Sprinklers in high rise estates?

[Simon Ferrol]

I live in a high rise council estate. I received a letter from the company that do all the maintenance on behalf of the council. I am supposed to receive a visit from some engineers to check the state of our sprinklers. I don't have any in my flat and I haven't seen any in the whole building, including corridors, common rooms, etc.

I have spoken to the handyman who is responsible for day to day maintenance. He thinks that the council will have to install sprinklers "after the Grenfell Tower".

Does it make sense? Are they actually going to install sprinklers in every flat? This seems a bit far fetched to me.

[GB]

Barnet Council (my local council) have done exactly that, despite having a fire safety report saying that it is not necessary for most of their blocks.

The cost per flat is around £10k, but the good news is that the sprinklers are not all that intrusive.

[Colin Bignell]

Modern ones can be very unobtrusive, but I suspect a Council would use the traditional bulb type.

Holding a cigarette lighter under a sprinkler bulb is a known form of vandalism, so they are not without their problems in public areas. A water mist system in each flat would have prevented the Grenfell Tower fire, but so would fitting fire resistant windows when they were replaced, even without considering the cladding.

Simply ensuring that fire compartments are not compromised and that there are adequate means of escape is probably all that is needed, but a lot of people seem to think that sprinklers are a magic bullet, so they might.

[Owain Lastname]

Ensuring that fire compartmentation is intact is not an easy task in a large building, and may be more intrusive and expensive than piping in sprinklers. Then the sprinklers should work even if fire doors are wedged open or compartmentation is compromised by future works.

Owain

[Colin Bignell]

ISTR an estimate of £200,000 and several months of disruption for Grenfell Tower.

In a block of flats, the only true fire doors are likely to be the front doors of the flats. The ones on the escape routes are likely to be smoke doors. If they have more than a tiny window of wired glass, they present no obstacle to the spread of fire through radiated heat.

Failing to check that was the essence of the Grenfell disaster. Simply checking that the replacement window frames wouldn't melt in a fire would have kept the fire inside the flat at Grenfell long enough for the Fire Brigade to put it out.

Sprinklers are not a substitute for proper maintenance of what is already there.

[Rod Speed]

Shouldnt be hard to ensure that that isnt possible.

or compartmentation is compromised by future works.