Yet more on Grenfell and panel testing

"Lessons will be learnt" I don't think!

I suspect this has more to do with applying the flame to the vulnerable edge exposure of PE rather than to the aluminium at the panel centre.

They also fail spectacularly if you do the Australian version of the fire test which is based on a 3" rack of ~3" sample disks of cladding separated by their own thickness and lowered into a heated chamber.

CSIRO found the resulting conflagration so extreme they had to terminate the experiment at 90s to avoid permanent damage to their test equipment.

In message , at 13:17:49 on Fri, 30 Jun

All I've seen is the Porter chap who is claiming they are only testing the filling. He doesn't actually say "having stripped off the aluminium".

In message , at 13:45:30 on Fri, 30 Jun

Just to confuse the issue further, Channel 4 have been doing private tests on the Celotex insulation (which fails when heat is applied at the end), and waving bits of it around calling it 'cladding'.

However, it's clear from the pictures of men removing panels off tower blocks that they are only taking off the outer decorative panels.

And this Sun article has a Sky TV video of (probably the same test lab) doing a test on a postcard-sized bit of the cladding.

Of course, in the geometry of the testing machine, a sample that small is in effect heated around all four edges of the postcard as well as through the aluminium sheet. And the filling melts, drips out and catches fire.

These days? I have a ground floor only bay window, and the tray in the roof of that is made of zinc. Next door is a slightly different design of house, with a flat roof to the rear addition. Also zinc. I'm told both are as built in Victorian times.

I assumed they were self coloured.

I'd be very surprised if a salesman from the company that made them etc would push a cheaper unsuitable product. Far more likely to be a suit somewhere counting pennies with no regard to anything else.

Lets just hope there are some sensible answers in less time than Hillsborough. Which in some ways is similar. Drunken football louts have about the same sort of standing as council tenants in some eyes.

I *really* hate that expression. Instant passing of the buck. 'Not my fault as I wasn't taught about it'

there was also the report from Chris Cooke on Newsnight this week

tim

No, the "coil coated" in the descriptions refers to the fact that the rolls of metal arrives at the cladding manufacturer ready "painted", or more likely power coated.

En el artículo , Martin Brown escribió:

They seem to be setting up Rock something-or-other at the council as the officer who signed off, and was ultimately responsible for, the change of cladding from fire-resistant ones to Zip firelighters to save costs.

En el artículo , Andy Burns escribió:

I hear she's good mates with Gerry Mander.