HanoiVillan Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 4 minutes ago, TrentVilla said: No you aren't. Im not saying a sprinkler system wouldn't have saved lives in this instance or that they shouldn't be in place. Far more informed people than I would say they should and for me if they can make a difference they should be in place. The point is for me (while awaiting the full reports) that the spread of this fire predominately seems to have been external to the building. The building burning outside in. My view is that sprinklers would have made marginal difference once the fire took hold, it remains to be seen if they could have stopped it doing so. Most fires even in a high rise can be handled by the fire brigade and there are all sorts of associated problems with sprinkler systems in high rise buildings. This will be a multifaceted investigation but as I said on page one as soon as I woke to the news, this is primarily going to be about that cladding. Thanks - very interesting. I completely agree with the last line, that's exactly my assumption as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted June 20, 2017 Author Moderator Share Posted June 20, 2017 2 minutes ago, PaulC said: The Tower block was safe before it was renovated wasn't it. They were designed so the fire is contained within the flat where the fire takes place. Each time they alter a tower block they compromise the safety of it. Potentially yes. They were safe to a point and designed to restrict the spread of fire, in most instances to one unit. Which is why the sprinklers thing is or perhaps was not that big an issue but after this case everything is going to change. What was acceptable will no longer be and rightly so. All because of a cosmetic facelift rather than really investing in social housing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 22 minutes ago, PaulC said: The Tower block was safe before it was renovated wasn't it. They were designed so the fire is contained within the flat where the fire takes place. Each time they alter a tower block they compromise the safety of it. My understanding is that the block has a single means of escape. At no point since it was built has it been safe. It was just less unsafe prior to wrapping it in something flammable.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 3 hours ago, BOF said: Answer the question though. What could he have said to satisfy you in that situation? He said they'd get everything. He couldn't quantify the amount of fire engines they'd buy. So what could he have said above explicitly saying "they'll get everything they need" which would have reassured you? I would have liked him to say something like they have things in place for people on high floors who had no chance on this occasion whether that is helicopters or other means. Also wanted him to reassure us no further cuts to public services like fire brigade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 1 minute ago, chrisp65 said: My understanding is that the block has a single means of escape. At no point since it was built has it been safe. It was just less unsafe prior to wrapping it in something flammable.. So did the tower block I lived in and we had some quite major fires, but mostly they were contained within the one apartment. Built in the 60s as well. So yes I agree not compeletley safe but it wouldnt have spread the way it did and so quickly before the renovation. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 Just now, PaulC said: So did the tower block I lived in and we had some quite major fires, but mostly they were contained within the one apartment. Built in the 60s as well. So yes I agree not compeletley safe but it wouldnt have spread the way it did and so quickly before the renovation. Yep, so yours was safer. But still had the fundamental flaw of a single escape route, just better detailing greatly reducing the risk. One resident in one flat wedges open the door on a hot day, or does motorbike maintenance in the ground floor lobby, or lights a whole box of fireworks for the lolz... A single means of escape leaves you vulnerable to the darwinistas, determined to have a block party BBQ on the 3rd floor landing. It's not an unusual design, the single escape route, it's just not that great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 1 minute ago, chrisp65 said: Yep, so yours was safer. But still had the fundamental flaw of a single escape route, just better detailing greatly reducing the risk. One resident in one flat wedges open the door on a hot day, or does motorbike maintenance in the ground floor lobby, or lights a whole box of fireworks for the lolz... A single means of escape leaves you vulnerable to the darwinistas, determined to have a block party BBQ on the 3rd floor landing. It's not an unusual design, the single escape route, it's just not that great. Yes I agree with you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, PaulC said: The Tower block was safe before it was renovated wasn't it. They were designed so the fire is contained within the flat where the fire takes place. Each time they alter a tower block they compromise the safety of it. I think this is about right Paul. Having thought about it for a few day, If you strip away to original design (Tower), and I have lived in a few of these in Brum, they are nothing more than concrete shells. They are not concrete covered in plastic or charcoal briquette's or whatever people at the council thinks looks cool, it's concrete and lot's of it thank you very much, and a bit of glass and a few fire doors. I cannot ever see a problem if the place has a working fire alarm (No matter what time it is, a proper alarm, well alarms), the fire just does not have the fuel to go from floor to floor. The handrails are usually metal and the stairs are concrete so it would (the fire) never have the opportunity or a supply of the basic requirements for any fire to spread very far, if at all as there is absolutely nothing to burn in the core of these buildings originally by design I suspect. Let's rewind, Norris is designing the building in the late 60's, at no point did our friend Norris build into the design of his assignment that some **** wit lunatic would come along 40 years later and plaster it with a highly flammable material, just guessing here but I think that's about right. Nobody wanted this to happen, especially Norris but there are layers of serious lessons to be learnt. Edited June 20, 2017 by Amsterdam_Neil_D 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 1 hour ago, chrisp65 said: At no point since it was built has it been safe. That's probably true but statistically from the 4,000-8,000 tower blocks in the UK (Guess) over the last 50 years there hasn't been as many big fire's (Like this one or close to it) as one would expect given that, as you say there is only one way out. in an emergency situation. In 1992 a plane crashed into a Tower block in Amsterdam causing almost 43 dead, at no point did anyone stop flying or stop building high buildings. Changes were made by Boeing (The external party in the fly / building combo here) however to remove the fault and ultimately increase safety on all similar aircraft. As with the Council (Council = External party here, i.e they messed it all up in the building / safety combo) and the tower in London and the tart up operation on the tower, they probably meant well (I bet they really did you know) , but got it super wrong, learn from it, don't repeat. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 4 hours ago, BOF said: The fact that what little money was spent ended up being spent on making an unsafe eyesore look prettier for those who have to look at it, rather than making it any safer, is what I find staggeringly unforgivable, morally reprehensible and, yes, borderline riot-worthy given the consequences. The justification given for the cladding was that it would provide insulation and was done in tandem with a new heating system for the building. The aesthetics probably would have been a factor too, the Council probably saw it as a win win all round. It seems there has been a failure along the line with the fire regulations, either the strength of the regulations or their application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post BOF Posted June 20, 2017 Moderator Popular Post Share Posted June 20, 2017 24 minutes ago, LondonLax said: The justification given for the cladding was that it would provide insulation and was done in tandem with a new heating system for the building. The aesthetics probably would have been a factor too, the Council probably saw it as a win win all round. It seems there has been a failure along the line with the fire regulations, either the strength of the regulations or their application. If that's true, providing insulation for new heating with flammable material in a tower block with no sprinkler, no working fire alarm and one means of escape then it's a jail sentence for everyone who signed off on that clusterf*ck. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 36 minutes ago, BOF said: If that's true, providing insulation for new heating with flammable material in a tower block with no sprinkler, no working fire alarm and one means of escape then it's a jail sentence for everyone who signed off on that clusterf*ck. Should be but I bet nobody serves time for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted June 20, 2017 Author Moderator Share Posted June 20, 2017 25 minutes ago, PaulC said: Should be but I bet nobody serves time for this. I'd say its highly unlikely, it will though end a career or two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astondalston Posted June 20, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted June 20, 2017 A lot of gut opinions on here. Interesting to read what an expert investigator says about safety and blame... Quote Andrew Blackie was an Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) operations inspector from 2007 to 2017. Here he outlines various options for how to investigate what took place at Grenfell. http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/06/20/grenfell-how-to-investigate-what-happened 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakotaDakota Posted June 20, 2017 Share Posted June 20, 2017 "Day Of Rage" planned for tomorrow in London. Sure rioting will help things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 1 hour ago, LakotaDakota said: "Day Of Rage" planned for tomorrow in London. Sure rioting will help things... From their statement of their aims it's Reds protesting to remove an elected government ( no peace until this government is bought down ) and presumably replace it with Corbyns labour (with coalition ) , that lost the election i hope its rightfully meet with condemnation by everybody .. I'm in London tomorrow guess I'd better better get my MacDonald's early before they trash the place .... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itdoesntmatterwhatthissay Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 15 hours ago, snowychap said: So not the actual recommendations that came about as a result of the incident in 2009 just general chit chat between fire safety officers and tenants. 'Focus on the easiest targets' - what like the government, government departments and ministers with responsibility in the area? So again just an unspecific 'the issues'. Of course fire safety is not a 'new topic'. The response to fire safety issues in the wake of the Lakanal fire in 2009 is a relatively new topic. What report in 2009? The inquest reported in March 2013, didn't it? I don't know precisely what powers the Mayor of London has with respect to ordering councils to retrofit specific fire-safety measures. If he has any of these powers then I'd have thought that the previous Mayor of London would have also had them and that, having been in office for a full term, he'd have had more opportunity to make that happen than someone in office for just over a year. No, serious recommendations made over the decades. Not chit-chat. It's news to you. But then we established in the other thread that you're not too bothered about construction regulation or the opinion of industry in driving good practice. I'm only 35 and they were discussing sprinklers in council buildings a long long time before I even started Uni. When I tried to save the Aston Arena is was one of the first things I checked when doing my H+S report (2012) and the first thing the fire safety officer discussed with me when I kept it open for another 6 months. We had to isolate the non-sprinkler sections. Informal report which led to the inquest. A bit like now when everyone is spending their time blaming as many Conservatives as they can instead of listening to what people are actually saying. Yup Snowy I'd portion blame to Boris too. Exactly right, a full term, a bit like May or Barwell never had. Boris did an awful job for London....well, not awful. he did a good job carrying on the good things Ken did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 11 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: No, serious recommendations made over the decades. Not chit-chat. 'Serious recommendations' between fire safety officers and tenants? 12 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: But then we established in the other thread that you're not too bothered about construction regulation or the opinion of industry in driving good practice. We did nothing of the sort. In more than one thread, we established that I have no expertise (I think I may have said very little knowledge or something with that gist) with regard to construction regulation much as the majority probably have. In the EU thread, I put the case that I was talking about the processes and politics concerned with the withdrawal of the UK from the EU rather than being drawn in to a discussion about construction regulation about which I knew and know, obviously, much less than you. I said that was pointless. Indeed further to the accusation above, I'll quote a part of one of my posts in the other thread to highlight the misleading intention of the above quoted line: Quote To be clear, I don't have an issue with people who are experts in a field being consulted - I am not Gove. Policy makers must absolutely hear opinion from those people but they ought to have consideration for everyone and not just these people and their interests or demands when formulating policy. 22 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: I'm only 35 and they were discussing sprinklers in council buildings a long long time before I even started Uni. We're not talking about whether they were being discussed as an option between people designing buildings, making buildings, intending to use them and so on. I'm sure that sprinkler systems have been 'discussed' since sprinkler systems were first thought of. We're talking about reviews of regulations, what people are instructed to have to do, what are the standards that are being required - not just a sea of discussions, thoughts, considerations and self-regulation. 25 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: Yup Snowy I'd portion blame to Boris too. Exactly right, a full term, a bit like May or Barwell never had. The Mayor of London has the powers to require councils to retrofit specific fire-safety measures (whatever they may be), does he? The coalition government had a 'full term' and May had the full term that she allowed herself. Barwell was one of a succession of ministers durin the last few years of (effectively) the same government. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 7 hours ago, tonyh29 said: From their statement of their aims it's Reds protesting to remove an elected government ( no peace until this government is bought down ) and presumably replace it with Corbyns labour (with coalition ) , that lost the election i hope its rightfully meet with condemnation by everybody .. I'm in London tomorrow guess I'd better better get my MacDonald's early before they trash the place .... I hear the Bullingdon Boys Club (BBC) will be there to throw things through windows first. It's cool though, they be rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted June 21, 2017 Share Posted June 21, 2017 8 minutes ago, DK82 said: I hear the Bullingdon Boys Club (BBC) will be there to throw things through windows first. It's cool though, they be rich. least they paid for the damage they did Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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