Building cladding
26 Jun 2017 7:13:58 UTC
Topic 208485
I think almost everyone in the world must be aware by now of the disastrous fire in the UK, at the Grenfell Tower block in North Kensington, London, which has sadly claimed it is believed, at least 79 lives.
It was alleged that the external cladding fitted to the building did not meet fire regulations and contributed to the spread of the fire. The Government has ordered that every one of the 600 blocks in the country be inspected and samples of cladding tested. To date 60 buildings have failed the fire safety tests.
The cladding is question is Reynobond PE, NOT the FR, A2, or other versions. Can anyone tell me whether that particular product is banned in their country, and if so entirely, or just over a certain height? There is much misinformation around at the moment., and it would be useful to hear from those outside the UK. Yes there are of course political issues which we won't discuss, I'm looking for technical facts here and any details of other countries that don't or won't use it.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
An aluminium/polyethlyene
FWIW : An aluminium/polyethlyene composite very close to Reynobond PE was the cladding found to be risky in a fire in Melbourne's Docklands Lacrosse Tower in 2014. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade produced an exceptionally careful report of its investigations. See page 23 onwards for the detail of CSIRO testing ( plus page 92 in Appendices ), note the problem of obfuscated product labelling, and that testing was abbreviated as the sample was so flammable that it nearly destroyed their test equipment ! Started with a discarded cigarette. Notably :
"MFB chief fire officer Peter Rau said the building's external cladding, Alucobest, had undergone scientific testing and was found in breach of combustibility requirements for a high-rise building."
In that area of town such condominiums have sprouted like mushrooms in springtime in a huge boom since say 2004. Most units are sold 'off plan' ie. paid for prior to any building, sometimes even before planning permissions are obtained. The reason is to avoid 'stamp duty' on the sale ~ 10%, which means the developer has a big bag of other people's money in hand prior to the first shovel of dirt. Hence more than the usual developer incentive to rip-off via cut corners etc.
The relevant authority ( VBA, in whom we should be confident ) has made some clearly silly statements, probably contradicting the MFB. But now everyone is lawyered up in a class action, have great post-facto wisdom or ignorance ( depending ) & no doubt are shredding too .....
I remember the fuss at the time. We thought how bloody lucky the ~400 residents had been. Only bumps and scrapes.
HTH
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Thanks Mike that is useful
Thanks Mike that is useful reading. What is also transpiring here is that the insulation behind the cladding was not fireproof as well, and in addition, some towers have also failed fire safety inspections on the insulation of gas pipes and fire doors. It is fast becoming a national scandal here.
But many countries around the world model their fire safety precautions and building regulations upon Britain's standards. If the official enquiry finds those standards not to be good enough, this could become an international matter.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I can't link to it, but an
I can't link to it, but an article which I read that seemed to me to be responsible reporting at the time asserted that US regulations call for direct testing of the exact configuration planned to be installed on buildings taller than about two or three stories. It further asserted that no configuration remotely similar to the Grenfell configuration had ever passed that test. (I forget the detailed description of the category of failing configurations).
Doubtless we have abundant other problems, but it appears the specific Grenfell problem is probably largely absent in the United States.
The US firm that supplied
The US firm that supplied cladding used on London's Grenfell Tower says it has ended global sales of the product for use in high-rise blocks. Arconic said it was "discontinuing" sales of Reynobond PE for tower blocks due to "issues" identified by the fire, which is feared to have killed 79. In a fresh statement, the firm said it had stopped sales of Reynobond PE for tall buildings, citing concerns about the "inconsistency of building codes across the world".
The UK government said 75 buildings in 26 council areas had now failed fire safety tests - every one tested so far.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I have by no means had the
I have by no means had the time to establish the veracity of your statement that the British model is in extensive use anywhere other than the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, Mr S. :-) Most countries formerly linked to the UK have perhaps had more time to go their own way by now. Even here in Gibraltar - we have moved on.
edit: should you have a little more time on your hands than I at present: http://www.affiliatedfm.com/About/News/FM-Global-Country-Building-Codes-Index.aspx may have further insight into building standards beyond your borders. I will endeavour to find time to glance through it myself at some point.
Thanks for the link. I think
Thanks for the link. I think you meant validity but no matter :-)) The info regarding the British model of building standards came from a BBC web page the other day, I'll try to find it, it wasn't my own opinion. Most developed countries have fairly stringent standards but you won't find that in third world countries. What is startlingly worrying is that in addition to flammable cladding, some buildings were found to have failed fire safety checks on gas pipes and fire doors.
If that fire hadn't have happened how long would that have gone on for? We know that people prop open fire doors, and some Councils have now appointed Fire Wardens to do a check every 24 hours. Why does it always take a disaster to wake people up to situations that should never have happened in the first place. I also thought that every public building including high rise had a mandatory fire safety check every year. Why did those checks not find these failures before?
The London Fire Brigade are now looking at taller aerial platforms, but those are over £1 Million each, and not so easy to deploy in narrow streets and access roads. You can't put a price on peoples lives of course, but perhaps one answer long term is to have shorter blocks and more of them. It is a Town Planners nightmare.
So far 60 out of 600 high rise towers have been tested and all have failed,how many more will there be. The BBC also said that Reynobond PE was granted a certificate for tower block use in 1997, I can find no evidence of that so far. If that is true, that opens an even bigger can of worms.
Tower blocks are a fact of life in high density areas like London and New York, you can't go sideways, the only way is up. The final public enquiry report will be required reading.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Chris S_2 wrote:Thanks for
We used to do these when I was a f/f, most of the time they were fairly easy but sometimes the building owner or manager would refuse us entry, yes they can do that, and we would then refer them to the Fire Marshall for an OFFICIAL visit that was NOT allowed to be refused!!
The problem is anyone jumping out of a building above about 3 floors is going to be severely injured or die, seems we don't practice enough so landing 'wrong' is a major problem. So unless you are prepared for LOTS of very short buildings the height of the aerial ladder isn't a matter for concern as most are 100 feet, @30 meters. There is one in Canada that is in the 200+ foot range but the footprint on the street needed to raise that thing is HUGE, more than a 2 lane road width!! They all have stabilizer jacks you must put down prior to raising them, no one wants to be on one if it decides to tip over! One of the other problems you have is people refusing to get on the ladder due to height concerns, unless they are literally being burnt alive I've had people REFUSE to come out the window, even though they were BEGGING for someone to come get them as I got close to them!! The bucket type trucks have helped with some of that, but you have the same stabilizer jack problems as with the ladder trucks.
The Grenfell Tower is 67M
The Grenfell Tower is 67M tall. The largest aerial platform nearest to London was the Surrey Fire Brigade's 42M aerial platform which was used to fight the fire.
Taller platforms
This going to be a similar problem to snow clearing at London Heathrow airport. Places like Helsinki in Finland have millions of Pounds worth of snow clearing equipment and three runways to deal with what they know they will expect to get every year. LHR has some trouble justifying spending that amount of money for a one in 10 years occurrence. Also the equipment has to be maintained year in year out. It will be the same for the LFB. How many Grenfells have there been in the last 50 years, how many more will there be in the future? Who will sign off a couple of £million to buy platforms that might rarely be used.
But again you can't put a price upon peoples lives. I don't have an answer, I only wish I had.
Helsinki
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I've been reading some of the
I've been reading some of the technical coverage of the codes that you lot have and 3rd world comes to mind. Most likely a severe case of NIH syndrome. On this side of the pond that building would have had two independent staircases, both with positive pressure so smoke will not enter the stairwell. Stand pipes. Fire sprinklers in the flats, lobby and staircases. Monitored central fire alarm system. Fire doors with automatic magnetic closure. Fire extinguishers. Annual mandatory inspections, including the flats. And that cladding never would have been allowed to be installed. The gas pipes would be in a separate fire proof utility chase. It may have needed a water tank on the roof to charge the sprinklers and stand pipes. If it had been a bit taller it would have been required to have a helipad on the roof.
We know how to keep people safe when a fire breaks out. Apparently some are more concerned with profits than they are human life.
Thanks for the link. I think
You may think what you wish, Sir ;-)