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London's burning

I'm pleased you explained. I currently live here. :)

I’ve only seen a short clip of the fire on the TV news, but noted that when listening to the radio news the presenters were going overboard to make comparisons with the Grenfell fire, and saying this building had the same cladding.

The short vid I saw on the TV news didnt seem to show any damage to the cladding, and just looked like a regular flat fire.

Can you add any details please if you know them.
 
I’ve only seen a short clip of the fire on the TV news, but noted that when listening to the radio news the presenters were going overboard to make comparisons with the Grenfell fire, and saying this building had the same cladding.

The short vid I saw on the TV news didnt seem to show any damage to the cladding, and just looked like a regular flat fire.

Can you add any details please if you know them.
They’re not council flats.


If there’s problems with the cladding the landlord can fix it themselves. Maybe even use the 24 hour concierge service to help out with the night shift.

The standard of news reporting is becoming even more pointless these days.
 
They’re not council flats.


If there’s problems with the cladding the landlord can fix it themselves. Maybe even use the 24 hour concierge service to help out with the night shift.

The standard of news reporting is becoming even more pointless these days.
When Grenfell kicked off I was talking to someone whose company fitted fire/security alarms. Not Fred Bloggs Ltd but someone whose employees need security clearance for some of their work.

He said that the problem with places like Grenfell is mixed tenantage.

As long as all the flats in a building are owned by the local council they're required to have fireproof doors etc.

As soon as some of those flats are sold to private buyers those buyers can fit any kind of door that they want whether it's fireproof or not.
 
A copper I used to know, termed it
Council Estate Mentality
its somebody elses problem, said he got fed up walking through the estates and finding rubbish dumped by residents by garages, alleys of front or rear gardens, oftne traced it to a particular resident, but they didnt want to know
Douglas Adams coined the "Someone Elses Problem (SEP) field" in an anecdote regarding a famous magician trying make a mountain disappear, but the truth of the matter is that the "SEP" is alive and well in many domains. Yet another example of what happens when you fail to teach people to be accountable for their actions
 
I’ve only seen a short clip of the fire on the TV news, but noted that when listening to the radio news the presenters were going overboard to make comparisons with the Grenfell fire, and saying this building had the same cladding.

The short vid I saw on the TV news didnt seem to show any damage to the cladding, and just looked like a regular flat fire.

Can you add any details please if you know them.

Good point Slime - very little detail given. Media don't usually hang back even if it's guesswork. Short video I saw showed smoke rising a coupe of floors, possibly behind the cladding but not much flame.
 
....As long as all the flats in a building are owned by the local council they're required to have fireproof doors etc.

As soon as some of those flats are sold to private buyers those buyers can fit any kind of door that they want whether it's fireproof or not.

That doesn't sound right. I thought fire protection was based on type of building and its use/occupancy, nothing to do with ownership. I'm sure someone else will know chapter and verse.
 
That doesn't sound right. I thought fire protection was based on type of building and its use/occupancy, nothing to do with ownership. I'm sure someone else will know chapter and verse.
Legal requirement in flats be they council, privately owned or rented to have a fire proof door that opens onto communal areas.


Grenfell was a combination of f*ck ups.

Not withstanding the obvious that in order to mitigate climate change, it’s never a good idea to wrap your building up in a chimney. Doors had been broken, rubbish was left in communal areas and the LFBs stay put advice wasn’t very effective.

Oh, and institutionalised racism played a part as did people illegally sub letting council houses out.
 
That doesn't sound right. I thought fire protection was based on type of building and its use/occupancy, nothing to do with ownership. I'm sure someone else will know chapter and verse.
Dunno what it's like in the UK now but in Aus in a type A construction building (residential over 3 stories is type A) fire rated door & frame required. Both the door and frame will have a serial number and the fire rating shown ( 90/90/90) or whatever the door is rated for. These are called up on the essential safety provisions for the building. Returns need to be submitted to local council showing that all esp's are being maintained.
 
Dunno what it's like in the UK now but in Aus in a type A construction building (residential over 3 stories is type A) fire rated door & frame required. Both the door and frame will have a serial number and the fire rating shown ( 90/90/90) or whatever the door is rated for. These are called up on the essential safety provisions for the building. Returns need to be submitted to local council showing that all esp's are being maintained.
Ah yes, the BCA..... (Building code of Australia)!

@AfghanAndy "and the LFBs stay put advice wasn’t very effective." The advice was proven over decades, the reason it was not effective at Grenfell was because of the rest of the crap that had gone on completely negating the basic design tenet of this type of buildings - "we can't design it so you can all get out quickly in an emergency therefore we wil design so you don't need to".
 
Ah yes, the BCA..... (Building code of Australia)!

@AfghanAndy "and the LFBs stay put advice wasn’t very effective." The advice was proven over decades, the reason it was not effective at Grenfell was because of the rest of the crap that had gone on completely negating the basic design tenet of this type of buildings - "we can't design it so you can all get out quickly in an emergency therefore we wil design so you don't need to".
Surprisingly, old tower blocks were actually designed to withstand fires.

But you’re correct, the crap that got bolted onto the side turned it into a chimney.

Personally I’d just rip all the cladding off and say f*ck it to energy efficiency. Greta can cry about it, Labour can denounce it and those people who illegally sub let the flats can naturally be left alone.
 
Surprisingly, old tower blocks were actually designed to withstand fires.

But you’re correct, the crap that got bolted onto the side turned it into a chimney.

Personally I’d just rip all the cladding off and say f*ck it to energy efficiency. Greta can cry about it, Labour can denounce it and those people who illegally sub let the flats can naturally be left alone.
Yes spot on, the original designers and engineers never considered that someone in the future would retrofit highly flammable cladding to the outside of the building, turning them as you say into a chimney. The design of the individual fire separated units both horizontally and vertically would allow the fire to be contained in one unit. Spandrels would prevent the fire from spreading from the windows from one floor to another, but hey lets ignore all those design principles and go green.
 
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