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How many tower blocks will be condemned?


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HOLA441
5 minutes ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

I want the truth.

 

You can't handle the truth.

It's looking like 100's of buildings are going to be condemned. I think we've moved some distance from blaming the residents  - if you can handle that.

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HOLA442
36 minutes ago, pig said:

It's looking like 100's of buildings are going to be condemned. I think we've moved some distance from blaming the residents  - if you can handle that.

It looks like one of the greatest frauds ever organised and no one knew anything about it!  I'm sure will be the official narrative.

A 100% failure rate is quite alarming you would have thought by now they would have found lots of building had safe non-combustible cladding.  Can't wait for leaked reports coming from councils where some low grade worker warned the senior management that the claddling being installed wasn't the correct one but was blatantly ignored as the cost saving of several grand was too great to resist.

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HOLA443

Grenfell Tower gas pipes left exposed, despite fire safety expert's orders Council expert said pipes serving flats must be protected with fire-retardant boxing but, by time of fire, two-thirds were still bare

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/27/grenfell-tower-gas-pipes-left-exposed-despite-fire-safety-experts-orders

 

Grenfell Tower cladding scandal could cost councils millions after Government says no guarantee of extra funding

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grenfell-tower-cladding-scandal-council-funding-government-no-guarantee-local-government-budgets-a7809216.html  

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HOLA444
1 hour ago, interestrateripoff said:

It looks like one of the greatest frauds ever organised and no one knew anything about it!  I'm sure will be the official narrative.

A 100% failure rate is quite alarming you would have thought by now they would have found lots of building had safe non-combustible cladding.  Can't wait for leaked reports coming from councils where some low grade worker warned the senior management that the claddling being installed wasn't the correct one but was blatantly ignored as the cost saving of several grand was too great to resist.

Blatantly ignored and then got the sack but kept a copy would be even better

Edited by billybong
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HOLA445

I think it's been mentioned on HPC before but it was mentioned on bbc radio today and it's the first time I've heard it mentioned on the radio.

Quote

 

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-independent/20170617/281668254967516

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40422922

Shepherd's Court in west London fell victim to a fire in 2016

London Fire Brigade warned all 33 councils about the potential risks of external cladding on tower blocks in May this year, the BBC has learned.

It followed tests on panels from a high rise that suffered a fire last August.

 

95 reported to have failed so far.

Edited by billybong
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HOLA446

Grenfell Tower fire: Company takes down webpage about refurbishment work

Rydon, a construction maintenance firm has previously insisted its work met all fire regulation standards.

Can't hide from the wayback machine ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20170618023659/http://www.rydon.co.uk/what-we-do/refurbishment/case-studies/refurbishment-case-studies/grenfell-tower

Quote
Contract Name: Grenfell Tower
Contract Value: £8.7 million
Contract Period: 66 weeks
Client: KCTMO Limited

Rydon delivered an £8.6m upgrade to the 24-storey Grenfell Tower as part of a £57m borough-wide regeneration in Kensington & Chelsea, London.

Located in the Lancaster West Estate in North Kensington, the project on the 1970s-built tower has delivered a number of improvements, with residents still in occupation, to the community facilities and energy efficiency of the building. Additional new homes have also been created using vacant space.

Externally, rain screen cladding, curtain wall façade and replacement windows were fitted, improving thermal insulation and modernising the exterior of the building.

Internally, lower floor space was remodelled to incorporate extra new homes as well as a nursery, which was relocated from another part of the building. A completely new heating system was installed, which contributes to reducing living costs of residents.

Resident liaison is an important part of this redevelopment and residents were actively consulted as the project progressed

Rydon achievied a BREEAM rating and secured eco funding from KCTMO. 

You can view the webcam of the tower here.

A successful local employment initiative ‘Live Train’ was implemented on the scheme offering a number of work placement opportunities for people who would like to get into the construction industry. Separately, Rydon also provided several jobs to local residents.

Dale Youth Boxing Club, which has produced some of the UK’s best boxing talent including Olympic Gold medal gold medallist James DeGale and IBF/WBA contender George Groves, is based within the Tower. The work provided the club a much larger and improved training facilities, which will be around three times the size of its current premises.

Previous editions of same page link 

https://web.archive.org/web/20170501000000*/http://www.rydon.co.uk/what-we-do/refurbishment/case-studies/refurbishment-case-studies/grenfell-tower

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HOLA447

How many hospitals, schools, public buildings will be condemned? Hint...lots.

Ever wonder why UK property developers & builders make so much? It is expensive to do it right...can't have regulation and safety standards cutting into profits.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/27/nhs-alert-fire-chiefs-warn-38-hospitals-dangerous-grenfell-tower/

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HOLA448
3 hours ago, pig said:

It's looking like 100's of buildings are going to be condemned. I think we've moved some distance from blaming the residents  - if you can handle that.

He could have put out a small fire. Instead he packed his suitcase. Yeah, ill go with the thought that human beings have agency and aren't objects to be acted on.

 

If you can handle that......

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HOLA449

 Grenfell residents' groups compile lists of victims and survivors

Scepticism exists about official death toll amid ongoing concern police and council have been slow to release information

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/28/grenfell-residents-groups-compile-lists-of-victims-and-survivors

Quote

Sajad Jamalvatan, a biomedical engineering student who lived on the third floor of the block, has established a Whatsapp community of 86 families who escaped from the block, calling the group Grenfell United. From conversations with these residents over the past fortnight he is sceptical about the police death toll of 79and believes that the actual number is likely to be above 120.

While there is widespread acceptance that police and coroners are working in uniquely challenging conditions, unable to access parts of the building that are too dangerous to enter, there is frustration among residents that officials have not released a number of those people who survived, or an estimate of the numbers of people ordinarily resident in the block. Jamalvatan said he was trying to compile a database of survivors on behalf of his neighbours.

“We were expecting the TMO [tenant management organisation] to do this list for us, but we don’t think they are willing to help us,” he said, referring to Kensington & Chelsea TMO, the body that looked after the block for the local authority.

Jamalvatan said he was trying to organise a meeting between the council and all of the survivors, in one place, but that it was proving difficult to arrange. “They don’t want to face 400 people in a room. They prefer to deal with us individually.”

The tower’s electoral register shows about 200 people registered to vote, according to a local councillor. The Grenfell Tower Response Unit, the official body coordinating London-wide efforts to support those affected, said they have given 99 households £5,000 in emergency payments, which gives some insight into how many of the 129 households in the block have survivors, although police have said some families are still waiting for payments.

They said 145 hotel rooms have been provided to former residents, but they were unable to release a number of survivors...

 

Edited by Saving For a Space Ship
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HOLA4410
10
HOLA4411
6 minutes ago, hotairmail said:

Blair / Brown's self regulation experiment has been a disaster in so many fields. This is just a mirror image of the financial crisis.

I agree, although I am not 100% sure that the Grenfell disaster is one of them.  We were building buildings with flammable materials long before Thatcher was even leader of the Tory party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland_disaster

 

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HOLA4412
18 hours ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

"Behailu grabbed a bag of belongings before fleeing, believing the fire would be contained in his flat and dealt with by fire crews.

His next-door neighbour Maryann Adam, 41, said: “He knocked on the door and he said there was a fire in his flat.

“It was exactly 12.50am because I was sleeping and it woke me up. When we got up, I saw his luggage outside his flat, there was a big bag with his clothes.

“The fire was small in the kitchen. I could see it because the door was open. There was no alarm.”

Fire crews were alerted at 12.54am and arrived within six minutes but found the inferno had spread outside the building, roaring towards the 24th floor."

 

As I said......

That  sentence (my bold) does not tie up exactly with what was reported on TV.  The TV report definitely said the fire crew extinguished the fire inside the flat.  What I can't recall from the TV is whether the fire crew then left the site, or if they noticed the outside of the  building was on fire whilst still on site (or just driving away).

As for the rest of it, you could say the resident was doing as he was instructed (with the exception that he took a little time to collect some personal items before leaving).  Get out the flat and let the fire brigade deal with it.  At that stage he would think the fire would be contained, as it said in the fire procedure for the building.

 

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HOLA4413
14 hours ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

Grenfell Tower gas pipes left exposed, despite fire safety expert's orders Council expert said pipes serving flats must be protected with fire-retardant boxing but, by time of fire, two-thirds were still bare

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/27/grenfell-tower-gas-pipes-left-exposed-despite-fire-safety-experts-orders

 

Grenfell Tower cladding scandal could cost councils millions after Government says no guarantee of extra funding

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grenfell-tower-cladding-scandal-council-funding-government-no-guarantee-local-government-budgets-a7809216.html  

The reason for the great silence will be that all involved will be scrambling behind the scenes to avoid having to pay for removing and refitting cladding on hundreds of buildings.  On the face of it I don't see that councils are necessarily at fault, its the contractors, suppliers and privatised building inspectors ?  So it's them who should pay to put it all right.

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HOLA4414
14
HOLA4415

If all this cladding is removed around the country  and not replaced -which I think is a possibility given the potential costs - then the visual landscape of parts of the the UK is going to be transformed. Many cityscapes are going to find themselves  reverting to their appearance from decades ago with some reverting back to the 1970s. All the hubris of the years of self regulation and ponzi economics in everything from banking to property will have produced precisely nothing.

Edited by stormymonday_2011
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HOLA4416
27 minutes ago, interestrateripoff said:

120 failed now and still a 100% failure rate. Stunning.

I'm sure this is due to widespread lack of understanding of the interpretation of the regulations, as I've suggested above. I know some people have suggested that the government have applied a rather contrived interpretation of the regulations, but here's a guidance document to buildings control from 2014:

https://www.allerdale.gov.uk/downloads/bca_guidance_note_18_use_of_combustible_cladding_materials_on_residential_buildings.pdf

This clearly states that ALL parts of tall building cladding should be "limited combustibility". This may well be the aim of the regulations, but it is not particularly clear from reading the regulations themselves.

So it appears that many people in the industry have simply misinterpreted the regulations, and industry associations have given misleading advice, or incorrect advice on how to comply.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40418266

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HOLA4417
14 hours ago, ThoughtCriminal said:

He could have put out a small fire. Instead he packed his suitcase. Yeah, ill go with the thought that human beings have agency and aren't objects to be acted on.

 

If you can handle that......

Well of course human beings have agency lol!

For example you can design and build a building not to be a death trap. Not to kill hundreds of people if a fridge explodes - whether a resident is packing a suitcase, sleeping, out of the building, changing a nappy, on heroin, screwing the next door neighbour or chatting to freaks on the internet. 

If you know a building isn't safe, you could make it safe. Or you could use your agency to make it look nicer on the outside instead.

However, for some reason you cannot handle the above and it is more important to you to specifically blame the residents agency.

That is pretty fecking silly. Well actually, its pretty weird.

 

 

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HOLA4418
3 hours ago, kzb said:

That  sentence (my bold) does not tie up exactly with what was reported on TV.  The TV report definitely said the fire crew extinguished the fire inside the flat.  What I can't recall from the TV is whether the fire crew then left the site, or if they noticed the outside of the  building was on fire whilst still on site (or just driving away).

As for the rest of it, you could say the resident was doing as he was instructed (with the exception that he took a little time to collect some personal items before leaving).  Get out the flat and let the fire brigade deal with it.  At that stage he would think the fire would be contained, as it said in the fire procedure for the building.

 

It was a tall building so by default there would have been multiple fire appliances sent on an alarm call. Normally in a contained flat fire once the original blaze is out one crew would have been left to dampen down the fire scene inside while the others return to normal duties. What I expect happened at Grenfell Towers was that it was the additional crews about to leave who spotted that the outside of the building was alight. 

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HOLA4419
19
HOLA4420
57 minutes ago, hotairmail said:

That is what I've been thinking. Out of Europe, back to delapidated communist-style concrete high rises....it would be like pre 1971. All we would need is a Corbyn socialist government to complete the set. Maybe even rationing as austerity in the post financial crisis world worsens.

Funny thing is, we'd probably be a lot happier.

Portsmouth Tricorn

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HOLA4421

again i ask as no one has commented - what about individual dwelling aka houses/bungalows, not tower blocks, hospitals etc -  that have been retrospectively clad with external insulation that is then rendered over? Are they too living in a tinder box??? I saw no gaps ie fire breaks in the insulation blocks added next door to their house. I caught tail end of a Kingspan interview on news earlier but didnt get the full gist. Bearing in mind most new builds or extensions have kingspan in the internal walls  one assumes not flammable?!

 

If i am posting in wrong forum please advise but I have been following this thread since the start and the question still stands unanswered and no-one else seems to have raised it in public or on forums so I assume i am wrong and there is no risk - but would be great to hear it said!

 

Thanks

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HOLA4422
1 hour ago, hotairmail said:

That is what I've been thinking. Out of Europe, back to delapidated communist-style concrete high rises....it would be like pre 1971. All we would need is a Corbyn socialist government to complete the set. Maybe even rationing as austerity in the post financial crisis world worsens.

Funny thing is, we'd probably be a lot happier.

it's not the architecture that drops the litter and pisses in the lift

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HOLA4423
9 hours ago, stormymonday_2011 said:

If all this cladding is removed around the country  and not replaced -which I think is a possibility given the potential costs - then the visual landscape of parts of the the UK is going to be transformed. Many cityscapes are going to find themselves  reverting to their appearance from decades ago with some reverting back to the 1970s. All the hubris of the years of self regulation and ponzi economics in everything from banking to property will have produced precisely nothing.

What a horrendously tragic yet poignant symbolism of neo-liberalism.

Emperors new clothes.

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HOLA4424
13 minutes ago, merry said:

again i ask as no one has commented - what about individual dwelling aka houses/bungalows, not tower blocks, hospitals etc -  that have been retrospectively clad with external insulation that is then rendered over? Are they too living in a tinder box??? I saw no gaps ie fire breaks in the insulation blocks added next door to their house. I caught tail end of a Kingspan interview on news earlier but didnt get the full gist. Bearing in mind most new builds or extensions have kingspan in the internal walls  one assumes not flammable?!

 

If i am posting in wrong forum please advise but I have been following this thread since the start and the question still stands unanswered and no-one else seems to have raised it in public or on forums so I assume i am wrong and there is no risk - but would be great to hear it said!

 

Thanks

I'm guessing the view will be you will have time to escape and the fire crews will be able fight the fire due to the low heigh level. With tower blocks the higher you go the more difficult it is to fight and rescue people.

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HOLA4425
6 minutes ago, interestrateripoff said:

I'm guessing the view will be you will have time to escape and the fire crews will be able fight the fire due to the low heigh level. With tower blocks the higher you go the more difficult it is to fight and rescue people.

Building regs. required me to fill my timber frame extension with celotex, which I suspect is flammable. However, the plasterboard is (allegedly) enough to provide 30 mins.fire resistance. I have mains smoke detectors with battery back up

it's a one & a half storey cottage. I would hope to have time to evacuate after the alarm went off long before the insulation combusted.

The previous occupant had fitted polystyrene ceiling tiles (aka napalm in waiting) throughout the original cottage. I suppose it seemed a good idea at the time ...

 

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