Huge fire in Grenfell Tower - West London

[Bletchleyite]

I agree. Most probably it comes down to widespread corporate negligence at a number of levels. Just like, say, the Herald of Free Enteprise.

I'm genuinely unconvinced that austerity has anything to do with it. True austerity would have meant not doing anything to improve the environmental friendliness of the building - retention of the old concrete facade - and just one burnt out flat.

 

[takno]

I agree. Most probably it comes down to widespread corporate negligence at a number of levels. Just like, say, the Herald of Free Enteprise.

I'm genuinely unconvinced that austerity has anything to do with it. True austerity would have meant not doing anything to improve the environmental friendliness of the building - retention of the old concrete facade - and just one burnt out flat.

Austerity isn't simply being applied across the board in that way though. Investment, and particularly green investment, has been far less constrained than current spending.

In current spending the things that are being cut in the name of austerity are boring less-visible things like building control, and they aren't just being cut by 20%, they're being cut by 90%. This is the only way to achieve big across-the-board cuts given that so many areas like health, education and defence are ring-fenced.

In short, austerity is corporate negligence

 

[jon0844]

I doubt austerity was why panels were used that saved just £5000. Just as likely is that the company selling the cladding wanted rid of it and offered that, and nobody questioned it or was given the choice.

This is huge speculation, but one of probably a million possibilities. Anyone who has watched a 'seconds from disaster' type show will know that it's usually a series of small events all occurring at the same time that can cause a disaster.

Those calling for the head of Theresa May and a new election wouldn't necessarily stop another tragedy happening, if it turns out to be something unrelated entirely.

 

[Busaholic]

There is a huge dilemma coming for all the people living in the area of Grenfell Tower, particularly those in neighbouring tower blocks, and that is the continuing existence of Grenfell as a terrible reminder of what happened and the myriad lives both lost and destroyed. The authorities have indicated that it might take weeks, even months, of painstaking work to try to establish the total number of people killed, and to get DNA evidence of who each one was. While this goes on, and assuming the structure of the building is now considered stable, it cannot be demolished and there is already evidence of the effect on younger children (especially) in the area of seeing it continuing to stand there. I'm sure that it would be possible to cover the building with something robust (and inflammable) that allowed work to carry on in there but was less of a permanent and stark reminder of a dreadful tragedy.

 

[w0033944]

I agree with much of this. Life experience generally tells me to look for incompetence before conspiracy.

It's a principle called Hanlon's Razor, and is derived from the rather better-known Occam's Razor, which states that the most parsimonious answer is usually the correct one, or words to that effect.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is a huge dilemma coming for all the people living in the area of Grenfell Tower, particularly those in neighbouring tower blocks, and that is the continuing existence of Grenfell as a terrible reminder of what happened and the myriad lives both lost and destroyed. The authorities have indicated that it might take weeks, even months, of painstaking work to try to establish the total number of people killed, and to get DNA evidence of who each one was. While this goes on, and assuming the structure of the building is now considered stable, it cannot be demolished and there is already evidence of the effect on younger children (especially) in the area of seeing it continuing to stand there. I'm sure that it would be possible to cover the building with something robust (and inflammable) that allowed work to carry on in there but was less of a permanent and stark reminder of a dreadful tragedy.

Yes, there are many ways in which a building can be "sheeted over" (often this is done during construction and redevelopment of even tall buildings), I think it would make a lot of sense to do this as soon as feasible.

Flammability of any such cover is less important as there is nothing going to be set on fire inside it now.

 

[southern442]

I agree. Most probably it comes down to widespread corporate negligence at a number of levels. Just like, say, the Herald of Free Enteprise.

Whilst they are in the minority, it does surprise me how many people I've seen that genuinely believe that this was a deliberate attack to 'exterminate the Labour vote'.

Makes me embarrassed to be left wing :roll:

 

[Cowley]

Yes, there are many ways in which a building can be "sheeted over" (often this is done during construction and redevelopment of even tall buildings), I think it would make a lot of sense to do this as soon as feasible.

Flammability of any such cover is less important as there is nothing going to be set on fire inside it now.

I agree too. I would imagine that they will cover it and probably that it will occur fairly soon depending on the availability of equipment and also the safety of the building, particularly the part of the block near the top that was starting to cause concern a couple of days ago.
After the investigation is complete it could well be destroyed in a controlled demolition at a set time in the early hours of the morning but in daylight.
I wonder also if maybe nothing ever gets built on the spot and instead perhaps a memorial community space is created instead?

As Busaholic says it must be terrible for people living in the surrounding blocks (and houses) to look out that burnt out building.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There is of course the slight issue that money has to come from somewhere, which is what caused the mess in the first place in the form of a massive government budget deficit.

Government budgets aren't the same as domestic budgets.

But we're not a poor country, we're one of the biggest in the world. There is plenty of money. It is just not being spent on the right things.

As for the argument that the refurbishment proves it isn't austerity, that doesn't follow. Spending £8m sounds good, but if it's in the context of a job that (for argument's sake) should have cost £16m if done properly, it suddenly isn't.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

After the investigation is complete it could well be destroyed in a controlled demolition at a set time in the early hours of the morning but in daylight.

Is there enough room around it for a controlled implosion?

 

[Dai Corner]

Government budgets aren't the same as domestic budgets.

But we're not a poor country, we're one of the biggest in the world. There is plenty of money. It is just not being spent on the right things.

As for the argument that the refurbishment proves it isn't austerity, that doesn't follow. Spending £8m sounds good, but if it's in the context of a job that (for argument's sake) should have cost £16m if done properly, it suddenly isn't.

A better measure than size is GDP per capita. The UK is the 13th, 16th or 20th richest in terms of GDP per capita depending on how you do the figures. China, say, is much bigger but we are about five times richer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Many are saying that the job would have cost £8,000,5000 if done properly rather than £8,000,000. I don't think anybody's saying £16m should have been spent.

 

[Darandio]

Is there enough room around it for a controlled implosion?

They can practically get these things in their own footprint these days. Or they could also drop it slightly to the east.

 

[DarloRich]

I doubt austerity was why panels were used that saved just £5000. Just as likely is that the company selling the cladding wanted rid of it and offered that, and nobody questioned it or was given the choice.

This is huge speculation, but one of probably a million possibilities. Anyone who has watched a 'seconds from disaster' type show will know that it's usually a series of small events all occurring at the same time that can cause a disaster.

Those calling for the head of Theresa May and a new election wouldn't necessarily stop another tragedy happening, if it turns out to be something unrelated entirely.

i think that cuts to council budgets will have played a part in the scope and specification of any overhaul/ refurbishment being cut back. The specification agreed will have been the cheapest allowed by the vague building regulations rather than a better one you might have gone for with more money to hand. What will have been important is bringing the project in on or under budget.

And it will turn out to be a small series of events ( The Swiss Cheese model beloved or risk types) such as below that led to this horrible tragedy:

Small fire in a flat>flat has had unapproved layout modifications>internal fire doors changed> flammable material stored in hall> old/cheap furniture in use giving off smoke and heat > fire doors propped open/removed>newly installed services breach fire breaks> wind blowing in wrong direction > all windows open > chimney effect inside cladding > cheap cladding used > updraft > ambient temperature > raging inferno.

On their own each factor is minor - together and that particular time they lead to a horrible inferno.

Finally, i wonder who signed of the CDM designs and plans for this job? They might be twitchy.

 

[Dai Corner]

Regarding doing the job as cheaply as possible, apparently the original contractors wanted £11.27m but the contractors finally chosen did it for £8.7m. One wonders how they saved that much?

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/...ced-leadbitter-as-contractor/10020848.article

Documents published by ITV show that Leadbitter originally quoted £11.27m to carry out the project, which was £1.6m above the council’s budget for the works.

The Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, which managed and maintained the council’s housing stock, later put the contract back out to tender.

Rydon then took the contract on for £8.7m.

I agree with Darlorich that it will probably turn out that a series of small events, each with a small probability and impact, combined to cause the tragedy. Certainly that has often been the case in my trade - though fortunately not on the scale of Grenfell.

 

[DarloRich]

Regarding doing the job as cheaply as possible, apparently the original contractors wanted £11.27m but the contractors finally chosen did it for £8.7m. One wonders how they saved that much?

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/...ced-leadbitter-as-contractor/10020848.article

by using cheaper materials (which i am sure will still be within the regulations) reducing back room support, cutting the specification back ( aka de scoping) using cheaper/less labour and extending the timescale of the job.

All of that is standard contracting work. I would be interested to find out what resource was put into CDM and what their CDM files and plans are like. Hopefully the enquiry will look into this.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Regarding doing the job as cheaply as possible, apparently the original contractors wanted £11.27m but the contractors finally chosen did it for £8.7m. One wonders how they saved that much?

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/...ced-leadbitter-as-contractor/10020848.article

That's kinda what I was driving at.

Austerity is about so much more than obvious funding cuts. The whole driver behind it is the false idea is that local authorities and public bodies are "inefficient" and the private sector is "efficient". There's the idea that the public sector is so wasteful that you can make massive "efficiency savings" without having an impact on anything.

If you make an "efficiency saving" you are cutting something out. Maybe it isn't needed. Maybe on its own it won't make any difference. But Grenfell Tower is a mausoleum to cutting one corner too many.

And this isn't party political and it isn't new. We used to see a similar thing where local authorities cut corners, except in their case the developers kept the profit and "shared" it with the likes of T Dan Smith. There have been plenty of 60s tower blocks up here, built under dodgy contracts, where it only became apparent what death traps they were when they were bulldozed. Both Labour and Tory politicians were equally bribed by the likes of John Poulson.

 

[DarloRich]

That's kinda what I was driving at.

Austerity is about so much more than obvious funding cuts. The whole driver behind it is the false idea is that local authorities and public bodies are "inefficient" and the private sector is "efficient". There's the idea that the public sector is so wasteful that you can make massive "efficiency savings" without having an impact on anything.

If you make an "efficiency saving" you are cutting something out. Maybe it isn't needed. Maybe on its own it won't make any difference. But Grenfell Tower is a mausoleum to cutting one corner too many.

And this isn't party political and it isn't new. We used to see a similar thing where local authorities cut corners, except in their case the developers kept the profit and "shared" it with the likes of T Dan Smith. There have been plenty of 60s tower blocks up here, built under dodgy contracts, where it only became apparent what death traps they were when they were bulldozed. Both Labour and Tory politicians were equally bribed by the likes of John Poulson.

I do agree ( and i know some of those Newcastle tower blocks better than I should) but i think we do need to wait until we have some results from an official enquiry before making pronouncements. We don't know if any corners were cut.

BTW is there not a difference between cutting corners and building to a cheap but legal specification? The former to me means saying you used specified product A when actually you used cheaper, non specified, product B. Building to budget means using the cheapest legal methods possible. With the building regs so vague that is very easy. Knowing how public sector contracts and projects work i can easily see how it was agreed that saving, say, £5K was importnant and how it could easily be done by moving to a cheaper but, crucially, legal product.

Not right but common.

 

[Jonny]

I do agree ( and i know some of those Newcastle tower blocks better than I should) but i think we do need to wait until we have some results from an official enquiry before making pronouncements. We don't know if any corners were cut.

BTW is there not a difference between cutting corners and building to a cheap but legal specification? The former to me means saying you used specified product A when actually you used cheaper, non specified, product B. Building to budget means using the cheapest legal methods possible. With the building regs so vague that is very easy. Knowing how public sector contracts and projects work i can easily see how it was agreed that saving, say, £5K was importnant and how it could easily be done by moving to a cheaper bu, crucially, legal product.

Not right but common.

In which case, the enquiry should consider how the product came to be legal in the first place.

 

[DarloRich]

In which case, the enquiry should consider how the product came to be legal in the first place.

because the building regs don't specifically prevent it's use. The regs are vague and need sorting out.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In which case, the enquiry should consider how the product came to be legal in the first place.

Because it's perfectly OK to use it in a house or low-rise block where the presumption in case of fire is of evacuation, potentially via multiple possible routes (there are effectively 6 routes out of my house which wouldn't result in injury, and two more that might result in ankle injuries but probably not[1][2]). There was one realistic route only out of the flats at the top of that block. It's very different.

I've got similar Celotex foam installation behind the wooden cladding under my front window, and more in my back porch. It's quite effective at saving fuel costs over the previous plywood with a gap behind it. It's fine, because in both cases there is no scope for a chimney effect from it (the walls above are brick and so won't burn) nor an awful lot of scope for it to catch fire to start with!

It would make no sense to ban it, because there are applications it is properly suited to. The problem is architects/designers/whoever even suggesting it for a completely unsuitable application that got a load of people killed as a result.

[1] Front and back doors, front and back downstairs windows, front and back upstairs windows with a porch underneath, front and back upstairs windows with a drop down to ground level. Basically, unless incapacitated by smoke while asleep (would have to sleep through the cacophony of smoke alarms going off) there is basically no chance of me not getting out of a fire, however severe.

[2] Being quite tall, and having a house with quite low ceilings, if I hung from my arms out of my bedroom window my feet would be less than 6' from the ground. TBH I'd do it for a laugh if someone goaded me enough, so low is the risk of serious injury.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I do agree ( and i know some of those Newcastle tower blocks better than I should) but i think we do need to wait until we have some results from an official enquiry before making pronouncements. We don't know if any corners were cut.

BTW is there not a difference between cutting corners and building to a cheap but legal specification?

There is no certainty that the cladding used was a legal specification for the height of the building. It's being implied by some senior people in Government that it wasn't a legal specification for buildings of that height, but was for shorter buildings.

There is a cost floor that you cannot go beneath without meeting the basic requirements. There is a floor beneath which you can't make "efficiency savings" without failing to do the job properly. We see it so often where a public sector body is delivering a service at this cost floor but the fallacy of "private sector efficiency savings" sees the service go out to the private sector. They either don't do the job properly, they beg for more money, they hand the contract back, or a combination of all of the above.

I'm challenging the idea that it's always possible to squeeze another efficiency saving out of something. I think Grenfell Tower is a case that proves it isn't.

 

[DarloRich]

There is no certainty that the cladding used was a legal specification for the height of the building. It's being implied by some senior people in Government that it wasn't a legal specification for buildings of that height, but was for shorter buildings.

There is a cost floor that you cannot go beneath without meeting the basic requirements. There is a floor beneath which you can't make "efficiency savings" without failing to do the job properly. We see it so often where a public sector body is delivering a service at this cost floor but the fallacy of "private sector efficiency savings" sees the service go out to the private sector. They either don't do the job properly, they beg for more money, they hand the contract back, or a combination of all of the above.

I'm challenging the idea that it's always possible to squeeze another efficiency saving out of something. I think Grenfell Tower is a case that proves it isn't.

and I agree with your point.

 

[Bletchleyite]

because the building regs don't specifically prevent it's use. The regs are vague and need sorting out.

It is now being suggested that they do in that application.

They don't in other applications, but that's because it's fine for those applications. There is no sense in banning it completely any more than you'd ban wooden framed houses or even bungalow log cabins. But you'd be stupid to build a log cabin 25 storey block of flats.

 

[Bletchleyite]

and I agree with your point.

Yes, also agreed - at some point you can't gain from efficiency and instead you "gain" by cutting something actually important.

The irony here is that if the cut had gone to the extent of "let's not bother cladding it and leave it the way it was" possibly nobody at all would have died.

 

[AlterEgo]

The death toll has risen again, to 79.

 

[Dai Corner]

Going back to the insulation for a moment, and I'm way outside my areas of expertise her so correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears the 'RS5000' which I think was what what was used is advertised as suitable for use above 18m, but, crucially, it has only been tested using a certain method of construction

https://www.celotex.co.uk/download/df71506f-346e-4c59-be61-566f030688f0

Is the first PIR insulation board to successfully test to BS 8414-2:2005, meets the criteria set out in BR 135 and therefore is acceptable for use in buildings above 18 metres in height

Celotex RS5000 is a premium performance solution and is the first PIR board to meet the performance criteria set out in BR 135 for rainscreen cladding systems.
The system tested was as follows:
12mm Fibre Cement Panels
Supporting aluminium brackets and vertical rails
100mm Celotex RS5000
12mm Non-combustible sheathing board
100mm SFS System
2 x 12.5mm plasterboard
The re performance and classification report issued only relates to the components detailed. Any changes to the components listed will need to be considered by the building designer.

My bold

 

[HSTEd]

Ideally buildings would be built without any structural components that are flammable under standard fire conditions.

So concrete, steel, mineral wool insulation and the aluminium cladding.
And probably a lot of plasterboard.
(If a fire is hot enough that the aluminium goes up it is game over anyway).

 

[najaB]

Ideally buildings would be built without any structural components that are flammable under standard fire conditions.

Flammable is okay, as long as it's self-extinguishing.

 

[BestWestern]

Ideally buildings would be built without any structural components that are flammable under standard fire conditions.

So concrete, steel, mineral wool insulation and the aluminium cladding.
And probably a lot of plasterboard.
(If a fire is hot enough that the aluminium goes up it is game over anyway).

This is an interesting point. It surely must be doable? So is it merely a question of cost, or is it something else? Is it perhaps that the idea of a fireproof building is deemed pointless, because that building is going to be filled with highly flammable furniture and personal belongings?

As an anorak it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for yobs to torch the upstairs of a London bus, something which occurs with a frequency that I find worrying. Or indeed how quickly a vehicle will go up of its own accord during an engine fire or other mechanical blaze. Surely, ideally, the interior of a bus ought to be robust against firesetting. But again, is it overlooked because of the cost, or is it just not thought to be worth the effort? In a high rise building, it is surely patently obvious that escape is largely impossible if the worst happens. And yet we fail to do all we can to overcome that possibility.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because once you ensure people are safe, property is a simple financial matter. It's cheaper to take buildings insurance than to build a completely non combustible house with no combustible contents. And that's fine.