Grenfell Tower fire disaster

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I haven't used BRE, although I worked within 30 metres of their main entrance for over ten years and my colleague's wife worked there until it was privatised. Yarsley Labs were very stringent and fair, and the set-up that carried out the fire testing at Cardington did everything themselves once the sample pallet was in their hands so it is hard to see how any fiddle could have been carried out. What you say, Mark, makes sense in that the test house must have been aware of the composition of the test sample but obviously their liability for diligence doesn't extend beyond certifying that the sample submitted performed in a particular way. The additional component must have been a credible addition and not one that was clearly added to skew the results merely for the test. Would Kingspan boards behave in the same way as Celotex? I see no reason why not as their composition appears very similar.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

5 minutes ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

Would Kingspan boards behave in the same way as Celotex? I see no reason why not as their composition appears very similar.

Possibly, they’ve certainly felt the need to withdraw K15 from the market at this time but I don’t have all the facts to hand regarding why.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I knew a chap who spent his summer holiday in our workshop in the late 1970s perfecting a panel infill material based on Leca expanded clay bonded in a matrix of phenol formaldehyde (possibly cresol, but my recollection is dimmed by passage of time) resin. My plastics technology expertise is not only out of date, but doesn't delve too deeply in to the chemistry of phenolics and their like, so how he was curing the liquid resin is unknown. The Leca is, of course, perfectly fire resistant, and the resin formed a minor part of the whole and may be low flammability - again I forget. At the same time the company (GKN Sankey) was developing a cladding panel made up of two polyester resin and glass mat 'skins' spaced about 5mm apart and the interstice filled with a heavily stone-flour filled polyester resin. It was a Norwegian patent but GKN developed the manufacturing process and acquired the rights. Stenni (Steni in Norway) panels with, or without, the Leca filled insulation might now have been more useful. At the time, though, they floundered for various reasons. All sorts of weird and wonderful new building products were popping up and disappearing at that time. Ever heard of Inca Bricks?

[Rab (bombero) Reid]

Setting aside the victims' families for just a second, I feel sorry for the LFB in particular, their commissioner Dany Cotton, who felt compelled (or was she pushed?) to resign after the atrocious grilling her crews and entire service got from the enquiry and subsequently, the demands of the victims families group, general public and media to go!

It was abundantly clear to any uniformed and non-uniformed fire specialists that this was no ordinary fire nor did it (or the building) behave in a way that is should've. However, so many sought to blame the LFB for the deaths and not look inwardly and hold their hands up to the fact that many knowingly fitted a flammable product to a domestic building! It's taken this length of time in the enquiry to FORCE them to admit their part(s) in this tragedy. Those that never came forward from the outset, for shame!

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Hear hear! The diabolical behaviour of the insulation suppliers that is now beginning to emerge is simply criminal. I suspect a few other companies are sweating about this as well.

[Rory's Dad]

This is how the privatisation, externalisation and all of the rest of this political stupidity comes home to roost. Yes the cheats and the liars who made the bloomin' stuff should get locked up but so should the politicians too. They all will have blood on their hands. 

[Blatman]

On 02/12/2020 at 11:18, Rory's Dad said:

This is how the privatisation, externalisation and all of the rest of this political stupidity comes home to roost. Yes the cheats and the liars who made the bloomin' stuff should get locked up but so should the politicians too. They all will have blood on their hands. 

 

Are you suggesting that public authorities would never had made such an error? Or done a better job of testing and inspection?  

[Rory's Dad]

Both (probably). 

[Blatman]

16 hours ago, Rory's Dad said:

Both (probably). 

 

Not sure I agree with that outside of the last 10 or 15 years. Prior to the turn of the 21st century, local authority and government projects were often a byword for inefficiency and corner cutting. Not always of course but I'm betting a quick Google for publicly overseen projects that had failings will return quite a lot of results.

[Rory's Dad]

1 hour ago, Blatman said:

 

Prior to the turn of the 21st century, local authority and government projects were often a byword for inefficiency and corner cutting.

 

There's the politics... 

[Blatman]

There's always politics. They are both the problem. the solution and the authority who decides the fate of people when it all goes wrong. Very unsatisfactory all round really...

[Rory's Dad]

It was the word "byword" that was the trigger for me! When I was in this business (in a local authority), the architect was responsible for everything including specifying the wrong material if that was the case. No sign of a single "responsible" person on this job. Bloomin' dreadful for the victims, their friends and families.