Grenfel Fire UK.

Yuglamron · Guru

Grenfel Fire UK.

elliemike · Guru

Can you put a "Link" up to the report about blaming the Emergency services for the fire. Seems a bit odd to me.

Huge implications "Worldwide" for building with inflammable cladding.

2-Smiths · Veteran Member

Yuglamron wrote:
A sad state of affairs.
I have family in the UK and they tell me that it appears after the tragedy of the Massive Fire in The Grenfel Tower block in London, and all those Deaths they are trying to Blame the Firemen and women for the fatalities.
I know this is a forum for caravans and grey nomads but there may be lots of people on here who have units or know people who have homes here, clad in the same sort of cladding used in the UK fire.
After the tragedy in the UK there were reports that lots of homes in Australia have the same or similar cladding. The story died a death here and what has actually changed I have no idea.
All I would say is to blame the firemen and women is the lowest of the low.
We all know that Firemen/women here and round the world put their lives on the line for us every time they attend a fire. Our recent Bushfires around the country and the recent floods where they attend to save us and our lives.
We've all seen the photos of exhausted firemen who have been saving our lives and our homes.
Pretty Disgusted by the attempt to blame them for the Grenfel Fire in the UK.
Just wanted to show support for them in the UK and of course for our people here who do such a difficult and dangerous job.

My apologies if anyone thinks this should be in another section, but I wanted to let people know about the situation on the most visited page.

I cannot post a link but this is a copy of a letter posted on FaceBook after the Channel Four program was aired. Sent to me by one of my nieces.

Dear Firefighters,
Please know that the general public will not be watching Dispatches tonight. We are not stupid. We can see what Channel 4 are trying to do.
We stand with you. We thank you for everything you do to keep us all safe. Heroes every single one of you.
Shame on you Channel 4!!! How very dare you!!! No!!! Our firefighters did not fail us!!!!! We can give you a list of who failed!!!
1. The people who made the decision to wrap Grenfell in flammable cladding.
2. The people who made the cladding.
(The ignition of the polyethylene within the cladding panel produced a flaming reaction more quickly than dropping a match into a barrel of petrol)
3. The contractors who left gaps around the windows and decided to plug those gaps with a material derived from crude oil which produced the perfect medium for flame spread around the windows.
4. Exova, the fire safety consultants used in the refurbishment who had advised there would be no adverse impact on the spread of fire by the refurbishment.
5. The insulation manufacturer Celotex.
6. CEP, the sub-contractor which bought and fabricated the cladding panels.
7. Rydon, the main design and build contractor, who are now claiming they were not responsible for decisions relating to the cladding.
8. The council and the towers landlords, the Tenant Management Organisation who instigated and oversaw the botched refurbishment.
These parties all had collective responsibility. They all failed.
Our brave firefighters are not to blame for this. We stand with you.

I do know that the enquiry stated that they should have evacuated the tower and they could have emptied the building in SEVEN Minutes.
What are you told about using lifts in case of a fire. USE THE STAIRS
SEVEN minutes down how many flights of stairs?

-- Edited by Yuglamron on Wednesday 20th of February 2019 11:27:10 AM

-- Edited by Yuglamron on Wednesday 20th of February 2019 11:35:33 AM

I'm totally with you.

As for the "what's happening about the cladding here?" question, as the previous poster pointed out, large ramifications for building owners/Body Corporates with buildings clad in that stuff.

In short, they'll be "directed' to remediate at their own cost (in the tens of thousands of dollars in many cases). If they don't, the building will be declared uninhabitable, until it's remediated, or the Council/s will step in, do the remediation, and bill the owner/Body Corporate for the work...

Yes, it's better than people potentially being in the same position the poor folk in the Grenfell Tower were, but it's a bitter pill to swallow financially for the owners and Body Corporates thus affected.

montie · Guru

The cladding is aluminium composite the same as caravans.
Not sure if there is any difference in thickness etc.,

Jaahn · Guru

montie wrote:
The cladding is aluminium composite the same as caravans.
Not sure if there is any difference in thickness etc.,

Hi smile

That is true to some degree, but the application is vastly different and the relative thicknesses and the risks are also vastly different. I do not want to start a discussion on it here but it has not been shown to be any significant risk to life used in caravans & MHs. Whereas its use in external cladding high rise buildings has been PROVEN UNSAFE. furious

Just pointing this out so people on here with caravans and MHs with composite construction do not get worried. IMHO an excellent method of construction for that purpose.

Blame the firefighters ????? Who next ?? The media for reporting the disaster ? confuse

Jaahn

rockylizard · Guru

Gday...

I have cut the following comments regarding high rise fires in Australia from this site -

Hundreds of buildings around Australia could be at risk of fast-spreading fires after risky cladding was identified as the main contributor in a high-rise fire this week.

Its believed the blaze, which soared up five storeys of an inner-city building in Melbourne on Monday, originated on a balcony after a discarded cigarette ignited other materials on a balcony.

But the 43-storey building is cladded in a flammable material that has been blamed for the spreading of the fire. The material, used to cover the high-rise, has been described as non-compliant by experts.

The fire at the building on Bourke and Spencer streets started on the 22nd floor sometime before 5am, and jumped between six floors in the space of five minutes. It took 80 firefighters to extinguish the inferno, causing residents to evacuate.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) spent Monday investigating, ruling the main cause of the fire was the cladding covering external walls of the recessed balconies.

A number of balconies had a fair bit of clutter on them, which would contribute to the spread of the fire, but the main contributor to the spread was the amount of cladding in each particular balcony which allowed the fire to (spread upwards), MFB deputy chief officer Adam Dalrymple said.

But despite the MFBs findings, the building was compliant with the national construction code, Federal Industry Minister Karen Andrews told AAP in a statement today. The building, along with more than 2000 others, had previously been inspected by the Victorian Building Authority, chief executive Sue Eddy confirmed.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said his government remained committed to the cladding task force and wouldn't adopt speedier action.

It seems that, apart from unit/building owners paying for the remediation of their units/buildings to a safe/er standard, very little is going to be done apart from the usual political 'policy' statements.

Regarding the UK Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "Grenfell: Did the Fire Brigade Fail?, I offer the following link -

https://www.channel4.com/press/news/grenfell-did-fire-brigade-fail-channel-4-dispatches

The following is included in the Channel 4 link above -

Recognising that individual firefighters worked tirelessly and heroically to save lives and many have no doubt suffering lasting effects, Dispatches does not criticise individual officers, but rather examines whether the LFBs systems and procedures let both residents and firefighters down.

cheers - John

-- Edited by rockylizard on Wednesday 20th of February 2019 01:51:54 PM

Kebbin · Guru

It has been acknowledged that blunders occurred not only in the cladding but also in telling residents to stay put. If you cover up bad practices what happens in future? They should know that every fire needs to be treated individually. It's not about blame it's about assuring peoples safety.

Whenarewethere · Guru

I have heard that there are cases, who knows what percentage, where fire rated panels were specified but they were substituted for cheaper non fire rated panels. I can see all the people responsible will go into liquidation & then the owners will have to cough up!

Victoria did a sample test of buildings about a year ago & the rough estimate is about half of all buildings using cladding will have to have it replaced.

Asbestos another issue: A year ago our building spent $60k getting rid of asbestos as part of our long term asbestos maintenance plan (required in NSW for block of units, maybe other states have similar requirements)

montie · Guru

Jaahn wrote:
montie wrote:
The cladding is aluminium composite the same as caravans.
Not sure if there is any difference in thickness etc.,
Hi
That is true to some degree, but the application is vastly different and the relative thicknesses and the risks are also vastly different. I do not want to start a discussion on it here but it has not been shown to be any significant risk to life used in caravans & MHs. Whereas its use in external cladding high rise buildings has been PROVEN UNSAFE.
Just pointing this out so people on here with caravans and MHs with composite construction do not get worried. IMHO an excellent method of construction for that purpose.
Blame the firefighters ????? Who next ?? The media for reporting the disaster ?
Jaahn

We did a test on a sheet of alloy composite and whilst it is undoubtedly flamable we didn't think it was any more flamable than a timber frame construction.

Craig1 · Guru

A importer can now bring almost anything into Australia. No compliance, no nothing. Only IF it can be proved to be unsafe will the ACCC then maybe do something. Given the huge savings by bringing in shonky Chinese junk, instead of using an Australian well made compliant product, who is to blame? I would start with the Federal Govt that was in power when this all started to happen, as well as the associated Public Servants who should have been screaming about this. Maybe importer Phelps as well. Anything is ok with her

2-Smiths · Veteran Member

As if on cue...

www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/we-can-t-afford-this-home-owners-bear-brunt-of-cladding-crisis-20190220-p50yzy.html

Note who will be footing the bill for "rectification works"?

Oh and @ Whenarewethere, here's a quote lifted direct from the article, just for you.

"But Mr Fitch said he believed some fire-rated cladding had been substituted with a cheaper non-compliant product that was flammable."

I suspect that there will be a few (many) nervous apartment owners around the country, wondering what their building has been clad in...

-- Edited by 2-Smiths on Thursday 21st of February 2019 11:30:04 AM

Jaahn · Guru

Whenarewethere wrote:
I have heard that there are cases, who knows what percentage, where fire rated panels were specified but they were substituted for cheaper non fire rated panels. I can see all the people responsible will go into liquidation & then the owners will have to cough up!
Victoria did a sample test of buildings about a year ago & the rough estimate is about half of all buildings using cladding will have to have it replaced.
Asbestos another issue: A year ago our building spent $60k getting rid of asbestos as part of our long term asbestos maintenance plan (required in NSW for block of units, maybe other states have similar requirements)

Hi smile

There are two things relevant here IMHO.

First is the obsession to get rid of Gov regulation and oversite by the right wing pollies, and replace it with "self regulation". Then secondly reduce the funding and power of the regulators (in every field) to suit their agenda of laissaz faire capitalism. And here we are now, Royal commissions every where to solve the problems, furious and at what cost !

The CSIRO building products division did have a world class fire testing laboratory which could be used by regulators, industry and for research in fire protection of various sorts. However the whole CSIRO organisation has been dismantled and made to do private consulting work and industry sponsored projects to make money and support the stupid ideas the pollies think will fool the punters. Most of the best brains retired or went to private industry in disgust. An organisation that was world class and has runs on the board in the past. hmm

On another point about asbestos, I did a survey of our NSW government building in about 1978 for asbestos, and they started to get it removed the next year and set a budget for the future. What happened to the rest of world after that. They just ignored the problem for the next 40years. disbelief

Jaahn

-- Edited by Jaahn on Thursday 21st of February 2019 09:36:52 AM

Whenarewethere · Guru

Jaahn wrote:
Whenarewethere wrote:
I have heard that there are cases, who knows what percentage, where fire rated panels were specified but they were substituted for cheaper non fire rated panels. I can see all the people responsible will go into liquidation & then the owners will have to cough up!
Victoria did a sample test of buildings about a year ago & the rough estimate is about half of all buildings using cladding will have to have it replaced.
Asbestos another issue: A year ago our building spent $60k getting rid of asbestos as part of our long term asbestos maintenance plan (required in NSW for block of units, maybe other states have similar requirements)
Hi
There are two things relevant here IMHO.
First is the obsession to get rid of Gov regulation and oversite by the right wing pollies, and replace it with "self regulation". Then secondly reduce the funding and power of the regulators (in every field) to suit their agenda of laissaz faire capitalism. And here we are now, Royal commissions every where to solve the problems, and at what cost !
On another point about asbestos, I did a survey of our NSW government building in about 1978 for asbestos, and they started to get it removed the next year and set a budget for the future. What happened to the rest of world after that. They just ignored the problem for the next 40years.
Jaahn

Years ago we had to get an asbestos report for the building required by the NSW Government. We have got rid of a fair bit of it. Far better than enslosing it as the professional said to do.

We have now only got the eaves to do which we will do in about 5 years when we redo the gutters.

One area the professional asbestos certifier didn't notice, even though he went under the building and noted some asbestos offcuts lying on the ground when the build was built 60 years ago. Was the asbestos packing on the brick piers leveling the floor above!

You pay all this money for a professional certifier and they don't know the basics where to look for asbestos!

It's a joke!

Izabarack · Guru

Yuglamron wrote:
I have family in the UK and they tell me that it appears after the tragedy of the Massive Fire in The Grenfel Tower block in London, and all those Deaths they are trying to Blame the Firemen and women for the fatalities.

My UK sourced info is that the instructions from the Fire department to some block dwellers to stay in their units resulted in numerous deaths. Criticism relating to the issue of those stay in place instructions appear to be valid.

Iza

Whenarewethere · Guru

Due to no regulations enforced only the builders knew the building was built from petroleum products.

Everyone else, residents & emergency services base their interaction of the building on how the building was supposedly built. Only criminals would surprise everyone with petroleum products!

PeterD · Guru

Izabarack wrote:
Yuglamron wrote:
I have family in the UK and they tell me that it appears after the tragedy of the Massive Fire in The Grenfel Tower block in London, and all those Deaths they are trying to Blame the Firemen and women for the fatalities.
My UK sourced info is that the instructions from the Fire department to some block dwellers to stay in their units resulted in numerous deaths. Criticism relating to the issue of those stay in place instructions appear to be valid.
Iza

Precisely, They had plenty of time to evacuate the premises. If they had have commence to clear the block shortly after the fire took hold then there would far fewer fatalities. I did not comment earlier as no links were provided to the source of the OP. The mention of Facebook gave me a clue that if you get back to the original reports they would not have been blaming the fire crews on the ground. Instead the original complain was against the hierarchy who issued the order not to evacuate.

Yes, we all know that the building construction was to blame for the spread of the fire. However it was the failure to evacuate the building that was the cause of most of the deaths. It was thus the upper levels of the fire and emergency services that were responsible for at least 75% of the deaths.

rockylizard · Guru

PeterD wrote:
Precisely, They had plenty of time to evacuate the premises. If they had have commence to clear the block shortly after the fire took hold then there would far fewer fatalities. I did not comment earlier as no links were provided to the source of the OP. The mention of Facebook gave me a clue that if you get back to the original reports they would not have been blaming the fire crews on the ground. Instead the original complain was against the hierarchy who issued the order not to evacuate.
Yes, we all know that the building construction was to blame for the spread of the fire. However it was the failure to evacuate the building that was the cause of most of the deaths. It was thus the upper levels of the fire and emergency services that were responsible for at least 75% of the deaths.

Gday...

Peter, I guess you missed my post earlier that contained -

Regarding the UK Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "Grenfell: Did the Fire Brigade Fail?, I offer the following link -

https://www.channel4.com/press/news/grenfell-did-fire-brigade-fail-channel-4-dispatches

The following is included in the Channel 4 link above -

Recognising that individual firefighters worked tirelessly and heroically to save lives and many have no doubt suffering lasting effects, Dispatches does not criticise individual officers, but rather examines whether the LFBs systems and procedures let both residents and firefighters down.

Cheers - John

PeterD · Guru

So John, we said much the same thing.