Thin end of the wedge, Soc. You start with things like fire regulations and bans on assault rifles and paedophilia, and the next thing you know you have a full blown Nanny State.

What a cockroach.

Whilst there are 10s of 1000s of people living in similar accomodation it is always the time to look at where the blame lies, if for no other reason than to try to prevent others dying in such a hideous way. The trouble with waiting for 'the right time' then frankly there is never a right time, nothing gets done, and more people die.

Unfortunately they are but only in new buildings of over 30m in height.

I work in the industry and visit plenty of buildings/estates built in the 60's/70's where the fire safety and means of escape for residents of the building is at best unclear and at worst life-threatening.

Similar fires can happen in new buildings, as one did in Dubai a few years back, but the occupants in new buildings are rarely put at risk when the envelope of the building, or a single unit catches fire as there are simple methods to contain the fire and very strict legislation on escaping from a fire. Unfortunately this doesn't extend to existing buildings that pre-date recent legislation.

The enquiry will be interesting because there is a lot of possibly inaccurate speculation about what contributed to the fire spreading so quickly. The one thing I'm pretty certain of is that there would have been zero loss of life if the same fire happened in a new building.

Bubblechris you are fully entitled to make your very reasonable contribution on this terrible fire without having to accept the abusive comments being directed at you on this forum. I am quite sure Steve Gleiber would have been very quick to jump on it.

Yes, you are right, the investigation must get underway as soon as it can. Experience of other disastrous incidents suggests it always takes far too long to reach conclusions that help for the future and also give bereaved families and communities the justice they deserve.

Exactly !

One of the things that is very strange is that they connected the building to the gas main and ran pipes all the way up the side of the building. I can't think of any block of flats I've lived in that were connected to gas in fact I recall wanting gas but realised later that this could be a problem.

A fire brigade spokesman said that there was a fractured main in the building and it slowed down there getting the fire under control.

The Prime Minister has promised an immediate enquiry. Let's hope it will be thorough.

Oh the sweet irony. A republican congressman says he wants answers about how the gunman got a weapon and his background to see if it could have been prevented and he was a signature to legislation that weakened background checks on gun purchases.

Oh do give over ! Also he started it by telling me to "stfu you *%^@" if I recall

I'm sure if Steve was around today he'd be disappointed at the apologists for murderers on ere.

Yes you are right about the original post, but you have ramped it up inordinately since then, including your shameful conclusion above. We all share this forum, and disagreements and sometimes heavy duty ones are part and parcel of it, but I won't give over complaining about the content and tone of the sort of posts you have recently made. Who on earth wants to hear it?

If diddums doesn't like it he shouldn't give it out. End of

Oh and btw can I save the time of waiting for an investigation on this one, it will blame the contractor and won't say the truth which is those people were not listened to, were abandoned by their government and died because they were poor.

Won't be commenting anymore on the bubble who is having a bubble.

As Rich said, sprinklers are required in new buildings over 30m high but they do not have to be retro-fitted in existing high buildings.

Moving on, it’s quite common for gas to be available in high rise blocks both for heating and for cooking. Gas heating is far more sustainable than electric and some ethnic minorities will only cook over an open flame.

The route by which the individual gas pipes get up to the flats differs and there are a number of options, though the common feature is ventilation so as to avoid a potentially dangerous build-up of gas. The simplest method is to run the supply pipes up the side of the building where any leak vents to the open air. Alternatively, they can be run within a pipe or a duct that is ventilated top and bottom. A more contentious method, though legal and often deemed acceptable, is to run the gas pipes in the stairwell; the theory here is that gas is heavier than air so in the event of a leak, the gas will sink to the lowest level and as soon as the escape door is opened, the stairwell is effectively vented. There are variants on this routing method and I have no idea of the precise strategy employed at Grenfell.

From my understanding of the tragedy, gas pipes or gas leaks were not a contributing factor. There does seem to be some suggestion that gas pipes were located in the stairwell but though this strategy is occasionally rejected, it is still routinely accepted. In this instance, the ‘gas pipes in stairwell’ issue is being used to suggest poor management; I’m not sure that’s fair. I may be wrong of course.

The tragedy here is that no fire strategy has ever anticipated such a cataclysmic fire risk from outside the building. There have been plenty of fires in high rise blocks and by and large, the compartmentalisation of the building has always contained the fire, usually in the room it started but almost always within the flat where it started. This is and always has been basic idea that has advised the design process since we started building upwards. On this occasion though, the fire seems to have ripped up the void behind the external cladding panels fed by a ferocious and ever accelerating stack effect. Regular cavity barriers are designed to stop such a spread and much attention will focus on this aspect of the recent installation. The flames seem to have entered the flats, bow-torch hot through windows that immediately cracked and disintegrated under the heat. Since the flats had ribbon windows, every room - on every floor almost - seemed to catch fire simultaneously. Those who stayed in their compartmentalised flats - as we've all been taught to - didn't stand a chance, poor bastards.

My heart goes out to them.

Yeah, he's a right nasty scumbag. The kind of man that one would like to punch if you saw him in the street. And they always give these types the safe seats..

Maybe this will finally get the replacing of tower block stock on the agenda once the rather more urgent conversations about how to make the existing ones safe have taken place and been actioned.

The arguments for mass high rise social housing really aren't very strong in a country with our resources.

On a general point, I'd be wary of invoking the presumed will of the departed and missed unless you had a close relationship with that person. That said, TG, I basically agree with you politically, but still think you went a bit OTT with a couple of your posts last night. Lets remember that its the internet, and most of us know very little about each other beyond our posting habits.

Thinking about it, some might say bubbling, May's call for a Public Inquiry needs to be given a big boot. She should be reminded how long The Hillsboro Inquiry took and how the result of it proved nothing.

We should all demand an enquiry that takes no longer than 6 months and that those found guilty should be jailed and heavily fined within the year and any accused's assets frozen immediately.

On this point I hope TG agrees with me for a change

Red Alert Bernard ...... I'd be thinking long and hard before engaging in another interminable debate with this guy .

Watching the next home match with a broken nose doesn't have much appeal .

That will surely depend on whether any existing laws were broken. I'm not a lawyer and haven't been able to follow the story too much today, but has that been established yet?

Stevie Wonder did the negotiating on behalf of the club

Hi Kiwi

Have you watched any of the Lions tourl? Sky are hyping it to death but your club sides have already burst a few bubbles. I reckon the All Blacks will murder them.

The first bit sounds reasonable to the man in the street but I'd imagine the duck shoving that going to take place over the gas lines , building materials , cause of the fire will take much longer ....... police investigation , fire experts , lawyers , courts involved .
Speed isn't the keynote for any of those doodles .

as for the "Any accused's assets frozen immediately " how off the wall is that ..?

So someone points the finger at the gas fitters , the builders , ceiling contractors , flooring specialists and they all have their assets frozen ...how do their families live for however long the enquiry takes ...?

Fire retardant coated columns , sprinkler systems seems the logical answer but even so filling them with cheap furniture , curtains , clothing plenty of man made fibre , plastic toys then run gas lines throughout the building seems a recipe for disaster .

At least with electric something shorts out it can blow a fuse .... whereas an unchecked chip pan fire , the problem is exacerbated .

Kia Ora Dec .... yeah I watched the Blues and Highlanders games . The Crusaders game coincided with an NRL match so ended up watching that .
Yes , I think I remarked to Welsh John it was going to be a tough ask as shown against the Highlanders who had nine of the first team squad missing on All Black duty and injury .
and yes there is a tendency to think the All Blacks will murder them but I think there are signs there they could compete well . They could just as easily have won the two matches , they lost .
For some godforsaken reason the All Blacks are notoriously slow starters , they give away a couple of early penalties ... who knows

You Irish have shown in Chicago ..... getting amongst them fully committed ; can produce dividends.

They play the Maoris here in Rotorua tomorrow night , the stadium is only about quarter of a mile from my house , so I'm going to put the TV on and open the ranchslider to get the atmosphere .

The blood drips from their fingers

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2017/06/ ... abitation/

Pretty horrible really. Who knows what caused it.

I heard that Dubai has implemented a fire safety policy that goes something like...No LPG in new buildings, and for existing buildings, phased cut-off of gas. Residents then have to replace their cooktop with an electric one. Certainly not ideal if you don't have the cash to buy a new stove but they give plenty of notice and have implemented something for the greater good.

Pete the assets that are frozen are their savings, expensive jewellery, houses, second houses, country homes etc not their day to say living income.

These are professionals we are talking about they should be cable to show immediately what tests were carried out and what tyey were told by experts. You don't just give them 12 million and tell them what to do, they have to earn their money. Experts are employed by the prosecution and a case made out.

Simples, was there a gas certificate, was the cladding tested, were the gaspipes protected i.e. boxed in. All easily proven or disproved. Give them the rope and they'll hang themselves, that's what they deserve.

Them not being boxed in was one of the (many) complaints the residents had raised previously.

It came out last night that the cladding used was 5k less for the whole block could have been fireproof. Five thousand pounds in a multi-million refit. Also the cladding wasn't intended to improve the lives of the residents, it was done to improve the view from local private blocks.

There has also been talk about where the death toll is going to end with people seeming to suggest it could easily reach three figures when the building is cleared.

DHD - I wonder if you could tell me how sound these thoughts are.

There was a fire regs expert on R4 yesterday talking about why there wouldn't have been a central alarm system fo the whole block. He said something to the effect of this would have led to more false alarms and that would end up with people disabling the alarms but that there should have been a floor by floor system instead. Does that seem right to you?

The tories are suppressing the way the media is reporting this. Everyone in the local area believes the death toll could reach between 100-150 large. Apparently many in the top 3 floors had no chance. Surely at this stage there is a strong indication of the size of the tragedy.

Lily Allen made the point the way the media are reporting this incident is being micro managed. She might not be wrong

.... and this geezer is spot on.

https://twitter.com/jamzldn/status/875345120941551616

Morning Ex

It does sound right. In multi-tenanted buildings, one of the problems with Fire Alarm systems and all the paraphernalia that come with them - break-glass call points, extinguishers etc - is vandalism and mis-use. It happens. It's also one of the reasons that sprinkler systems aren't fitted everywhere.

Again, a single-floor alarm fits with the overall fire strategy of compartmentation. The theory is -
was - that there should be no reason to evacuate anywhere but the floor or flat where the fire has broken out. Unless it's your room or your flat that's on fire, you're supposed to stay where you are. Clearly, that strategy doesn't deal with what happened at Grenfell where all the rooms on every floor were set ablaze from the outside and almost simultaneously. The effect was similar to an Hiroshima-style atomic device going off - a super-heated fireball outside every window. It isn't obvious what sort of fire strategy could have coped with that.

On your earlier point, I’ve no wish to be pedantic and I’m certainly not making any excuses for the building owners or their management team, but we need a bit of perspective here, please. The prime reason for cladding these buildings is to improve their thermal performance and to replace 40-year-old windows. In doing so, the buildings’ outward appearances must change and it isn’t unreasonable to try to make them look as good as possible. These facelift programmes have been rolled out all over the country to upgrade what’s left of our affordable housing stock, making them easier to heat and cheaper to run. It's not just tall buildings either but involves terraces and bungalows as well. So far, the programme has been perceived as a good thing that enhances Tenants' living conditions.

Thanks for taking the trouble to answer that in detail DHD. Much appreciated.

On the cladding point I guess it comes down to whether choices were made because of appearance or because of effect. The quotes in this would suggest appearance was the main driving factor in the choices made. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 89951.html

The latest transfer news is that Ronaldo is leaving Real - fugitive on the run and we have made an offer for Lacazette. Not sure if any of it is true. 27 days to our first game.

The cladding system used here is termed 'rain screen'. It's a composite system built up with different manufacturers' products overlaid and fixed on a metal framing system with a free-draining cavity between them. In simple terms, the insulating material is fixed to the existing wall and then an outer layer is added which doesn't have much technical purpose other than to keep the weather off the insulating material - i.e. to act as a rain screen. There's a gap between the two layers to allow any rain that gets around the edges of the outer panel to drain away. Apart from being rain proof, the major function of the outer layer is to create a visual effect - to look good. All sorts of colours, textures and patterns are available.

It seems that in this case, the cavity between the two layers has functioned as a chimney to accelerate and super-heat the combustion gasses - the 'stack' effect. It's the same principle as a bunsen burner; it's all well understood. To remove this risk, the design would (should) have included cavity barriers at regular horizontal and vertical intervals. The barriers are usually made of a compressible incombustible material that's wedged in place so that the draught is cut off. One of the major points of the investigation will be to establish whether these cavity barriers were correctly installed.

I haven't seen a definitive specification either of the outer skin or the insulating layer so it's difficult to comment on the respective levels of flammability involved here, but all cladding products are categorised in terms of the materials' reaction to heat - the ability to resist combustion and propensity to spread flames.

It's possible to speculate that the panels - outer and/or inner - may have reached such a temperature that they burned their way past/through the barrier. Regardless of classification, just about anything will burn if it gets hot enough.

Those tax authorities are annoying aren't they?

We cannot afford Ronaldo. Simple as that.

He only owes 14 mil - hardly worth bothering about. Hope they seize his house for starters.

Indeed. Commissions of Inquiry can be very effective, but they are often a way of booting for touch. Get it into row XX is the mentality. The ones we have here are run entirely by lawyers who have no expertise on the issue. So you have a lot of people coming in and testifying on something like whether higher education should be free-free, then the lawyers go off and make a decision.

I wouldn't want him. Usmanov is less odious.

At least Ronaldo is less odious than Kroenke, though.

Another successful fishing expedition by Isaac Decaf?