Ot: Or not. tower fire...

[Chris Hogg]

OOI do sprinklers wash smoke out of the air to any degree, as well as suppressing the spread of fire?

[Steve Walker]

On the other hand we don't expect privately owned houses to be brought up to the latest standards, because the expense would be prohibitive. Why should publicly owned housing be upgraded with no expense spared, at the already stretched taxpayers' cost when private owners cannot afford to do so?

There always has to be a balance between safety and cost and in this case simply specifiying the non-combustible version of the cladding (that would have cost very little extra apparently) would seem to have been the right thing. Whereas sprinklers and the like would not - with installation, ongoing maintenance and inspection costs, plus of course, residents accidentally or even deliberately setting them off and causing expensive damage.

SteveW

[spuorgelgoog]

And that is more likely to occur if they know what to do, which is why a ph ased evacuation scheme should be used. As a minimum there should be "standb y" and "evacuate" fire-bells, preferably these days a voice alarm system so that residents can be directed as appropriate.

Owain

[Clive George]

That's pretty obvious now - that fire is going to cost the taxpayer way more than the difference in the cladding cost. Scrimping to save money in that way can bite very hard indeed.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And this, dear readers, is the caring face of the right wing on uk-diy.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

At one time there were grants available to repair and modernise private housing. And it did have to be brought up to safety standards too.

Every building council or private requirs refurbishing at some time. The problem here appears to be it was done with no regard to safety.

[Adam Aglionby]

Were you on the Ford Pinto design team....

But if you were relying on the Class 0 rating of PE cored product you wouldn`t have seen need for extra expense, its been tested mate, init....

Take it no one is from Wales, mandatory sprinklers in all new build and conversion residential, private and rental, since last year

http://gov.wales/topics/planning/buildingregs/publications/householders-guide-to-fire-sprinklers/?lang=en

In Scotland was going to be part of Houses in Multiple Occupancy legislation , but got , er, dropped.

Possible to install into older buildings , its narrow gauge high pressure, makes no more mess than re-wire or CH install, but it costs up front.

[Adam Aglionby]

Whereas sprinklers and the like would not - with

Let`s put a number on that 1,150 per flat at 2012 prices + maintenance , c ost per annum over 30 years 40 quid a flat

the sprinkler installation was carried out at a cost of £1,150 per fla t. The cost of annual maintenance will be £250 per year if a contract for the whole block is entered into and if access can be guaranteed at the same time (where this is required), at 2

011 prices. The combined cost of installation and maintenance provides an annualised cost p er flat of £40 over a 30-year time frame.

[RJH]

What brings you to that conclusion? The rest of your most makes me wonder if you ever had a job ;-)

You mean housing benefit? Where do you get those figures? And 'the council' doesn't 'pay' housing benefit - they just deal with the administration(1). Or is this a special case?

Again - this is not paid for through local taxation - hasn't been since the days of the rates. You seem to have some knowledge here - do you have a link or any source. Or is this something you just know as a fact?

Decent housing for all that need it is well within the ability of the UK

- not sure what that has to do with Venezuala.

(1) The council, and by extension local taxpayers, can end up with a part of the bill, if they don't meet certain performance criteria. Not sure if this applies to K+C

[RJH]

Thanks for that link - although I'm quite surprised they insured the buildings. AIUI, LAs tend to underwrite such risks themselves.

[Weatherlawyer]

Building managers Chelsea Tenant Management Company hired construction firm Rydon as the lead contractor on the project.

Rydon hired Harley Facades to install the cladding, which was supplied by I pswich-based firm Celotex and manufactured by Omnis.

Let him that is standing beware he does not wall: Similar cladding used on Grenfell Tower was allegedly provided for 14 block s of flats across London.A salesman for Reynobond told The Times: ? It?s because of the fire and smoke spread. "The fire-resistant [variant] is fire-resistant. The polyethylene [PE] is j ust plastic."

A rough calculation suggests cladding panels covered more than 2,000 square metres on Grenfell, meaning contractors could have acquired the fire-resis tant version for less than £5,000 extra.

The PE panels are also rated as "flammable" in Germany.

An hose built under flamable cladding will not stand. How much of what is a warm roof made of?

[Weatherlawyer]

One of my first jobs when I moved to Stoke was o claad a roof with celotex and mdf. I don't think that fire precautions ever occurred to anyone.

[The Natural Philosopher]

celotex is not flammable. Polyethylene foam faced with thin zinc or aluminium is very flammable

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Chris Hogg escribió:

I was wondering the same thing. Sprinklers in stairwells (to wash out smoke, if that happens) would also make the stairs slippery...

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

21:22:07 on Fri, 16 Jun 2017, newshound remarked:

Wouldn't the idea be that the sprinkler in the first flat to catch fire would contain it there and then, before it spread?

As a TV commentator babbled "would there be enough water[pressure] to douse the whole block simultaneously". But you are expecting the sprinklers near the seat of the fire to allow time to evacuate.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 00:45:23 on Sat, 17 Jun

2017, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:

Having once been in the market to buy the sort of house which those grants were aimed at, the purpose was to keep *in the housing stock* a property which was essentially uninhabitable by modern standards and not economically feasible to be modernised at the householder's expense (they were often small Victorian starter homes with outside loos, no bathroom, a leaky roof and the windows falling out).

The alternative would be to stump up even more money to build new council houses to satisfy the demand.

[Chris Hogg]

It shouldn't be a matter of private vs. public ownership, but a matter of how many people are potentially at risk. I imagine (but I don't know) that most high-occupancy, high-rise blocks of flats are publicly owned, by local councils or similar. Most privately owned houses are either single family occupancy or they house only a few people or families. Escape from those houses in an emergency is also very much easier.

I hear reports on the media from experts who make official recommendations as to what fire precautions should be taken and materials used. These should not be recommendations that can be ignored for relatively trivial reasons such as cost, but should be mandatory.

If the council officials responsible for ignoring the recommendations had to live at the top of these high-rise blocks, you can bet your last penny the blocks would soon be brought up to the highest standards regardless of cost. Is the life of someone who died at Grenfell or in other similar fires worth less than the life of a council official?

[RJH]

They don't impose a TMO - tenants vote for it. It's towards the bottom a a ladder leading to stock transfer (from a council to a housing association for example).

It's not anything to do with a council being nasty - although some councils push it more than others.

[charles]

I have a similar thought about highway safety. Firms are forced to spend thousands of pounds on H&S measures to prevent an accident. Councils will only spend money on highway safety after someone has been kille.

[RJH]

1975 Housing (Rents and Subsidies) Act; Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993?

Yes, I'd go with that. Although tenants may have some say in the choice of electrician.

Tenants will usually be involved in appointing housing officers, contractors etc. It's an agreement that involves the day to day repairs, maintenance and management of housing. Complaints about a capital matter (structural fire proofing) would be dealt with by the landlord, I think.

I can see fingers being pointed at the TMO, but in my experience they're unlikely to have had any control over the decisions leading to the refurbishment.