Quote: zooo @ 15th June 2017, 10:29 AM

Do the other similar blocks nearby actually have the cladding? From photos I can't quite tell.

Ugh, I hadn't thought of it like this before. https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/875289074185228288 (Very short video.)
The cladding wasn't for the poor people inside, it was for the rich people who had to look at an ugly block. That certainly has the ring of truth.

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Not sure about that as it has a ring of let's stir the people up - the way I heard it was it is/was rainproof cladding to protect the brickwork.
Whatever, we are in the 21st century with supposedly hundreds of years of building experience going back to the Great Fire of London and yet it seems haven't learnt a single f**king thing.

Disgusting. Tezza saying "lessons will be learnt from this" are just hollow words, and I am sick and tired of hearing that phrase.

Quote: zooo @ 15th June 2017, 10:29 AM

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/875289074185228288 (Very short video.). The cladding wasn't for the poor people inside, it was for the rich people who had to look at an ugly block. That certainly has the ring of truth.

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I understand the lifts would break down regularly. If you are carrying your shopping up 15 flights of stairs and pointing out fire hazards to the council, I doubt pretty cladding on the exterior is your top priority, especially if it increase the fire risk.

If you earn minimum wage in London, you're likely to be living with your parents or in dodgy accommodation. So this high rise was effectively the servants quarters for the Kensington and Chelsea folk, so to speak. People may be talking about sprinklers and cladding, but the elephant in the room is the lack of funding. The council has already stated a maximum increase in council rates would cover only a fraction of the cost needed and they are prohibited from borrowing against the property beyond a point. So Mrs May needs to put her hands in her pockets on this one, out of respect to all those who died, needlessly. So far she has offered words. R.I.P.

From my experience many tower blocks are being 'clad' in order to improve thermal efficiency and help cut energy usage. In fact many projects get substantial grants toward this. My own knowledge is around 'rendered' panels not aluminium finished ones. The rendered panels have about 2" of foam in them. My understanding is that recent regulations particularly in Scotland required increased thermal efficiency from these panels, meaning more foam. I have no idea how these 'rendered' panels would compare to the ones in the recent fire, but i know if i lived in a 'clad' building i would be concerned.

I know of an estate of high rise blocks that was clad (with a grant) at a cost of millions, to improve its thermal efficiency. The blocks are almost entirely occupied by pensioners, and there is a communal heating scheme. This has resulted in the flats being generally warmer so the tenants leave the heating on and keep a window open. The amount of energy being used is exactly the same as before the refurbishment...though gliders can now often be seen above the estate...

Quote: playfull @ 15th June 2017, 4:22 PM

From my experience many tower blocks are being 'clad' in order to improve thermal efficiency ...

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Well it obviously did its job.

>_<

Quote: playfull @ 15th June 2017, 4:22 PM

The blocks are almost entirely occupied by pensioners, and there is a communal heating scheme. This has resulted in the flats being generally warmer so the tenants leave the heating on and keep a window open. The amount of energy being used is exactly the same as before the refurbishment...though gliders can now often be seen above the estate...

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Beggars belief. Councils love wasting money.

Whether it's local or national, this country is run by a load of f**king idiots.

Add this tragedy to the long list of preventable disasters that have plagued the UK as long as I can remember.Due to cost cutting and mind boggling ineptitude.

Re sprinkler installation for that building. Cost given by contractor on news website other day is absolute fantasy. Contractor may charge that figure - <£150k for 24 story block with no insitu pipework and no capacity on existing boostered domestic water supply. (Really! are they a charity then!) Or NOT in reality! Maybe they mean the price of just fitting the sprinkler heads in each flat and corridor ready to be connected to a new supply?

But that is still only a fraction of the cost to the council in commissioning it. The cost of surveys, tendering process, then in this case fitting new booster systems for a dedicated fire service and hundreds of metres of pipework and then resealing every cavity around it would be way way more than that. But that's still only the beginning of the cost spiral, because in commissioning one building, I believe they may be bound to retro fit every other non sprinklered block in their borough. If they could've easily and cheaply fitted one in Grenfell House then they would surely have done this during last year's refurb. It is undoubtedly a cost issue and a case of doing the minimum required by law - retro fitting fire sprinklers isn't legally required. So to change that people have to campaign and persuade govt. to get off their harris and make it law as every fire brigade and inquest coroner has been recommending for years. Then even rich London councils will have to do it.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 17th June 2017, 7:15 PM

Re sprinkler installation for that building. Cost given by contractor on news website other day is absolute fantasy.

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I'm no expert, but I laughed when I read that price. I assumed the actual price would have been a million or more.

Has to be around that. I think some unscrupulous firms are exploiting the tragedy to get their feet in the door when these new retro fitting contracts are forced out by public outrage and a change in the law. Pretty repulsive but expected in todays cut throat business culture. Would love to be in on the tendering process - 'Council, 'Erm you said in back June that you could do it for £140k, now you're asking for 950K' Shoddy shyster contractor. 'Ah well, it's inflation see.'

I used to service sprinkler systems and I can tell you they cost a lot more than that.
The water generating room alone would go over that figure by a mile - without any installation of pipes and sprinkler heads

In the generator room, there is a huge electrical motor to pump the water and a massive diesel engine as a backup should the electric motor fail (or the electricity has been cut off - due to fire or other)

These are controlled by a sophisticated monitoring system that must be tested every week. (by some allotted person)

I can't tell you how many I serviced that did not work at all because they were never tested.
A bit like leaving a car for a year without ever turning the engine over... they seize and rust and the batteries go dead.

I used to test a bonded warehouse every year and it always failed to start. There were billions of pounds worth of stuff in there and records that said it was tested every week (but wasn't)
So blocks of flats that the council have to send a man every week to, to test and certify all working correctly will definitely go low priority.

Naïve twit here - why can't the sprinkler system be serviced by a large water tank at the top of the building and let gravity take its course?

Not that I know, but can guess. Water freezes in winter. If any of the pipes froze it would block the pipe.
With most systems, the pipes are air filled and a pressure sensor detects (by the drop in air pressure) that a sprinkler head has activated and starts the very fast water pump.
If you were on a bottom floor and had to wait while the water fed down to you by gravity and then it only dribbled out, instead of by huge pressure, you'd be dead or the fire would have taken hold.

Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 18th June 2017, 1:01 PM

If you were on a bottom floor and had to wait while the water fed down to you by gravity and then it only dribbled out, instead of by huge pressure, you'd be dead or the fire would have taken hold.

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With the pumped from the bottom system, does not the same apply if you are on the top floor?

As I said, only educated guesses but I have worked on the control side a lot and picked things up.
All the piping is very high pressure spec. The pump is also a high pressure one. The water flies through the pipes at a very high speed compressing the air in front as it goes. The air escapes through the activated sprinkler followed by high pressure water.
I'm sure when systems are tested they have a minimum time limit for water to get to the farthest head.