Deleted member 66701
D
Deleted member 66701
Right, so what bit of that don't you understand that relates to why he came over as a refugee?
Tower block fire - london
- Thread starter robfosters
- Start date
Yeah that's what he said, capitalism.
that isn't something unique to capitalism
If Grenfell Tower was an aircraft, the whole fleet would likly be grounded pending the accident investigation.
In an ideal world ALL similarly refurbished tower blocks should be immediately evacuated pending surveys to determine the safety of the new cladding.
This really is an accident that could happen again later this afternoon! The fire was triggered by a faulty fridge. We are in the middle of the hottest June in 40 years. All such equipment will be working flat out and I dare say that when we look at the sort of fridges/freezer that people will have in Council flats it is more likely to be Beko than Meile!
And no, I really do not think I am overreacting...
At the risk of quoting my own post (Is that considered acceptable practice here?
)It does actually appear that the Government is going down this line.
Maybe not the full evacuation, but I have read that all such "At Risk" buildings are going to be surveyed over the next week or so with such remedial action as is deemed necessary to be carried out. In the mean time, "At Risk" buildings will have on site full time fire patrols until such time as the buildings can be considered safe.
Central Governments response might have been slow to get going. But in hindsight I think they are actually doing the right thing and handling it reasonably well.
This was an unprecedented tragedy (Even Globally) There would have been no emergency plan in place to cope with something like this. Situations like this would normally be expected to be managed by the local authorities. Central Government organisations have a certain inertia. The UK is not a Stalinist State (Well, not yet anyway. :/ ) May cannot just snap her fingers and make things so. She has to work through her civil servants and their relevant departments and no matter how frustrating this is, this does take time.
So, Give May a break. On top of everything else she is having to deal with at the moment I think Central government is handling this situation reasonably well under the circumstances. And though I loathe with a vengeance the phrase "Lessons will be learned" In this particular case I hope they will be.
I hope so too, but history tells us lessons are rarely learned. Part of the problem is that it's hard to champion spending on safety measures because there's often no tangible benefit, until of course a disaster happens and then everyone wants to know why more wasn't done. It's made worse by the obsession with 'red tape' where politicians keen to make austerity cuts have made it seem palatable to question why we need so many rules and regulations. Well if it isn't clear now, will it ever be?
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You shouldn't really stereotype areas because it has a cheap price tag, yes indeed there are places like the bronx but not everywhere with cheap housing is a dump it really isn't like that, i don't agree the ones who lost everything in the fire should be moved elsewhere out of London like some have said on here, but maybe give them a choice to move out not forced if they wish to see if can improve their lives because they are less fortunate than some.
We have "Known" for over 40 years that rescue and effective fire-fighting in skyscrapers is basically impossible.
Those of a certain age will remember Irwin Allens "Towering Inferno"
People talk about sprinklers but, in this case, I dont really know how much difference it would have made, the fire went up the outside of the building where the sprinklers wouldn't have been. (Though they might have put out the fridge fire before it spread to the cladding)
The only real protection is to build them so they cannot burn....:/
There's generally a reason they're cheap. And that reason is they're normally crap and filled to the brim with just awful examples of civilisation.
The original fire likely wouldn't of taken hold, but if it still had.
They fight back the fire on a flat by flat basis, also keeping common areas fire free, while the fire raged on the outside it would have struggled to take hold on the inside allowing people to escape, or at least giving the fire service a longer time to rescue.
Imo even with the cladding a sprinkler system would have saved lives.
Well to be fair, those 1970s tower blocks aren't inherently at risk of a complete burn down, at least not as originally designed where each unit is self contained. There's been plenty of fires in them over the years which were contained and didn't spread significantly.
But if you then clad them in flammable materials, it of course changes everything. Bear in mind that there's reports from the Fire Service that the original fridge fire was put out, but they hadn't realised it had spread to the cladding until it suddenly flared. Sprinklers may not have helped stop the fire racing up the outside of the building. However, they may have suppressed the fire enough internally to allow more to escape.
So as you say, build (or clad) them so they cannot burn or a fire cannot easily spread.
As I said earlier, after Ronan point (Late 60's) it was realised that there was a problem with tower blocks. As you say, the 1970's ones were built much more robustly and with a high degree of fire resistance. Also, No gas was allowed.
Gas had recently been installed at Grenfell and I cannot comprehend why this was considered acceptable given the past experiance of the consequences of having Gas in tower blocks. :/
This might well have been a major contributor to the fire. I find most modern gas installations scary., So did the Grenfell residents apparently..!! See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...i-london-kensington-chelsea-gas-a7794031.html
I hate modern gas installations where they install fragile copper piping in exposed locations, round the outsides of buildings, in stair wells, and whatever.
Scares the ***t out of me actually. Cannot comprehend why it is considered acceptable practice.
The tragedy here is that the modernisations had managed to transform "Tired" but nevertheless sound and safe buildings, into a death trap!
They have to have a reason for installing gas, were they planning to have each flat with gas central heating?
None of the towers I've worked in ever have gas supply's to each floor.
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Aug 2009
- Posts
- 8,082
They put in the lowest quote and guess what: they're the ones who the council chose to do the job. None of what they did was illegal and no-one has complained about their standards
Its just that the material they used is flammable which is legal here though not elsewhere. Obviously thats likely to change after this.
But this isn't correct. It's not legal on buildings over 18m tall:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...dding-posing-danger-to-thousands-of-residents
From the article:
The government has already said: “Cladding using a composite aluminium panel with a polyethylene core would be non-compliant with current building regulations. This material should not be used as a cladding on buildings over 18 metres [high].”
and
The company Rydon, and the subcontractor Harley Facades, the firms which refurbished Grenfell Tower had also been responsible for the Camden block works. Camden council has warned Rydon that there could be potential legal action.
“The panels that were fitted were not to the standard that we had commissioned,” said Georgia Gould, leader of Camden council who said people were now feeling scared. “We will be informing the contractor that we will be taking legal advice.”
erm hang on - how do you know they necessarily put in the lowest quote or that what they did wasn't illegal?
so with this cladding be used all over the place and in many labour controlled councils do you think anyone in labour will actually apologise about the calls for may or will they make calls for the labour councillors to go or will it be more "evil tories!!" being screamed. gotta say the level of hypocrisy is getting sickening now.
Wow.
Seems like rather than legal advice they should have hired a competent consultant to make sure the proposed plans met with building regulations
I'm assuming councils don't have a skilled/qualified person on permanent staff who's up to date with building regs but instead use consultancy firms as needed.
Every building with it on needs it replacing ASAP.
This may be a stupid question, but how does hot water work in blocks of flats/apartments?
Do you have a communal heated system or do you each have a small boiler or is it electric heated?
Councils are responsible for managing building control compliance across their area for all building work...