
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/resident...
Leaseholders on an east London apartment block fitted with Grenfell-style cladding could face a bill of more than £2m after the freeholder, a subsidiary of developer Ballymore, refused to pay for removal.
Completed in 2005, New Providence Wharf has a total of 1,259 apartments spread across five buildings.
Feb 2019
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/resident...
Residents living at New Providence Wharf in Poplar now have just over two weeks to decide whether to accept an offer from Ballymore over the funding of remedial works across the development, or risk having to foot the full £2.4m bill themselves.
ACM cladding was discovered on the building, but Ballymore has refused to cover the re-cladding costs.
Lotobear said:
Blue Oval84 said:
People do get hung up on cladding, when in fact that's only one part of the safety crisis affecting those of us in blocks.
That said, the footage I saw on Twitter seemed to show that the grey panels were indeed on fire, as were the balcony areas.Certainly the fires weren't limited to the interiors of the flats, the outside of the building was burning, and it is not supposed to. The block is "20% clad" in ACM, which I would guess (and it's just a guess) is the grey stuff.
Compartmentation in blocks like this is supposed to hold for, IIRC, 30 minutes minimum before allowing spread to another property. That's the entire basis of the "stay put" policy that cost so many lives at Grenfell.
I agree it's sometimes best not to speculate, but if it walks like a duck..
Apparently the cladding was due for removal next week. Unfortunate timing. For the cladding to be removed the block would have failed it's EWS1 survey with a B2 rating, which means the surveyor deemed the structure and materials to represent an unacceptable risk of allowing fire to spread up exterior surfaces. Looks like they were correct in their assessment!
They were only correct in that assessment if the cladding was the cause of the fire spread but, as far as I can see, it was not however best wait for the inquiry.That said, the footage I saw on Twitter seemed to show that the grey panels were indeed on fire, as were the balcony areas.Certainly the fires weren't limited to the interiors of the flats, the outside of the building was burning, and it is not supposed to. The block is "20% clad" in ACM, which I would guess (and it's just a guess) is the grey stuff.
Compartmentation in blocks like this is supposed to hold for, IIRC, 30 minutes minimum before allowing spread to another property. That's the entire basis of the "stay put" policy that cost so many lives at Grenfell.
I agree it's sometimes best not to speculate, but if it walks like a duck..
Apparently the cladding was due for removal next week. Unfortunate timing. For the cladding to be removed the block would have failed it's EWS1 survey with a B2 rating, which means the surveyor deemed the structure and materials to represent an unacceptable risk of allowing fire to spread up exterior surfaces. Looks like they were correct in their assessment!
Whilst I am a chartered building surveyor and therefore have a passing interest, it was the depressing and all too familiar 'knee jerk reaction' of the press which caused me to post and not my interest in the fire, or cause, per se. The sense that because of Grenfell, all multi story residential blocks therefore suddenly became unsafe overnight as if by magic and that it's clearly all the fault of the Government.
I'm going to be brave and risk being made to look a plank now as this is clearly an area I imagine you're well informed about, and I'm not a qualified professional, but the EWS1 survey doesn't just cover cladding. It's possible to fail an EWS1 assessment and have no cladding on your block. The assessment just says that there's an unacceptable risk of fire spread. In this case I'd argue it's pretty clear cut that there was an unacceptable fire spread over the exterior surface, so even if the cladding wasn't involved, the EWS1 assessment was likely spot on the money.
On your last point, IMO, it actually IS the fault of the government that most residential blocks are now *deemed* unsafe, thanks to the way they introduced the EWS1 assessment.
My block for example, I don't think is particularly unsafe, we have aluminum cladding panels, that are held in place with a couple of wooden batons behind the metal.. However, the presence of wood is an immediate fail on the EWS1, and so consequently my property is now unmortgageable and valued at £0.
Is it unsafe? Probably not particularly. We already have a simultaneous evacuation alarm system in place with sirens above every bed, and we're only 6 storeys, so the risk of having a couple of wooden batons hidden behind some aluminimum at each level on the outside wall seems minimal. A fire would have to take hold (which triggers the alarm in every flat), burn out through the window, melt the aluminium, and the wood would have to combust and then somehow spread into the flat above before there's any risk beyond the flat where the fire starts.
To our knowledge, our cladding system also met the building regs when it was fitted and none of us had any concerns about safety. Even Sussex FRS said they thought our block was safe, and had the "gold standard" of alarms in place when they checked it post-Grenfell.
However, thanks to the knee jerk government response the lives of >50 households have been disrupted. We're actually the lucky ones as it appears that the limited funding they've made available WILL cover the replacement of the panels. So that's C. £2.5 million of taxpayers money being spent to replace the cladding with a new system, even though it met the regs at the time, and poses a minimal real risk in a block that can be fully evacuated in about 2-3 minutes if we don't rush. I don't blame the surveyor, because why would they sign something off if there was any risk at all, and I don't really blame the managing agents because they now have papers to say the block isn't safe and they're taking 10% of the refurbishment costs, they'd be stupid not to do this work (and we need them to because otherwise none of us can sell).
I blame the people who put this system in place without any sense of proporitionality.
Sorry I know this is probably a long and boring rant, but the issue hits close to home!
gavsdavs said:
It is very tempting to suspect that the homebuilders are being afforded somewhat sympathetic/preferential treatment compared to leaseholders.
It's akin to a car manufacturer selling cars with unshielded fuel lines or splitting fuel tanks and then insisting purchasers are the ones liable for the replacement costs (i.e. "nowt to do with us, gov")
Assuming it is the builders who constructed the flats.It's akin to a car manufacturer selling cars with unshielded fuel lines or splitting fuel tanks and then insisting purchasers are the ones liable for the replacement costs (i.e. "nowt to do with us, gov")
Some of the "solutions" suggested consist of a general levy on housebuilders. Why should a builder who didn't construct the flats in question pay for the remedial work?
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