Looks like another cladding fire in UAE

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/injured-fire-breaks-uae-residential-tower-200505185522325.html

This is the video of the fire:

pic.twitter.com/aEyzjbihPh

Definitely Grenfell Part 2

Here it comes at last https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/13/grenfell-architect-clashed-with-council-over-fire-prevention

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/20/grenfell-firm-rydon-promised-five-times-to-appoint-fire-safety-advisers-inquiry-told

"The builders in the disastrous Grenfell Tower refurbishment promised five times to appoint fire safety advisers but failed to do so, the inquiry into the deadly blaze at the building has heard."

Snip

"Rydon did hear, however, that the architect Studio E was talking to Exova, a fire engineer that had been used earlier in the design process. Lawrence said in an email to the architect: “If you are getting some free advice then great.”

The absence of a fire engineer on the team meant the cladding panels, which the inquiry has already concluded fuelled the fatal fire, were selected without consulting a specialist fire safety consultant, Lawrence confirmed. When Rydon was selected as the main contractor, Exova was not transferred across to its team."

Isn't that kind of dodginess (whether through incompetence/ignorance, or commercial cynicism) what the public Building Inspectors are supposed to police? But now can't, very effectively, because deliberately (privatise, cut Red Tape) undermined by promotion of alternative, private consultant channels in parallel, and by starvation of resources. As well as, in this case owing their salaries to the same client (Kensington and Chelsea Borough) that was pressuring the contractor to cut costs by skimping.

I've been wondering whether to submit here, an article I wrote recently. What the hell, here it is.

------------------------------------------

Grenfell – Truth at last for the Building Industry

The three-year (so far) Public Inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire disaster is at long last revealing the wilful ongoing public scandal at the heart of it.

On the night of 14 June 2017, an electrical kitchen fire in 24-storey Grenfell Tower, a poorly ‘renovated’ block of 127 Council flats in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, quickly spread to turn the whole into a Towering Inferno, burning to death or asphyxiating 72 of the mainly ethnic residents and injuring 70 more. The column of flame and toxic smoke could be seen from all over London.

Neither the fire-spread, nor the failure of evacuation, should ever have happened. Fire is understood the world over as the biggest risk in tall buildings. After WW2, the British Fire Research Station (FRS) and Building Research Establishment (BRE) laid foundations, codified into easily understood and enforceable Building Regulations including Fire, which were adopted all over the world.

Along with the British Standards Institute (BSI), Met Office, Ordnance Survey (OS) and others, such institutional public excellence was a major source of British prestige, influence, commercial advantage and ‘soft power’ in the world, much like China today, despite declining empire and military power. Unfortunately, the living evidence that such national benefit could come from taxpayer-funded institutions, was (and still is) an affront to a certain political ideology, and so was deliberately destroyed, sold off, in the 1980s.

Nowadays, the rebranded privatised remains of FRS, BRE etc and the Agrément Board for testing and certifying building products, count for nothing in the world, as their income comes from pliant ‘consultancy’ to commercial firms. Public Building Regulations (including Fire) are still written as law, and public (Local Authority) Building Inspectors still operate, but weakened by numerous private consultancies alongside as an alternative channel, through which such law can be ingeniously evaded.

The Enquiry is now revealing (as if we didn’t know) that such semi-legalised evasion of Building Regulations (especially Fire) is what happened with the out-sourced £10m Grenfell ‘renovation’ project, to shave costs for the ultra-rich Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and to improve the contractor’s profits. The public Building Inspectors, salaried to Kensington and Chelsea, could feel their backsides well covered by things like Agrément Certificates, however un-credible.

The national privatisation and ‘deregulation’ project has for the last 35 years been sold to the voting public as removal of Red Tape, that unnecessary burden on industry (and City of London ‘liberty’). It feeds on the resentment of ‘bureaucracy’ that’s felt when a Building Inspector insists, for example, on subdivision by fire doors which seem to wreck someone’s spacious interior design concept.

But anyone who’s been in the horror of a fire, children terrified (or worse), the stink, the ruin (thankfully, not me so far), will passionately tell you that enforced Regulations to contain and to escape from Fire, are far from Red Tape, but are something you’ll be life-changingly grateful for when the time comes. One suspects that numerous other branches of dismantled Red Tape, from healthy food, through climate, to financial cheating, were originally there for reasons equally compelling to those holders of true experience from the sharp end.

As far as my experience at the sharp end, I find the public Building Inspectors a fantastic resource of deep local experience and technical helpfulness, still hanging in despite over-work/under-funding. While many treat them as annoyances to be outwitted, I appreciate their earnest administration of mostly important standards, only wishing that insulation/airtightness standards, for example, were much higher, and that they had powers/resources to enforce more comprehensively.

Perhaps because I respect and enjoy the Building Inspectors as peers, I find them ready to suggest creative solutions, for example a Fire Escape route from new attic sleeping space, down stair through Kitchen/Living Room to another stair to Exit two storeys below, all without fire doors or barriers to open spaciousness, by use of a sort of smoke-detecting airbag system under the sink, which fills the room with water-mist that evaporates the heat out of any flame.

While the Inquiry is currently naming and shaming the ‘professionals’ in the Grenfell ‘refurbishment’ who did their masters’ bidding to circumvent well established systems to contain and escape from any Fire, it must move on up to spotlight the political Leaders, the corporates and their shareholders in whose ‘interest’ such cheating is routinely part of the big-building industry. And beyond, to the mean politicians of the 1980s who set the whole enduring ethos, and the grim theorists who gave them voice – now thankfully dead.

There must be retribution scaled to the hugeness of the manslaughter – not as revenge, but with the intention of that viral quote from early-lockdown:
“It’s like the Planet has sent us to our rooms to think about what we’ve done.”
Following orders, or following the herd norm, is never an excuse, is in fact the core crime, the sub-human personal failure we’re all liable to.

Can we hope that the pandemic experience jolts enough of us back into fully-human empathy and action, into recognising and gently sidelining the sad silver-tongued sociopaths and the mad ideologues who disproportionately dominate politics and big business? Life on Earth depends on it.

Absolutely - I can make another story of that - by creative familiarity not just with the ADs but with loads of source research they can be v libearating - but at Grenfell that was cynically abused. Like 'White' healing can readily be turned to Black magic. The public Building Inspectors are supposed to be the long-stop guarding against such things.

Posted By: Artigliothe buildings historic lack of compliancewith fire safety

You mean there were non-compliances in the original, before the refurbishment?

Artiglio, are you sure this isn't muddling together the building regs/fire precautions situation of Grenfell Tower as originally built, with what it was left with after recent 'refurbishment'? AIUI the refurb substantially changed internal arrangement, with 'new thinking' on means of escape etc, which was where the skimping came in. Do you really mean the tower was similarly dangerous before the refurb?

https://assets.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/documents/Dr%20Barbara%20Lane%20report%20-%20section%2019%20%28Phase%201%20-%20supplemental%29.pdf

19.5.76

In regard to wet riser provision.

I’m no buildings expert , just a landlord with small blocks. At time of report i had a broken arm and plenty of time to read. The full report by Barbara Lane is quite an eye opener and i only had time to skim through the bits that looked interesting.

Posted By: ArtiglioThe full report by Barbara Lane

Interesting bit on p 19-10, section 19.3.26 gives a table of the lethality of PIR, phenolic and EPS in a fire.

Tom, you should read 19.5.7-32 and 19.6.11-29 for other examples of pre-refurbishment problems.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: fostertom</cite><blockquote><cite>Posted By: djh</cite>Tom, why don't you do a bit of research yourself</blockquote>You tend to say that kinda automatically to me. I do plenty of research, freely give of it on GBF. Other things I appreciate hearing others' research - I don't think Artiglio minds being questioned?</blockquote>

No, i don’t mind referencing what i post , it’d be good if you could take the time ( if possible) to have a read of the report, it cleverly sets out many of the issues that led to the tragedy ( withput attributing blame) quite how it stood for so many years but the fire service did not at every inspection/opportunity point out the lack of a wet riser is beyond me ( other than historical cosy arrangements) its provision alone would have made a huge difference to how the fire was tackled and the efficacy. The comments on non functioning fire door closers, points to interference by residents , but no one will flag it up. The fire risk assessment was nothing more than a pile of paper if it did not mention the lack of a wet riser and any recomendations for its provision.

As i’ve said many times, the social housing sector is not fit for purpose when it comes to managing its stock. No one wants to make a decision there is no in house expertise, everything is subbed out and any report that comes back from a “professional” is rubber stamped with little more than a cursory glance because someone else is taking responsibility, dodging reponsibility inthis manner is a major failing in itself, but it makes it easier to climb the public sector housing ladder much more easily.

Have a google of East Kent Housing, they even employed someone who’d left Kensington. Top jobs in social housing are a merry go round of well paid jobs for the boys/girls that play the game.

I see there is a Building Safety Bill proposed:

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/what-is-in-the-governments-building-safety-bill-seven-key-takeaways-67235

Indeed - what's Bldg Regs for if not this? Typical of a govt of adolescent chancers that likes to dog-whistle 'Red Tape removal' to its faithful, finds institutional overhaul too arduous, so invents new layers of ill-considered bureaucracy instead.

Posted By: Artigliohad the building burnt on the outside and no one died would there really be all this fuss?

Exactly. Up the top of this page, there's a report of [yet another] major cladding fire in the UAE but nobody cares because nobody dies. If the windows in Grenfell hadn't let the fire back into the building, if there'd been sprinklers installed to put the internal fires out, if there had been proper escape routes that stayed cool and free from smoke ... any one of those would have probably prevented all the deaths.

Cladding is just one issue. You need a whole series of failures to kill so many people.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Artiglio</cite>And the systems deemed to be unsafe grows wider

<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/fears-2000-tower-blocks-could-have-hidden-cladding-issues/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_iosshare_Av0trs43Hzp1" rel="nofollow">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/fears-2000-tower-blocks-could-have-hidden-cladding-issues/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_iosshare_Av0trs43Hzp1</a>

( this refers to eps and render systems)
</blockquote>

What a badly researched/written article. When they talk about a "thin layer of concrete" they mean render?