Grenfell Tower Fire | 14th June 2017

Santos J

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https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/07/fire...with-same-cladding-used-on-grenfell-14537101/

Fire currently being tackled in Canary Wharf - reportedly covered in the same cladding as Grenfell...
Beeb article doesn't even mention the cladding
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57022678
Not the same cladding but similar, but yeah it's been known it's unsafe for ages and should never have come to this but it's almost inevitable when nothing's getting done by so many of them.
 
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Shocking this is still going on. Ultimately it all comes down to who is going to pay for it.

the freeholder will usually pass any cost of major repairs onto the leaseholder. Which in turn will cripple thousands of home owners.

it’s a complete mess.

I’m also still surprised that Grenfell hasn’t been demolished yet - I presume there are still investigations still ongoing on the building itself? Part of the process of moving on, would be to tear down the building - as well as clearly getting some answers and accountability.
 

Jippy

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Shocking this is still going on. Ultimately it all comes down to who is going to pay for it.

the freeholder will usually pass any cost of major repairs onto the leaseholder. Which in turn will cripple thousands of home owners.

it’s a complete mess.

I’m also still surprised that Grenfell hasn’t been demolished yet - I presume there are still investigations still ongoing on the building itself? Part of the process of moving on, would be to tear down the building - as well as clearly getting some answers and accountability.
It's still pretty big- they've taken slightly less than half down I reckon, I guess Covid delayed it.
You can see it for miles around still.
 

Mihai

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Shocking this is still going on. Ultimately it all comes down to who is going to pay for it.

the freeholder will usually pass any cost of major repairs onto the leaseholder. Which in turn will cripple thousands of home owners.

it’s a complete mess.

I’m also still surprised that Grenfell hasn’t been demolished yet - I presume there are still investigations still ongoing on the building itself? Part of the process of moving on, would be to tear down the building - as well as clearly getting some answers and accountability.
Yes, it's a grey area at the moment. I think unless there's enough legal precedent, the leaseholders will have to cover the costs.

However, another major problem is the lead time. There're around 300 engineers in UK who can sign off the EWS1 survey at the moment (that is the official data from RICS, so potentially less). That number is ridiculously low.
 
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It's still pretty big- they've taken slightly less than half down I reckon, I guess Covid delayed it.
You can see it for miles around still.
Didn’t realise they had even started, they hadn’t last time I saw, which admittedly was a long time ago.
 

VorZakone

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This just popped into my head. It's about 6,5 years since this happened. Has anything of note been done to decrease the odds of this happening again?
 

buchansleftleg

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This just popped into my head. It's about 6,5 years since this happened. Has anything of note been done to decrease the odds of this happening again?
Legislation has been passed and councils have been told to re-inspect buildings and do new risk assessments, but unsure if there is any new money to actually do this.

https://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/n...afety-taskforce-welcomes-fire-safety-changes/

In practical terms local fire services have re-evaluated all high rises as much higher risks than before because they can't depend on compartmentalisation of the fire. so for example if a fire is reported at such a location now a High level ladder vehicle will attend automatically, whereas before they would only attend if requested by initial onsite crews.

Because of the dreadful scenes there has been a lot of attention on high rises and cladding but the biggest fear amongst a lot of Fire crews are the low rise 5 storey flats that have rapidly been constructed. These can be built to a low standard and often have a lot of timber clad internal voids and fires can look to have died down only to re-emerge after passing behind timber / insulated walls.

There was a fire in some of these low rise flats in Irlam / Cadishead a few years ago that quietly raged for a number of days and fire crews had actually allowed people back in a couple of times, thinking the flames had gone out only to get called back out later on to revisit as it flared up again.

Sadly the onus is still on councils and fire services to inspect, monitor and maintain, rather than builders to actually build in safety features like sprinklers etc. Given the way budgets are being slashed and the story has rapidly moved onto "I can't sell my flat because of cladding uncertainty!" I don't have a lot of confidence that everything has been done to reduce the risks, even if the response from fire crews might be better prepared.

this report highlights a lot of the issues - this was a very narrow call - that thankfully had no death toll but the images of fire spread on page 57 are as alarming as grenfell

https://manchesterfire.gov.uk/media/2118/cube_report_v11_tagged.pdf
 
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Santos J

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This just popped into my head. It's about 6,5 years since this happened. Has anything of note been done to decrease the odds of this happening again?
The majority of the works ongoing to existing tower/apartment blocks at the minute are fire safety/cladding remediation works.
 

VorZakone

What would Kenny G do?
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Legislation has been passed and councils have been told to re-inspect buildings and do new risk assessments, but unsure if there is any new money to actually do this.

https://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/n...afety-taskforce-welcomes-fire-safety-changes/

In practical terms local fire services have re-evaluated all high rises as much higher risks than before because they can't depend on compartmentalisation of the fire. so for example if a fire is reported at such a location now a High level ladder vehicle will attend automatically, whereas before they would only attend if requested by initial onsite crews.

Because of the dreadful scenes there has been a lot of attention on high rises and cladding but the biggest fear amongst a lot of Fire crews are the low rise 5 storey flats that have rapidly been constructed. These can be built to a low standard and often have a lot of timber clad internal voids and fires can look to have died down only to re-emerge after passing behind timber / insulated walls.

There was a fire in some of these low rise flats in Irlam / Cadishead a few years ago that quietly raged for a number of days and fire crews had actually allowed people back in a couple of times, thinking the flames had gone out only to get called back out later on to revisit as it flared up again.

Sadly the onus is still on councils and fire services to inspect, monitor and maintain, rather than builders to actually build in safety features like sprinklers etc. Given the way budgets are being slashed and the story has rapidly moved onto "I can't sell my flat because of cladding uncertainty!" I don't have a lot of confidence that everything has been done to reduce the risks, even if the response from fire crews might be better prepared.

this report highlights a lot of the issues - this was a very narrow call - that thankfully had no death toll but the images of fire spread on page 57 are as alarming as grenfell

https://manchesterfire.gov.uk/media/2118/cube_report_v11_tagged.pdf
Thanks.