Cladding.

[cromwell]

Exactly Os. How do the regulations allow for this? It's just crazy.

Also, a failure in monitoring the situation by the local councils.

[Workingman]

It has to be a failure at building regulations level, surely?

Yes, along with the suitability of the fire safety checks I mentioned earlier.

There appear to be systemic failures in so many organisations and at so many levels. The Grenfell public inquiry must surely be expanded to take in the work of architects, buildings inspectors, the tendering process, cladding firms, suppliers and even the Fire Service.

[Suff]

Looking at a Guardian article.

“The issue is that, under building regulations, only the surface of the cladding has to be fire-proofed to class 0, which is about surface spread,” says Tarling. “The stuff behind it doesn’t, and it’s this which has burned.”

Vitally.

“The issue is about compartmentalisation,” he says. “Whatever cladding system you use, you have to incorporate fire stops at the line of each floorplate and every party wall around a dwelling to prevent fire from spreading up the facade. The current regulations are robust enough, but they have to be properly followed, and the architects drawings properly executed on site.”

Worryingly

“We have been very concerned about the introduction of highly combustible products into buildings,” he says. “They are often being introduced on the back of the sustainability agenda, but it’s sometimes being done recklessly without due consideration to the consequences. It’s not uncommon for buildings to have blocks of polystyrene up to 30cm deep on the outside, which is an extraordinary quantity of combustible material to be sticking on to a building. There are often ventilation voids between the rainscreen cladding and the insulation to prevent damp, but this also increases the spread of flames.”

So, in short. It has to be fireproof from in front to stop outside fire. It has to have fire breaks inside, between floors, to stop a fire that has started from torching up the whole building as we saw. Contractors are fitting certified stuff then not putting in the security breaks properly.

To add misery to a bad situation, the correct fire prevention was not put on the gas lines inside the building.

So there are regulations in place. Followed slavishly they would have avoided this kind of fire. They are not being followed correctly and they are not being fully inspected.

I'd say new regulations are needed and that, above all, they need to be followed and inspected. For Everyone, especially the councils.

[cromwell]

Polystyrene is oil based isn't it? We used to chuck some on the coal fire when it was damp to get it going. In the 60's polystyrene ceiling tiles were quite popular, but they were banned years since because they are highly inflammable.

So if it was banned from being used in houses because of their fire risk, how in the name of sanity is it being used in tower blocks which are much harder to escape from?

30cm, isn't that about 12 inches? And loads of it everywhere. There has obviously been a steady dilution of fire safety regs over the years since the 80's.

[Suff]

There are many different materials crommers. Only some mention flammability and mainly in the "totally non flammable" situation. However you can guess that one's made with highly flammable expanders are likely to be torches when lit.

Reading the government page on fire regulations, leads me to believe that contractors are working to the "letter of the law" and not to the rigours of common sense or even self preservation. What worries me more are the columns which take EU regulations on blind faith that materials which meet EU regulations can simply be used without regard to other safety factors.

The statement, by the contractor, that class 0 need only apply to the exterior of building cladding panels seems to be borne out in the regulations. The assumption being that, it would seem, fire will not start between the concrete of the outer building shell and the aluminium class0 outer cover. A bit sad if you fit shoddy cheap UPVC windows without a fire break to the cladding and the fire burns out the window and ignites the cladding from underneath, inside the insulation.

I'm sure there is enough ambiguity that semantics will come into play and that the guilty will slip through the cracks.

I note that this kind of cladding is illegal in Germany and the US and, also, that other insulation bonded panels could have been used, which were almost completely fireproof and that the only factor in consideration was cost...

[Workingman]

What worries me more are the columns which take EU regulations on blind faith that materials which meet EU regulations can simply be used without regard to other safety factors.

No need to worry. Appendix A. p117. Section 1. a.b.c.d i. ii + Notes are quite clear that European Technical Approvals have to meet British Standards and that relevant tests are in accordance with United Kingdom Accreditation Standards and carried out in laboratories with the necessary expertise.

In fact the whole document concerns British Standards Buildings Regulations. The fact that the UK did not make the cladding used illegal cannot be placed at the door of the EU. We were not forced to use it and we could have taken the same action as Germany has.

What I found interesting was a discussion last night by a couple of journalist doing a press preview. They were of a mind that failings and incompetence would be discovered at many levels and in many organisation and that their cumulative effect ended up with the disaster and mess we are in today. They were also minded that no one person, group, organisation or business would be found culpable enough for meaningful prosecutions to be brought. I agree with them on both points.

[Suff]

No I wasn't really putting it at the door of the EU. I was worrying that the UK had become lazy because the EU were beginning to create cross EU standards. The UK could have done what Germany did, but didn't. Materials and their usage in building are changing so fast that our regulations need to change within the lifetime of a single government. Yet they do not.

If we look at EU CE certification of small electrical appliances with integrated plugs, they clearly don't meet UK standards (they have no fuse), but are allowed to be sold in the UK because of the EU CE certification. Allowing, for instance, an Apple phone charger, after shorting, to pull a full 50 amps out of a ring main socket! With the disastrous consequences for an appliance designed for milliamp operation.

That is the kind of thing I'm worried about.

I do agree totally about the inability to prosecute. It needs to happen but, if it does, it will almost certainly be the wrong people who are prosecuted.