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Message 1876284 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 21:00:17 UTC

It's not there haven't been any warning signs...

Lakanal House 14 floors UK 2009 6 fatalities
JLT 34 floors Dubai 2012 No fatalities
The Torch 88 floors Dubai 2015 No fatalities
Grenfell Towers 24 floors UK 2017 80+ fatalities

...what is it that a "so-called" 3rd world country has that the UK does not?
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Message 1876291 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 21:27:16 UTC

Melbourne high-rise apartment blaze forces evacuation of hundreds (2014)

"We're fortunate this is a fairly new high-rise building so it's sprinkler-protected."
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Message 1876296 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 21:43:37 UTC - in response to Message 1876291.  

All have the same thing in common, the fire spread quickly via the outside :-(
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Message 1876308 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 22:14:11 UTC - in response to Message 1876296.  

All have the same thing in common, the fire spread quickly via the outside :-(

Yes. Because the cladding all used is combustible.
Choosing mineral wool instead would be more fire proof.
But at an extra cost of course.
How much?
Ridiculous low I would say.
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Message 1876317 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 22:45:05 UTC

A thought just crossed my mind. If that clad wasn't approved, will the insurance company have to pay anything at all?
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Message 1876322 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 22:56:05 UTC - in response to Message 1876317.  

That's OK, I think Kensington & Chelsea have big enough reserves. I think it's called 'carrying your own risk'.
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Message 1876334 - Posted: 1 Jul 2017, 23:32:48 UTC - in response to Message 1876322.  

That's OK, I think Kensington & Chelsea have big enough reserves. I think it's called 'carrying your own risk'.

And still building those reserves, BBC - Grenfell fire: Survivor's 'rent deducted'
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Message 1876405 - Posted: 2 Jul 2017, 7:54:11 UTC - in response to Message 1876334.  

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Message 1876446 - Posted: 2 Jul 2017, 15:11:49 UTC - in response to Message 1876405.  

...which is about to take a big hit

If they can't repair a hot water heater, WTF are they in the landlord business? Put them in the tower.
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Message 1876882 - Posted: 5 Jul 2017, 15:23:05 UTC

Whatever happened to the good old days of city wide civil defence? 21 days on, still floundering... :-(

Calls for inquiry chairman to quit

Government to send in taskforce

Meanwhile up North...

...Cleveland Tower - No smoke alarms heard
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Message 1877142 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 18:12:41 UTC

This 1974 film may be hard to watch after Grenfeld.
1974 NFPA Documentary "Incendio" on the Joelma Fire Disaster
It is 2017, why wasn't the lesson of 1974 heeded?
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Message 1877159 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 20:49:25 UTC - in response to Message 1877142.  

Simple. Lessons are never learned by Government at any level. As an example, there was the killing of Maria Colwell in the early 70's, through to 'Baby P' in recent years and beyond - yet the same things keep happening. Having legislation enacted after a tragic event is one thing, but if all that is going to happen is someone ticking a box on a bit of paper with a marker pen, which is all that seems to happen, whats the point of it all? Yet, here we are, with some Council CEOs and FOs on £300k+ and lots of buck passing.....still! For years, it looks like many building companies, have basically been 'self-certifying' all sorts of materials and practices, aided and abetted by, until very recently, the NHBC amongst other trade organisations. How was that allowed to happen? Now for a question that I'm surprised has not been asked. Has any of this cladding been used on private residential housing? Increasingly, I noticed cladding on the outside of new build housing and some of it did look a bit like plastic and I also saw cladding on older built houses. I'm sure that many people have also seen it. I suppose no-one will ask, until, there is a house fire and the insurance company won't pay, because of the use of non-approved materials...assuming they could afford house insurance in the first place.
Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!
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Message 1877161 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 20:52:51 UTC - in response to Message 1877142.  

This 1974 film may be hard to watch after Grenfeld.
1974 NFPA Documentary "Incendio" on the Joelma Fire Disaster
It is 2017, why wasn't the lesson of 1974 heeded?

Most of that generation is dead and forgotten. Message is lost in time.
...
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Message 1877169 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 21:51:14 UTC - in response to Message 1877159.  

Good post & also good questions.

The problem is that many professionals have argued that the rules & regulations are too vauge or open to intrepretation, as the following report shows:

Why the building regs are failing on fire safety

One question which I've thought about since reading all the reports I & others have linked to has not been asked, however it was mentioned in a very good comment at the end of the report:

"9) A bigger question of buildings management also arises - how often for example does any building actually run a fire drill with evacuation to muster points or use of places of safety within the building?"
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Message 1877176 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 22:46:46 UTC - in response to Message 1877169.  

The problem is that many professionals have argued that the rules & regulations are too vague or open to interpretation ...
The real problem is that so many people, from the ones you meet in the pub, to the right-wing newspaper editors they read, right up to the Prime Minister, have an inbuilt hatred of regulations and rule books (as in 'do it by the book'). Most especially elf'n'safety.

It got ludicrously bad under the last government, with Cameron introducing a mathematical rule for Ministers: if you want to enact a new regulation, you have to repeal three old ones. No mention of quality or merit there.

The assertion is that regulations get in the way of businesses making lots of money [well they might if they were doing their job right]. Regulations only get in the way of BAD businessmen making lots of money by cutting corners. If you're doing the job right, regulations hardly get in the way at all.

"9) A bigger question of buildings management also arises - how often for example does any building actually run a fire drill with evacuation to muster points or use of places of safety within the building?"
I've come across that in schools and offices, but never heard of it in a residential tower block. Anyone?
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Message 1877178 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 22:59:38 UTC - in response to Message 1877176.  

I've come across that in schools and offices, but never heard of it in a residential tower block. Anyone?

I haven't but since the warning signs, as well as what some councils have stated that they had some building alarm systems fitted to supplement the individual alarms within each flat, would it have been sensible to hold a weekly/monthly test of said systems?
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Message 1877182 - Posted: 6 Jul 2017, 23:17:41 UTC - in response to Message 1877169.  

Following on from the last question I raised, what about all this insulation material that we're supposed to have in our houses, to make them "more thermally efficient"? Cavity walls retro-filled with polystyrene balls or foam. New-builds filled with 'God knows'. Foam-backed plaster-board. Loft spaces with several inches plus of fibreglass insulation in them. Insulating material for laminate floors...never mind the flooring itself! All in all, we increasingly have living spaces that are now surrounded by all sorts of materials, that probably won't play nicely, in the event of a fire. The beds we sleep in and the furniture we sit on? That's different. All in the name of 'efficiency' and being 'green' (like buying a diesel car was supposed to be....except if you knew better), plus trying to keep the heating bills down (another subject!). In engineering, my speciality was controlled gas atmosphere furnaces and I'm beginning to wonder, why we are building living spaces, that have many of the attributes of such furnaces. Perhaps it is to make it easier to sweep us up, in the aftermath of a fire?

Fire drills? I don't believe that at the Council that I worked for, there was ever any form of drill at any accommodation unit - apart from the cheapest contractor for 'building maintenance', having a cordless drill. Some would argue that, you can't have a fire drill, when not everyone is there. Fire extinguishers? I can only think of one 'accommodation block' that had them and most of those had probably been discharged by the drug and alcohol fuelled residents and mainly used to keep fire doors open! There is one 'unit' that I recall, that was refurbished at a cost of some £800k - five blocks of two and three storey units, totalling approximately 84 flats of differing sizes. Previously, areas open to the elements, were now enclosed by glass and aluminium. Where there were areas covered in paving slabs and some grass, there was now, resin-bonded aggregate. Painted concrete stairs and walk-ways went from, not only, open to the elements and now enclosed, but to being coated in a coloured, thick epoxy-based 'continuous matting'. All the front doors to the flats were changed to a uniform 'uPVC' door. Entry to any of the blocks, was now by an encoded magnetic key and unless you had a 'master', only to that one block and the communal areas. Going in or out! What was intended, apparently, was to smarten the place up and reduce the time the cleaners had to spend there, as, 'financial constraints' meant their services were needed elsewhere. The cleaners were the first to point to problems - access was the first issue, then, they could no longer sweep the walk-ways and stairs, due to the rough finish of the continuous matting. Their work-load actually increased, four-fold, because they found that the only way to do the job was by using stiff brooms and having to 'dab mop' stains from leaking rubbish bags and they also had a large number of enclosing window frames to deal with, too. The residents complained, because, due to the rough finish of the 'matting' and the use of the resin-bonded aggregate for the communal areas, falling over, as children frequently do, led to a big increase in abrasive injuries caused and received. I suppose grassed areas were too 'high maintenance' and common sense took a very long holiday. The fire potential? All that epoxy? No fire suppression and no extinguishers of any kind in the now enclosed areas? No emergency stairways? You tell me.
Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!
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Message 1877197 - Posted: 7 Jul 2017, 0:50:55 UTC - in response to Message 1877161.  

This 1974 film may be hard to watch after Grenfeld.
1974 NFPA Documentary "Incendio" on the Joelma Fire Disaster
It is 2017, why wasn't the lesson of 1974 heeded?

Most of that generation is dead and forgotten. Message is lost in time.

Building, Grenfeld, was constructed in 1974, profits did the talking, not lives lost.
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Message 1877226 - Posted: 7 Jul 2017, 6:41:56 UTC

I said this was going to get messy & nothing seen or heard to date says otherwise.

"It got a bit loud before the end. The man couldn't even control the crowd and hold them. I have heard public speakers who can shut up a stadium full of thousands of people. This man couldn't hold a room with 200 or so people."

What more can one expect from a litigation judge who at the most had 20-30 people in his courtroom where he is the boss.

As for rules & regs? When the crap really hits the fan, all you'll see will be local & national politicians & bureaucrats running around like headless chickens making mistake after mistake. If not that, do this:

"However, social housing provider Salix Homes said it had halted work to remove cladding from eight tower blocks in Salford, Greater Manchester, saying government advice was now "unclear"."

Inquiry head "useless"
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Message 1877733 - Posted: 10 Jul 2017, 15:32:33 UTC

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