24-level building tower fire in West London
24-level building tower fire in West London
(OP)
Link
Looks like the building is fully engulfed. Residents trapped in the upper levels.
40 engine and 200 firefighter response.
Looks like the building is fully engulfed. Residents trapped in the upper levels.
40 engine and 200 firefighter response.





RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
This is not good. Dubai, revisited, again!
And this:
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I noticed from a recent AU press release there are an estimated "2500 high-rise buildings in Sydney could contain the same type of non-compliant and deadly cladding".
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/flammable-claddi...
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Can someone enlighten me and fire risks & cladding?
Specifically, polystyrol cladding: Codes over here (Germany) call for firebreaks (from rockwool) around openings or a barrier around the building every two floors. Is this actually sufficient (where there fires that jumped such a barrier?)
Accodring to one (manufactuerers!) sheet, there's flame retardant polysyrol that extinguishes on it's own without additional, burning, fuel. So flame retardant polystyrol + no use of wood or other flammable material should provide a safe cladding, or are there other complications?
Does anyone know what UK codes call for in cladding re. fire safety?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
One of the videos had a resident say there was no central alarm system. I'm not from the UK but do the fire regulations really not require that?!
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
and another:
"He said he was alerted to the fire not by fire alarms but by people on the street below, shouting "don't jump, don't jump"."
Possible there was an alarm, but not working?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Totally charred exterior cladding.
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RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Government was involved, so not likely that anyone will be charged with criminal negligence causing death...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Looks like a match going up in flame.
Any word yet as to what started the fire at the 4th story?
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lon...
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/rain-scre...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Link
Statement Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
None of the residents on the top 3 floors survived. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/816842/fire-londo...
Looking at this on TV late last night, it looked as though there were no sprinklers in the building , or they had been overwhelmed. An eye witness Mr. Samuels added flames cascaded up the newly refurbished cladding on the outside of the building
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
There must be a lot of companies who have gotten into manufacturing these aluminum faced cladding panels, so you can't go by brand names. That being said, the three brand names which have been mentioned in Australia are Alucobond, Alucobest, and Alubond. The similarity of these brands may be deliberately chosen to confuse. The Chinese made product which is reported to have contributed to the fires in the UAE and Melbourne is Alucobest.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Interesting thought here, and you mix this with a polymer?
Chemical composition of thermite
The process employs an exothermic reaction of a thermite composition to heat the metal, and requires no external source of heat or current. The chemical reaction that produces the heat is an aluminothermic reaction between aluminium powder and a metal oxide.
What are they thinking?
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I understand that there are some knock off companies that make this product with just a polyethylene core and no fire retardant.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4243787.h...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Bonded Reynolds Aluminum and Lucite?
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Reynobond, ACM panels made by Reynolds Aluminum co.
Somehow an A fell off when I was typing this , that should be Alucabond . they were the originators of this kind of ACM panel, Reynolds came in later.
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Edit: I didn't mean to imply that Alucobond is the product on the building in London. Was just correcting the spelling of berkshire's post.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Baghdad Bob is back.
I wonder what amplification there is by putting an IR reflector in close proximity to fuel.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
One exit fire-stair only that served the residential floors.
A new exit stair was added recently to serve L1 through L4 community-type common areas.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The original 1970's concrete framing and existing precast concrete facade appeared to perform well for the duration of the inferno.
2012 Planning and Permit drawings from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea website: Link
Existing 1970's facade was horizontal STRUCTURAL perimeter precast spandrels and precast non-structural triangular-shaped column panels:
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
According to those documents, there was to be 150mm of Celotex FR5000 insulation on the spandrels, and they specified a composite zinc panel over the insulation, not aluminum. Will be interesting to see a report, which I imagine will be made public in due course.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
That figure is expected to rise, as fire chiefs have said they do not expect to find any more survivors in the burnt-out Grenfell Tower, in north Kensington."
Added: Any British engineers I've met have been exceptional and they should do an incredibly detailed study. Hopefully this will be released to the public; there's government involvement, and it or portions of it may not be released. The report may not be done in a timely fashion.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
We had that situation when we installed solar panels on the roof, and the city demanded that we install CO monitors per latest code inside.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
To be fair to the designers, the system has worked fairly well until now. Until they started cladding the outside of the buildings in what now appears to be wholly unsuitable material, the reality was that fires could be contained in one or two locations for a significant period and that spreading of the fires was slow and left time to evacuate people if required or extinguish the fire.
The Cladding issue is clearly the game changer and the fire and building regulations in the UK appear not to have kept up to pace with the materials being used and the desire to insulate properties (generally a good idea) has taken precedence over fire safety.
Thankfully fires in general and apartment buildings are now relatively rare, but clearly this will turn out to be a case where the design envelope was stretched too tight and has now failed with fatal consequences and ruined lives for many of the survivors.
In the mean time if I lived in one of these blocks I would be stocking up on smoke hoods for my family....
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
A.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I noticed on the Amazon page that came up for smoke-hoods that escape ladders were co-advertised.
The features that would have saved a lot of people was a functioning building alarm and positive pressure ventilation in the escape stairwell.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
French News today just now reported the word is that those panels are the same light-um-up ones that "are banned in the USA".
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
There are still some unburnt sections of the facade, so the insulation and panels will be available for scrutiny by the investigators. And then, a comparison with what was specified.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
This discussion is going the same way as the argument over bike helmets (push bikes) goes sometimes - Do they protect you in all incidents / major crashes - NO. Do they protect you from minor crashes / falls which otherwise can be life threatening - Yes.
Fires in buildings like this normally take several minutes / hours to fully take hold. That's more than enough time to find your protective devices, especially if you've fitted them next to the door.
Would I rather give my self a decent chance of survival compared to not doing so - yes I would. Would it make a difference in a very fierce fire, probably not, but if 50% or 40% or 30% more people survived or equally survived without life changing injuries caused by smoke inhalation and these devices cost £25 each I think it's a wise investment. My personal view.
Fire protection in many high rise buildings is based on containing the fire allowing time either for extinguishing or an orderly evacuation. Retrofitting sprinklers and hardening the escape routes is going to be expensive and time consuming. All I'm saying is maybe we should also be looking at providing greater protection for those who stay put or need to evacuate to stop people jumping out of windows or throwing children out because they can't breathe.
The argument has been made in aircraft evacuations where there is a much greater issue over the speed of evacuation versus time to find and put on said equipment. Fires in buildings are normally much slower to develop so that argument doesn't hold IMO. If your room is so smoke filled that you can't see anything then you've pretty much had it, but that's an extreme event that takes time to develop unless the fire is in your room, when it's time to get out.
One thing I would like to know is what the design of the windows was with this refurb. I saw a clip on the news yesterday of a different block and it looked like the window ledge and window frame had been extended out along with the insulation, but this meant that any fire inside the insulation would propogate into the building much faster than if the fire was outside the window frame. I haven't seen any close details yet - anyone seen them?
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/idoxWAM/doc/Drawing-952306...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gre...
... fire resistant cladding was not used (because it would have cost 5k pound more). I still want to understand how fire resistant fire resistant cladding actually is.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
This bit looks pretty crucial to me
If I'm not mistaken if the inner insulation catches fire, all you have to stop the fire and smoke entering the individual rooms is a thin strip of something, probably PVC. Maybe even weakens the whole window frame so it falls out??
No visibility of any fire stops or what stops anything from coming between the insulation and the cladding.
This is horrible.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/claims-spendin...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gre...
However, I'd guess that the same looks can be achieved with any insulation material. Just shows where the priorities of those overseeing the refurbishment lay.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-40293035
Don't know if they would have made much of a difference in this specific case.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
From the Guardian, "Material used in the cladding that covered the Grenfell Tower was the cheaper, more flammable version of the two available options, an investigation of the supply chain has confirmed.
Omnis Exteriors manufactured the aluminium composite material (ACM) used in the cladding, a director, John Cowley, confirmed to the Guardian.
He also said Omnis had been asked to supply Reynobond PE cladding, which is £2 cheaper per square metre than the alternative Reynobond FR, which stands for “fire resistant”."
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Expensive or not, replacing deficient cladding on (up to 4000??) tower block buildings may still be cheaper than carrying empty buildings on the books, or demolishing them. Now that the cat's out of the bag, nobody will be willing to live in any with that stuff stuck on them.
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Just like if the cost of the cladding is a little cheaper, they will buy it.
Can I inject a term here? It sounds like there are some slum lords in the UK. Not that the UK is the only place they exist.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Any organisation that manages over 9000 residential properties is big business - and can probably afford better lawyers than the Council would be allowed to buy.
A.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
1) If this would of happened in the second or third world, I would of thought, "...well at least we have good building codes and it can't happen here." This is the second bad fire incident (Oakland, December, 2016) in very recent memory in code conscience areas. So we (myself included) shouldn't get cocky.
2) To add to some of the posters above, when I read that this was public housing, it didn't surprise me. I just hope that whoever made the decision to use this junk, didn't think, well these people are lucky to have a place at all, a cheaper cladding is fine.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
bbc.co.uk and theguardian.com will have up-to-date information.
"If you don't have time to do the job right the first time, when are you going to find time to repair it?"
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
There are likely 'stack' issues that brought the fire and heat to the interior of the structure... I'm not sure sprinklers would have helped, but, they wouldn't hurt. The single stairwell was not good.
In Canada, we are going for multi-storey buildings using wood construction. I hope that the cladding is not as flammable.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Look at the design I posted earlier. This really was a disaster waiting to happen. Death role will be close to 100. Very few of the missing will be found alive somewhere.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Astronomical twilight begins 01:00:01
Nautical twilight begins 02:41:57
Dawn - civil twilight begins 03:55:26
Sunrise: 04:42:45
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The section posted above shows the composite cladding connected to the concrete by some sort of bracket, presumably installed through the insulation. I wonder how that was done. And what held the insulation in place until it was restrained by the cladding? Glue? That is a rough architectural detail, done by someone who didn't know how it was going to be put together. I wonder (again) if there were shop drawings.
Maybe Ingenuity can find them. He seems to be our best detective.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Trying to 'dig deep' via Google, but shop drawings are tough to source. I have also noticed that several websites have shut down - for example, the refurb project architects (Studio E, LLC) shut their website down immediately following the disaster. I think the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has also restricted access to parts of the Glenfell Towers documentation, possibly from legal advice.
I did find this document authored in February 2016 from the UK forensic architects of PROBYN MIERS entitled:
Some interesting extracts: The red-colored bold emphasis is by me.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"The sheathing has not been used in the UK since the 1980s"
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
So, the vertical column facings burned very, very rapidly upwards, causing massive vertical smoke and hot gasses right next to the open windows adjacent to the vertical column facades. Smoke got brought into the lower-opening windows by drafts, and the open windows removed any fire break effects of the normal cladding. Over a few minutes of time - 10-20 minutes perhaps - and the fire lasted hours, each individual window insulation and its plastic surrounding above the foam and cladding outside would fail, although slower than the vertical column facades. Worse, the smoke and flames coming in from the vertical fire outside the windows would "prevent" people from running to the windows and closing them, which will increase the number of windows left open as people run out the doors of each apartment. So the natural draft (outside cladding fire through window to door inside to hallway) increases the smoke load in the hallways and stairs.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
This is a failure from many directions... the Architect specifying or accepting an unsuitable and dangerous product... the building developer doing the same... the council... any building department involved... and maybe an error in the building code if this type of construction is permitted... Unfortunately a lot of people have lost their lives... in a horrible fashion.
Compositepro and Hokie: I would have thought the heat was sufficient that the aluminum panels would have melted/burned and with convection may have appeared to be 'floating'.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Commander Stuart Cundy said that number "may increase". The BBC understands it could be around 70 people in total."
I guess the fire burned hot enough and long enough that there may not be any DNA from the ash that remained.
Added: from the Guardian, "A fire investigation report into the devastating blaze at Grenfell Tower in west London will not be released publicly until the opening of full inquests into those who have died – which could take years."
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
from the BBC, "The cladding used at Grenfell Tower was banned in the UK, chancellor Philip Hammond believes. He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr:
My understanding is that the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here. That’s my understanding.”
Asked why it was used, he replied: “There are two separate questions. One is, are our regulations correct? Do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials.
“Second question is were they correctly complied with? And obviously that will be a subject that the [public] inquiry will look at. It will also be a subject that the separate criminal investigation will be looking at.”"
Added: and from the Guardian, "David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, who knew one of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, demanded that the police seize all documents from relevant parties that could help explain its causes and assist the criminal investigations. He said: “The prime minister needs to act immediately to ensure that all evidence is protected so that everyone culpable for what happened at Grenfell Tower is held to account and feels the full force of the law. We need urgent action now to make sure all records and documents relating to the refurbishment and management of Grenfell Tower are protected.”"
I cannot find the article, but, there is an investigation into the shortcomings of the notifications to the various agencies about the fire resistance of the structure. Whoever did the building envelope screwed up bigtime.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
We'll see what was spec'd and why the wrong material was used.
They may have a whole bunch of other buildings with the wrong cladding. One question, no one seems to be looking into... what caused the 'stack effect' that drew the fire into the building?
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Wonder if any one out there has verified the results produced by this U value calculator on the Celotex website using heat transfer first principles? Going from the inside wall to the outside, you have the following without the deadly PIR foam
a)The low inside htc due to natural convection
b)A few mm of plaster - low in thermal conductivity
c)Probably 100mm of low thermal conductivity masonry brick
d)Perhaps 25mm stationary air gap - again low conductivity
e)This composite aluminum / plastic PE layer - low conductivity again
f)A low external htc due to say a normal average windspeed of 1-2m/sec
With all these thermal resistances in series, how much does one really save by adding this 150mm of insulation ??
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
One factor may be the unusually warm wweather we've had in the UK recently, and the general lack of A/C in residential properties in this country: there is every chance that the residents simply had their windows open for ventilation, and once the fire was established it would be difficult to get to the windows in order to close them.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I know little about insulation, but did raise the issue of the insulation in a post above. If what you say about the Celotex layer is correct, then that was a bigger contributor than the Reynobond composite. Would like to hear some further comment about that from the chemical and mechanical folks who should know.
One correction to your list: the spandrel panels below the windows are precast concrete, about 200 thick I think, not masonry brick.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Celotax and its rival brand Kingspan are used in many domestic and commercial new-builds in the UK. Am I correct to think that these materials present a relatively low hazard due to fire when they are sandwiched between two masonry walls?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I think it's probably a bit early to say "... the major contributor, without a doubt, is this ..." as there is still a lot of uncertainty and speculation about exactly what products (both cladding and insulation) were:
a) specified; and
b) approved / certified; and
c) purchased / installed; and
d) inspected / certified as being compliant with the design, manufacturer's certified details, etc?
It is obvious that the installed facade performed catastrophically. However, it is quite possible that the original design / specification was entirely code-compliant, but if there was a substitution of products (e.g. substitution of flammable cladding and / or insulation where non-flammable materials should have been specified), and / or if installation details were altered from the approved details, this could have had catastrophic consequences.
It is even possible (although I would think unlikely), that the entire design and installation was code-compliant, and the major issue might be that the UK codes are hugely deficient.
I suspect the inquiry will reveal issues at all stages of the specification, design, procurement, installation and inspection / certification chain - especially when they start looking at a large number of over-clad high-rise buildings.
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
From the Celotex website, the datasheet on the RS5000 product Link (which is specifically designed for 'rainscreen' cladding applications), states:
"100mm SFS" is cold-formed steel framing.
The fire performance system testing appears to be done on a 12mm fiber cement panel cladding system.
No mention of the ACM panels in any fire performance system testing.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Believe this building had a gas supply to all floors - did the mains autoshutoff valve close off early on in the fire? I hear in the videoclips of blue flames shooting out of some windows long after the fire escalated - this could only be natural gas. And that there were no flammable gas detection devices installed in this bldg??
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Building regs have this issue about "cold spots" so there could easily be some sort of insulation around the window frames which melted in the heat allowing flames in. I've seen window frames "fixed" to the window holes by using expanding foam only in my time so how to prevent the window frames from failing needs to be considered.
Other point is that unlike the drawing, the reality if you look at the photo from epoxybot is that the windows are designed to tilt inwards at the top or open inwards. Both designed to stop things accidentally falling out of the window from an internal sill, but if left on vent by tilting inside will have fed flames and smoke into the flats very quickly, probably burning curtains etc.
The flats were simple concrete panel construction and many suffer badly from poor insulation, damp, condensation etc so adding external insulation is a decent way to upgrade the flats without loosing internal space which is small enough as it is. clearly it needs to be weather protected by something which doesn't burn.
The gap between the hard foam and the weather protection apparently prevents dampness penetrating the insulation but then causes issues with the flame speeding up behind the weather facing.
As for the gas I agree, but there's no evidence that anything was fitted to "auto shut off" as there wasn't anything to initiate it. No one has gas detectors other than your nose - gas is odourised and can be smelt at low concentrations. There is talk that the recent gas retrofit had not properly protected the main gas pipes in the service shaft and it clearly added to the fire, but only when everything was well alight.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
picture 2, you see some windowframes tiltes inward (lower left corner), windowframes seem to still be in places
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I have no knowledge of the UK Building Codes but I can assure you the design schematic you posted appears to have deviated from the ICC Evaluation Service report for the Reynobond ACM Rainscreen. See Section 4.4 of ICC ESR-345: http://www.icc-es.org/Reports/pdf_files/ESR-3435.p... This installation, in the US, would violate 2012 International Building Code Section 1407.
Given the age and occupancy of the building, the most economical solution is to retrofit sprinklers into these buildings. Based on the area of each dwelling/sleeping unit, it would provide a much higher level of fire protection and could be accomplished using CPVC piping.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Police Cmdr. Stuart Cundy gave the new figure during a statement outside Scotland Yard on Monday. The previous figure given was 58."
[added]jhardy1:
"I think it's probably a bit early to say "... the major contributor, without a doubt, is this ..." as there is still a lot of uncertainty and speculation about exactly what products (both cladding and insulation) were:"
From the movies taken, it was pretty obvious that the propagation of the fire was via the building envelope with some type of stack effect bringing the flame into the structure.
stookyfpe:
I don't have a handle on UK codes, but, I know that the flammable cladding is not permitted in Canada, and, I understand it is not permitted in the States.
The error is that the wrong material was used for the cladding. An architectural design error, at very least, or a substitution by the government, possibly with the blessing of the Architect.
Sprinklers may or may not have prevented the tragedy. The mayor of London is trying to deflect this by saying that the building type was old. This modern retrofit and the error in judgement by the professionals and regulators has cost nearly 80 lives. I'm being pretty harsh because a large number of people have, needlessly, been killed.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Based on other media reports it appears that the fire began in one of the units and the source of ignition was a malfunction in an electric refrigerator. Purely speculation on my part but if an electric appliance ignited and the fire grew to a point where other combustibles were involved, an automatic sprinkler system discharging at 0.1 GPM/Ft^2 based on NFPA 13 or NFPA 13R (R= residential) would have prevented the fire from reaching the flashover phase. I suspect when the fire reached flashover, the glazing failed, which vented the heated fire gases and direct flame impingement onto the improperly selected and installed MCM. When this occurred, the MCM inner layer (an expanded polystyrene) pyrolyzed, ignited, and the "$hit went South" as we say in my fire stations.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I can understand if the wiring was damaged, and the refrigerator was out of a normal place (in lower housing that would not be a jump to believe).
But was their other electrical problems with the fuse box, or circuit breaker?
I am guessing that the electrical is 220V, 50Hz, but I don't have much else in details to go on. Is it delta, or wye?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
400/230V earthed star, supplied as single phase 230V + neutral to each unit.
Plenty scope for an appliance fire to start in the right circumstances: even our smallest appliance fuse will allow over 700W continuously into a high impedance fault, and that will cause 'something' get damned hot quite quickly. In an older building there's no certainty that RCD / RCBO protection would be provided. An RCD is an GFCI in your patch of the world. If the wiring was original then the chances of RCD / RCBO protection are pretty small, and the protection for the appliance would be a fuselink of at least 3A and potentially as large as 13A if someone chose the wrong one for the application.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Looking at the films, the fire developed on the exterior prior to moving inward. It appears the roof is gone, and it may be that the elevator shaft and/or the stairwell created the stack. I don't know and this may come out. The exterior fire was sufficiently developed that when it moved to the interior the sprinklers may not have been effective; the consumables may likely have been outside the reach of the sprinklers. Sprinklers may have reduced the consumables and lowered the temperature a bit, but, I think most of the flame was on the outside out of reach from sprinklers. Hopefully a better understanding of the situation will evolve.
Should have added that if the initial fire was suppressed, then none of this would have happened... and in that manner, sprinklers would be great.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I looked at the photos I've seen on-line and the elevation of the lowest undamaged floor is 4 stories abovegrade. It's difficult for me to understand why a person would want to intentionally ignite a fire in a building and attempt the act from the 4th floor at 12:54 AM London time. My scenario is more plausible and one media article confirms it started on the 4th floor. Based on 28 years in the US fire service working for a major metropolitan Fire Department in the Fire Marshal's Office causes me to believe this was a dwelling fire that breached the glazing and subsequently ignited the cladding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/world/europe/uk...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It is great for after and incident when you want to know what they were saying before it happened.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It appears to be a classic SAR (Search and Recovery) operation. The building is divided by floor and into quadrants and the location of bodies or body parts are identified. During the operation, specialists with structural engineering training evaluate the structure and define no-go zones, which can hopefully be briged or otherwise braced so that a search can be completed. The protectve clothing includes HEPA filters on the face masks because of the potential for asbestos exposure.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I don't think there were any sprinklers. See news report links above particularly Martinle's http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-40293035
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I read a report of someone who complained about this on Grenfell and the fact that were no gas detection devices installed in the poorly ventilated internal stairwell through which some gas lines were passing through.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I don't know either, but there are reports, including this one. I was just responding to some comments above that appeared to discount the possibility of a fridge fire.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/equipmen...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Detailed drawings or samples of materials as appropriate, in respect of the
following, shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Local
Planning Authority before the relevant part of the work is begun and the
works shall not be carried out other than in accordance with the details so
approved and shall thereafter be so maintained:
·
Materials to be used on the external faces of the building(s)
The building had a problem with heat buildup in the summer and the center pivot windows were chosen to assist with air exchange but may have created a convection effect. Apparently the floor to window height of the existing concrete spandrel panels was too low & presented a risk of falling, if one were to lean to far out the window. That might explain the odd section drawing LittleInch posted. Having lived in a building with poor air turnover, it would not surprise me if some tenants left the front doors open to facilitate a better draft, exacerbating the updraft once the fire got going. How many left the door to their unit open when they fled?
UK refrigerators have Isobutane refrigerant as a replacement for Freon. Pre-2010 Isobutane Exploding refrigerators are a real possibility. Some of the evacuees reported seeing blue flames and hearing explosions as they fled. It seems refrigerator explosions occur most often at night, after the refrigerator door has been closed for an extended time.
The facade supplier appears to be OMNIS. While Reynobond PE is the suspected culprit. OMNIS produces & supplies more than one brand of ACM. They have removed their ACM .pdf spec sheet from their website. OMNIS had bought out Rigidal while it was under reorganization; right about the time the facade contractor, Harley was the low bidder...,
The Celotex type insulation doesn't strike me as the overwhelming fuel component. Much of the charred insulation remains in place on the spandral panels and large lightly scorched pieces of it are on the ground where they came away from the columns. It is the ACM low density polyethylene LDPE core that burned so rapidly. Same material as a plastic milk jug. Unlike the Celotex, it is a thermoplastic instead of a thermo-setting plastic. It melts, that's why it is used to make milk jugs in high volume. You can also find LDPE in many commercial waxes. Unbelievably, the people responsible, basically turned this building into a candle. Ingenuity's Red-Bold earlier post is very informative as to how this fire spread both up & down the facade. Cut up a milk jug and light a piece of it on fire, it burns very easily.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
While that for mineral wool used on external walls has a k value of 0.035w/m/k.
Have a read of the fire risk para in Wikipedia on the topic polyisocyanurate.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Also rockwool is good stuff, but not if it gets wet - this is the UK where it tends, normally, to rain a lot. It's also quite difficult to install on vertical walls compared to large solid blocks of foam. If you want both (solid and waterproof then its foam glas, but that's not as good an insulator and hence costs more.
McGyver - I suspect whoever made that comment was referring to "built in" fridges where many installers don't seem to realize you need to allow the fridge to have an air circulation and rely on the fact that you open the fridge several times a day allowing a gush of hot air to escape every time. Just my guess but I'm often amazed at what kitchen fitters do when it comes to equipment like this. Thus leaving it shut for a long time leads to a build up of heat.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Added: I was able to capture 62 *.pdf files with building information... looking at the suite layout, it appears the fridge is located approx 5' from a window that could be open and the stove was approx 3' from the same window. Nothing like a frying pan of oil left on an element. One of the first things I've checked to see if there is a stove with the switch still on.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The original heating features of the flats were hot water, radiant heated floors/ceilings & a small upright radiator. The discussion of the refurbishment of the flats included abandoning the aged/leak prone radiant heat system in the floor/ceiling and installing a larger upright water circulating radiator with a thermostatically controlled valve. The radiant heated floors/ceiling were identified as one of the factors contributing to heat build up in the structure. I may have read that the hot water supply and the radiant heated floors/ceilings were tied into together, though each flat had a hot water 'storage' tank.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Well, this is an interesting development. Since the Fire Dept can now inform us which unit sustained the refrigerator fire, it will be interesting to see where on the exterior of the structure the unit was located. Assuming, this was the cause of the cladding fire.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.bbacerts.co.uk/CertificateFiles/45/4510...
and Comparative Certifications
https://www.arconic.com/aap/europe/pdf/Certificati...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Landlords are being told and more checks carried out, number 10 said.
It comes as further tests are being carried out on about 600 high rises across England.
Cladding is thought to have contributed to the rapid spread of fire at Grenfell Tower, in which at least 79 people are believed to have died.
Extra checks by the fire service would determine whether the buildings were safe and what - if any - action needed to be taken, the prime minister's spokesman said.
He pointed out that a failed cladding test did not necessarily mean a building was unsafe - that would depend on the amount of cladding used and where it was fitted.
Arconic, an engineering and manufacturing company, said one of its products, Reynobond PE (polyethylene) - an aluminium composite material - was "used as one component in the overall cladding system" of Grenfell Tower."
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
PIR foam is a thermoset material which means - while combustible, they form a char and doesn't contribute to the spread of flame. That being said, any foam plastic still needs to be separated by a thermal barrier or be tested as a thermal barrier. The ACM material however, is a thermoplastic which can melt and ignite at lower temperatures.
I'm not too familiar with the European codes, but typically foam plastic insulation and metal/aluminum composite materials need to be tested via FM 4880 and NFPA 285. These are tests that measure the flame characteristics of the foam as well as the cladding assembly in multistory buildings. The Grenfell tower installation looked different than what Reynobond has in their ICC-ES report. Building codes would have different requirements for materials rated with different types of flammability characteristics which are intended to prevent disasters like this.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=200...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
If the tenants were really concerned they could have hauled the rubbish out... The tenants were not at all aware of the real safety issues... ones that would take 80 lives.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Replacement of the PIR insulation with the same thickness of rock wool insulation cuts down heat loss to 18% of that for the bare wall, so about the same thermal performance as PIR insulation.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Det. Supt. Fiona McCormack said the Hotpoint model, FF175BP, was not subject to recall and that the manufacturer was doing further tests.
"We now have expert evidence that the fire was not started deliberately," McCormack said.
Whirlpool, the company that owns Hotpoint, said it is helping authorities get all the information needed for the investigation.
Police said both the insulation and tiles used in cladding at the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block failed all post-fire safety tests.
"Preliminary tests show the insulation samples collected from Grenfell Tower combusted soon after the test started," McCormack said."
I had no idea that fridges were that flammable...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Have a look at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa... which I believe is the relevant part of the UK's Building Regulations. Not my field of expertise by any means, but Section 12 looks relevant.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
How much of the liability goes to the refrigerator manufacturer? How much to the original architect? How much to the insulation manufacturer?
I wouldn't want to be in any of their shoes right now. Of course, all their suffering doesn't amount to anything compared to the people who died, lost loved ones or were injured.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Lots of targets, but if construction was anything like North America, the Architect was in the loop and either spec'd the original material, or, approved the alternative. Being a knowledgeable professional, he may be largely to blame.
If the fridge manufacturer had prior information about the incendiary nature of his fridges, he is another good target. I'm surprised there has been little discussion about the pending litigation. I would have thought the lawyers would be 'lining the streets'. They now have 27 buildings that are 'fire traps'.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:283398-201... The contract was awarded on Jun 2, 2014. The 1st joint newsletter (June) from KCTMO & Rydon states "Since the April
newsletter we have been busy working with the Council’s planning department on the type of cladding which will be used." By August a full size mock up of the cladding was on display on the 2nd floor exterior.
http://www.kctmo.org.uk/files/102411_august_2014_g...
I'm not convinced that there is any manufacture's defect that can be assigned to the Hotpoint refrigerator. The model ceased production in 2009 after a production run of over 60K. The most frequent complaint was that it was noisy. The majority of other performance complaints are the kind most service technicians are familiar with and in spite of what many purchasers may insist is not true remain valid. Examples: The refrigerator is not on a dedicated circuit or the refrigerator is not on a circuit of correct amperage, etc. I think it more likely that the buildings electrical wiring and power management damaged either the resident's wiring or the fridge. The Grenfell Action Group has a blog entry from 2013 regarding power surges and brown outs, that in a large multi-story residential building are disturbing. This building was built in the 70's & while there is not confirmation, consider that there are other Social Estates in the UK, built at that time, that were wired with aluminum wiring, common in the 70's. From what I have gathered, insufficient power will eventually cause your electronics & appliances stop working but power surges are what cause them to burst into flames. The Grenfell Action Group described these problems as occurring at night. Here is the blog entry.
https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/05/...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
In a brochure aimed at customers in other European countries, the company cautions that the polyethylene Reynobond should not be used in buildings taller than 10 meters, or about 33 feet, consistent with regulations in the United States and elsewhere. “Fire is a key issue when it comes to buildings,” the brochure explains. “Especially when it comes to facades and roofs, the fire can spread extremely rapidly.”
I would be concerned about using that product in any building, irrespective of height.
BA
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I expect that the lower thermal conductivity of aluminum decreases it's ability to limit localized heating.
The means to avoid this is to protect the connection from corrosion.
This is from personal experience - one with the pole-wiring that burned up the connection to the house because no anti-oxidant was applied, leading to sporadic power loss to the house. The other was finding 4 inches of bare wire in an outlet box from the insulation that melted back.
Creep, lower section conductivity, higher coefficient of expansion are all contributors, but rapid, low-conductive corrosion of aluminum is the main killer.
Some things have been changed in the wiring industry to offset these effects but, personal opinion, aluminum in home wiring represents a really bad idea, no matter the up-front cost savings.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
...reports made by residents that they saw and smelt smoke coming from various electrical appliances on the morning of 29th May. This was the day the whole electrical system went into meltdown, and by the TMO’s own admission, fused several key meters and damaged or destroyed electrical appliances in 40 individual residences.
The official count was 45 residences on the upper stories of the building. Residence also reported smoke coming from light fixtures. The Council accepted KC-TMO's response that it wasn't smoke but "steam" from moisture. I am of course speculating that negligence by KC-TMO in dealing with the power surges that went on for 3 weeks in May of 2013, prior to a catastrophic outage and the resulting outage may have damages wiring elsewhere in the structure.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Added: I qualified the refrigerator issue subject to the manufacturer being aware of a problem.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Problem could be 'really' big... just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I'd like to think that the people who deep-down already knew they'd got a problem got their samples in fastest and that as this next week develops we'll start to see an increasing proportion of passes - but somehow I'm just not that optimistic.
A.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"They should be testing the panels as installed, not just the panels in isolation."
They are testing the panels already installed and these are failing. They should never have used the material, as they are finding out after costing 80 lives.
Whoever specified the material in the first place should be the first on the block... ie, chopping block. It surprises me that there is no mention of lawyers... maybe a different culture...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Regulations and codes are normally written with the best of intents and purpose to prevent such tragedies like Grenfell Tower. Over time though they can become outdated, not keep track with newer materials and construction techniques and can be applied very rigidly, leading to legitimate calls for replacement, revision or removal. You can get, like this instance, where a desire to do something better for all (reduction of emmissions and increase in comfort due to adding insulation to the outside of buildings, retrofitting gas supplies) comes up against the potential downside of fire up the outside of a building for which it wasn't designed.
The issue here will be that this issue of cladding was highlighted some years ago and for reasons not clear to me, the revision to the building regulations has now been outstanding for some years. The fact that this material is only very marginally cheaper than the "fire resistant" material makes it even worse.
The reality of modern engineering and construction techniques is that little by little things are reduced until the point that they fail. Then it usually takes a significant loss of life in a single incident for action to happen. The potential for this is often there and missed as it has "never happened before". Of course it has, but on a much smaller scale.
Fire protection and prevention in high rise tower blocks has always been an issue - the stay put has worked well up to now when concrete buildings could be relied on to not transmit flames vertically between flats. Now? I think anyone in a high rise who sees fire or smoke will be leaving, which could then cause issues with overcrowding on the fire escapes and prevent fire fighters getting access, no one with smoke hoods etc collapsing and blocking the access, never mind the infirm and disabled.
I think a major factor here was simply the time of year - most people would have had the windows on "vent", i.e. angled inwards at the top and hence transmission of flames was made much easier, which would not have happened in the winter. Of course the windows and window frames may have failed at some point, but this seems to have been an easy way in along with the vents from the kitchen vents (see the picture by epoxy bot).
The UK culture on lawsuits etc is, thankfully, still a world away from the US, but the claims will come in time - the defence though will be that it wasn't banned / against the code that existed at the time and had been used in many locations before without an issue.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Neither excuses are a defense. Use elsewhere is not exactly a qualification for use, esp in a different location, under different circumstances. As already seen above, it is possible to safely use materials under some circumstances, which may be wholely unsafe under others.
I am afraid that the designer-specifier or accepting agent would bare prime responsibility for not knowing under which circumstances the specified materials could be legally and safely used, unless the materials were specified and accepted for use under false pretense of some sort.
Richard Feynman's Problem Solving Algorithm
1. Write down the problem.
2. Think very hard.
3. Write down the answer.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
AFAIK some styrodur insulation are flamable but extinguish when no other fuel is present, then the material of the cladding would be very relevant. Maybe I missed among all the talk about the cladding what kind of insulation was used.
Another question: upthread, and in the NYT article, positive pressure emergency stairways where mentioned. The doors have to open inward, against the pressure. I'd think that maintaining a positive pressure uniformly along the length of a stairwell without the pressure diff locally beeing to high for some people. Likely a solved problem, how is it done?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I think the problem was the thicker layer of insulation applied to the building with an air gap between it and the aluminum encapsulated insulation... This was the cause of the fire spreading so rapidly... the air gap provided a stack for the flame to quickly progress upwards.
From the Guardian, "The government appears to be blaming councils and housing associations for the slow pace of fire safety tests on high-rise buildings after only a tenth of the 600 tower blocks potentially at risk have been tested in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower blaze.
Theresa May outlined an emergency inspection programme last week that could test 100 samples a day. However, test results have been revealed for only 60 high-rise buildings in 25 areas, and all of them failed combustibility checks.
On Monday, housing minister Alok Sharma said “round the clock” testing was under way, but he appeared to blame landlords for failing to submit samples. "
I can see this being a huge financial undertaking for the councils.
One politician is referring to the negligence as 'murder'.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
An interesting factoid is the Limiting Oxygen Index (%) of a given material. The Limiting Oxygen Index (OI) is a convenient test to make preliminary determinations about the flammability of a given material. It is the amount of Oxygen needed to self-sustain a flame. Atmospheric Oxygen at sea level is 21%. I have read values of 23% & 28% as the value needed to render a material non-flame self-supporting. Paraffin has an Oxygen Index of 16% & Polyethylene (PE) an OI of 17.4%. Most of the data on Polyisocyanurate (PIR) is behind "pay-walls" but the most common IO reference I found was 22-23% and one as high as 29%. With such a minimal need for Oxygen, one would think that PE would burn like a candle but its vapor pressure limits its combustion. A caveat of the Limiting Oxygen Index test is that the flame is applied to the sample from above and the buoyancy of the flame, limits the ability of the test to yield real world results. Many of the most fire resistant materials drop by as much as half the OI% when the flame is applied to the bottom of the sample. This is not true of Polyethylene, it remains at 17%. So one can conclude that the vapor pressure of Polyethylene doesn't make it the best combustible material but its low requirement for atmospheric Oxygen makes it a great fire starter. How good a fire starter is Polyethylene? It has a heat of combustion just shy of diesel fuel. Heat of Combustion in MJ/kg: Paraffin 42-46 / Polyethylene 44 / Diesel 44-45.
A likely scenario is that the burning of the Polyethylene creates a heat column sufficient to render any fire resistance that might have existed in the PIR insignificant. Even though much of the Polyethylene melted, the melted PE would have pooled on the firestop blocking between floors. Molten Polyethylene retains a remarkable amount of heat and would have radiated that heat back up the void creating a flash-over condition & compromising the PIR very quickly. At about 900C the vapor pressure of Polyethylene has no deterrent effect on its combustion and it burns like a paraffin candle, completely leaving zero waste product.
Regardless of the materials that turned Grenfell Tower into a candle, the question should be asked; "Who started the fire?" and considering the very serious electric problems Grenfell Tower experienced in May 2013, the wiring of the building in the undamaged flats needs to be given a thorough forensic inspection and the purchase orders of the electrical contractor examined to determine what remedial measures were taken. In the UK, electrical wiring is typically installed on a 32 amp Ring Circuit and electronics & appliances are protected by fused wall plugs. A refrigerator would have had a 13amp wall plug but they don't blow until they exceed 20amps. If you share your ring circuit with your neighbors (all the units had in-flat prepaid-meters) you can experience a power surge when something like the washing machine of refrigerator draws a high current when the motor starts. And then, their are the tenants of a building who had experienced so many power surges & brown outs; changed out so many fuses on their electronics & appliances. Many who came from undeveloped & developing countries are used to coming up with work-around solution that compromise safety, like hot wiring the fuse holder.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
https://archive.is/Jrbfy#selection-709.10-709.34
It was intended to work based on a compartmentalized fire scenario, possibly affecting at most two floors. Considering the fire reached the top of the structure in a matter of minutes, one has to question is the intakes of the ventilation system may have sucked & blown smoke into the stairwell.
I have read at least one news item where the Fire investigators are looking into the possibility that the cladding ventilation gap on the columns may have been greater than that on the spandrel 'cassette panels'. My own eye perception last week was that the cladding ventilation gap on the columns appeared to be the width of a 2x4, so 90mm.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
While there is some risk of some people being unable to push the stairwell door open, there is a far greater risk if smoke enters the stairwell. http://fire.co.clark.nv.us/(S(wezctxbq2goerxvi012x... is the report from the MGM grand hotel fire in 1980. At the end are interviews with some of the survivors.
The wikipedia article summarizes it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Grand_fire
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I think you may be correct. Looks like they used cold-formed steel to offset and attach the PIR to the existing column exterior, and creating an additional cavity: Plan-section of detail:
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Building safety experts have warned that government tests on tower block cladding in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster lack transparency and are too simplistic to be used to condemn blocks as unsafe.
Fire risk consultants and architects have suggested the government should reveal what tests were being conducted on the material after it was revealed every single cladding sample sent for analysis had failed the new assessment.
The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, announced on Monday that samples of aluminium panels from all 75 buildings that had been sent for fire retardancy testing had so far 'failed'.
But he did not reveal what testing was undertaken apart from to say they determine whether the materials meet 'the requirement for limited combustibility in building regulations'.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) asked councils to cut samples of at least 25cm x 25cm from the cladding of towers and send them to the Building Research Establishment (BRE) at Watford for testing but has not said if the tests show whether they meet a British standard test."
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
What The Grenfell Fire Could Teach Trump
The Trump administration has been loosening health and safety regulations since Day One.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grenfell-fire-...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/fast-raci...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The design decision to use the ACM Column cladding as the vertical edge of the window opening, doomed the safety of the interior of the flats.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The National Grid agreed to protect the pipes serving individual flats, which had been installed over the winter, but had only added a third of the boxing by the time the deadly blaze killed at least 79 people."
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/27/gr...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
There was something very odd / different with those columns though which may or may not be replicated on long vertical sections on other buildings. Your picture in the post of 16 June 21:28 is still the most dramatic and alarming of the whole sequence leading to this appalling loss of life and injury.
You should volunteer this to the public Enquiry.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Theresa May told the Commons it was a 100% failure rate, as all of the samples submitted so far since the Grenfell Tower fire had failed."
Link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40432062
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Added: I'm not sure what the role of an Architect is in the UK.
Also no reference to shop drawings that would have had reviewed construction details. The problems seem to be mounting: combustible material, appliance issues, electrical issues, and gas issues. Not sure what they did right.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Here is a UK link to Novating an Architect to a Design Build contract. Link
Design Build (scroll) Link
Liability Link
There may be considerable liability that falls on the property management company, KCTMO, in concert with the Contractor. The Decision Notice issued by the Town Planner specifically called out for the External Cladding & Windows to be submitted to the local planning authority Kensington & Chelsea. The reasons given by the Town Planner were largely esthetic but the Contractor seems to have done an end-run on the submittals process. The contractor staged a full scale mock-up in July/August of 2014 on a lower floor of Grenfell. They may have gotten a verbal acceptance but a actual submittal might have raised a red flag about the cheap material selection and the absence of an FR rating on the cladding.
LittleInch (Petroleum) - I think the Fire Inspection team already know that the gap between the window frame & the columns was the path of fire entry inside the flats. A number of photos from 2 days after the fire show fire inspectors (or possibly Structural Engineers) taking numerous photographs, principally focused on the column areas of the structure. This very large scale photo shows how intense the fire was at the columns. Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I read somewhere that an Architect had to be used by the design builder and that it was recommended the original architect should be used, but not mandatory. In any event, a chartered Architect was a requirement. Architects are normally responsible for the design of the building envelope.
Added: Materials selected, in any event, would have to comply with whatever codes are in effect. It may be that UK building codes permitted the construction of fire traps.
From the liability Link you provided, which was excellent:
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Liabilit...
does not really clarify things and indicates that certain degrees of competency are required. It appears the British system does not hold Architects, and perhaps Engineers, to account like the model established in North America. I guess we'll have to wait and see what 'shakes out'. I'm really surprised there has been no mention in the news of this and that there is not a line up of lawyers.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It is too bad we do not know where the refrigerator was located, though photos of other fire ravaged units suggest it may have been close to the window. Knowing now that the window frames do not extend to column, it raises the question if the fire damaged the wall at the column/window frame interface, inside the flat. What the tenant of the 4th floor flat can tell regarding the actions of the Fire Brigade, the resulting damage, if the window was open, or the kitchen exhaust fan turned on and the location of the refrigerator will be interesting.
Am I the only one curious about the panic inducing statements coming from government?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Lots to say about how binding the detailed regulations are, how far you get to choose your inspectors and the routes you can choose if you don't want to comply with the detailed regulations.
Don't know whether it happens across the world, but politicians of all colours here have got into the habit of using "improving choice" as a powerful argument to justify all manner of controversial policies.
A.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Some interesting analysis above - thank you, it has been quite educational for me.
I can't agree with your remark "That said, by British Standards specification, the power cord for most UK refrigerators are undersized for the current the draws when the motor starts." because that situation applies to virtually all motors throughout industry - cables are sized to withstand the starting current for the starting period, but they are neither able to nor required to carry the starting current indefinitely, and protection would operate long before that point. The same would apply to the plug-top fuse on the end of the appliance cord. Most refrigerators would have a 3A or 5A fuse, and the appliance cord would typically be 0.5mm² or 0.75m², both of which are adequately protected by either of those fuselink sizes.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Thanks Scotty, I did actually read up on the cord size/fuse ratio. But I'm also wondering about damaged induced as a result of the lack of power and how such an appliance later deals with a power surge. Normally an appliance that is under powered will begin to under perform and eventually just stop working. For the record, the Hotpoint was a 13 amp fridge.
I think, here in the US, lawsuits have conditioned manufactures to use a more robust power cord on major appliances. I don't know if I mentioned it here or elsewhere but increasingly the UK is encountering situations that come about because incoming populations are accustomed to using primitive solutions to what, for many has been a frequent problem in the old country. Hence doing something like running a heavy gauge of wire across the fuse gap, might strike them as a simple way to deal with KCTMO not solving the power problem in a reasonable time. Crazy to you or me but Old Country Know How to a handy guy with a little knowledge. The tenants described the lights flashing on & off or up & down intensely for weeks prior to the outage. So it comes down to duration and amperage. If they had "power spikes" as well as surges and the spikes were below a certain amperage, then the fuses would not blown. It takes 0.3 seconds for 100 amps to blow a 13 amp fuse. But how many blown fuses from power surges or spikes can an appliance take before it is compromised? But I labor the issue. I'm really adamant that the investigation into the cause of the fire, also look at the condition of the remaining building wiring and appliances, the repairs by KCTMO in May/June 2013 and also the quality of the power delivered to the rest of the area. Since the surges seemed to be something that occurred at night, the power delivered needs to be examined as well.
Do you think it likely that a tower flat built in the early 70's had ring circuits, possibly shared ring circuits? And what about aluminum wiring? What happens on a shared circuit if just as your refrigerator motor draws a heavy current, your neighbors washing machine turns off? Is it like the poor soul in the upstairs shower that gets fried when the downstairs shower is shutoff?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Here is the original tender for bids on Grenfell Towers. I thought I had posted it but I can't find it in my posts. It has a short line about Novating the Architect.
Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/28/gr...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It will be interesting to see what the investigation concludes about the origin of the fire. The electrical installation seems to be a cause for concern in its own right based on the problems described by tenants, regardless of the appliances connected to it. I have no idea if aluminium wiring was still in service; the tower is of the right age for it to be a credible possibility although I must say I'm surprised it has lasted this long. Could be ring or radial socket arrangement, I would guess ring but I don't do much work with domestic / light commercial installs. If individual units mutually affect each other's supply that would suggest problems may exist in the main distribution within the building as well as the final circuits in the apartments.
Our Electricity at Work Regulations require that wiring is inspected and tested as required to prevent danger. These regulations don't apply to domestic properties, except when the property is owned by one party and rented to another party as is the case here. From the problems described by the tenants it is hard to imagine that the wiring passed any inspection and it will be interesting to see how aggressively that line of enquiry is pursued.
I didn't mean to drag this thread way off into the weeds: regardless of the cause of the initial fire it is frightening that it was able to escalate in the way that it did.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
from the Guardian, " Grenfell survivors barred from council meeting about fire... Kensington and Chelsea council says cabinet meeting will be held behind closed doors, with media also banned...
The only subject on the agenda is the fire, in which at least 80 people died. This will be an “oral item”, with no written report...
It is also not clear on what legal basis, if any, the council plans to bar the media. A council spokesman said he did not know, and asked the Guardian to send any queries by email. There was no immediate response to the email...
Its chief executive, Nicholas Holgate, resigned last week, after pressure from the communities secretary, Sajid Javid.
Calls have been made for Paget-Brown to follow, with London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, demanding the resignation of the entire council leadership."
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/29/gr...
and, an update, "A judge has ordered a London council to lift a ban on the media reporting on the first meeting of councillors to discuss the Grenfell Tower disaster, after a legal challenge by the Guardian and other media groups."
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/29/gr...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.enr.com/articles/42238-how-many-other-s...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Has no one any common sense there?
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
However, the ENR report says there are only 4 UK buildings currently being evacuated, and they have serious internal safety issues.
It's easy to judge this sort of thing from afar.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
In the ENR piece, OMNOS/CEP Architectural Facades Ltd. certainly did their best to distance themselves from playing a crucial role in the disaster. They, knew the material they were selling and they knew it would only work under very specific conditions and they knew the material was not technically approved for the application. In defense they cite the industry organization that the BBC exposed as using creative means to do an end-run on the desired intent of the safety standard; which was to rule out materials inherently prone to contribute to a fire. While it does seem that Harley Facade shopped for the best price for all the components of the external cladding, most contractors are not material experts, they habitually come up with cost saving solutions that may create a facsimile of the desired result but frequently need to be told, YOU CAN"T DO THAT. Omnis was formed in 2013 by the amalgamation of six companies, including CEP. If I was looking for an expert in the UK that had direct links to the project and should have known better, I know who I would be looking at. Mind you, they could have said, I won't sell you the Reynobond PE but I will sell you the Reynobond FR. How does £5K for the cheaper material stack up against a sale of over £1 million? I think most people would look at that £5K and know they would sleep better at night having done what was in the best interest of both the public and a company with a annual profit of more than £1 million.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Added: "Sir Martin Moore-Bick said the probe could be limited to the cause, how it spread, and preventing a future blaze."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40446579
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
An example of the frustrations of trying to get anything done effectively within the scope of European public procurement regulations (or domestic laws enacting the Directives).
There is a paralysing fear that any complexity in the procurement, and in particular any spec change that might favour one bidder over another, will lead to a threat of legal challenge, bringing the project to a complete standstill for eighteen months. This fear has created a rampant culture of "lowest priced bid that isn't overtly noncompliant gets the job - and don't put anything that might disadvantage any of the potential bidders into the spec unless you can prove it's a truly inescapable element of the requirement". Under that regime, there is absolutely no incentive to add a £5k embellishment to the bid - that might be the £5k that means the £1m contract goes to your competitor.
A.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It seem it was the Council of RBK&C that put pressure on KC-TMO to get the cladding cost to the minimum, in emails from June/July 2014. Rydon was "awarded" the project on Jun 2, 2014. Link
Here is a link to the actual window placement. The windows were, in fact marginally the same size as the original windows but they were moved outwards increasing the gap between the column & the spandrel panel by about 6 inches. Link
Here is Harley Facades Mock-Up submittal: Link
Studio E's palette submittal: Link
Studio E's Material Sample palette, including window Mfr.: Link
RBKC Addition Grenfell Documents pages Link & Link
Conspicuously absent is any concise description of the actual ACM material. Did Studio E, do so because they didn't want to generate a document showing knowledge of the intended material on a company document or did they do so at the instruction of another parties?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
epoxybot... you appear to be as big a scrounger as I am... maybe bigger. More stars... Great catch. I have not been able to locate any approved shop drawings for the cladding. I'm still not able to determine if the Architect or the Council neck should be on the block... I'm not familiar with the British system.
Added: If they had only used the batt insulation shown on the drawings...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Those last two links go to the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea webpages that list other documents related to the Grenfell Tower refurbishment. Others on eng-tips mentioned they had difficulty with the link Ingenuity posted back on June 15th. I have not had a problem. You might try pasting the link in different browser.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The judge himself seems to have concerns about the limited scope he has been permitted, and the government is under a lot of pressure to ensure this report addresses all the causes of the disaster. Conservative governments generally oppose increased government oversight and regulation, and I imagine that they are worried that a full in-depth review of all the contributory factors will highlight some major shortcomings of both the regulations and their enforcement.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
For what it's worth May has stated that the investigation would be thorough.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Newsnight has obtained confidential reports that help explain how flammable material has become more common on tall buildings.
Combustible cladding has been permitted based on reports arguing fires involving combustible aluminium panels would behave similarly to ones with non-combustible ceramic tiles.
Developers use them to persuade inspectors to sign off buildings.
Exova, the company that produced the reports, refused to comment.
The company, also known as Exova Warringtonfire, is a fire testing and engineering company."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40465399
Added: and another link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40418266
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It usually involved the phrase, "Can you prove it won't work?" I would say, "Yes, let's do a test." This was met with "This isn't a science project. We're not funded so you can amuse yourself."
Needless to say, I don't work with people like that.
It's too bad that ethics isn't a marketable skill.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Evacuees of Grenfell tower still being charged rent
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/07/01/527089/UK-...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
They are on the project planning routing list, bottom of the very last page. Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/01/gr...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
They could be demanding alternate shelter which the landlord has to supply. If they stop paying rent than the shelter requirement probably ceases.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Sir Martin Moore-Bick's inquiry will "go right back to the construction of the tower" in the 1970s to examine warnings that may have been missed.
He said previously it was unlikely the inquiry would look at wider social issues in Kensington and Chelsea.
The remit of the inquiry will be decided by the prime minister.
Added:
Meanwhile, some of the survivors have written a letter to the prime minister with 12 demands for changes in the way the disaster is being handled.
These include:
Withdraw the appointment of Sir Martin Moore-Bick as chairman of the inquiry
Explain what consultation will take place before the inquiry's terms of reference are finalised
Guarantee that the inquiry chair will adopt wide terms of reference that goes beyond the narrow one outlined by his recent statement
Ensure the government co-ordinated response team is available 24 hours a day
Confirm that undocumented survivors will be given full UK citizenship
BMElawyers4Grenfell, a group of black and minority ethnic lawyers, wrote the letter on behalf of some of the survivors."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40486532
also from the BBC, "Cladding on 181 high-rise buildings across 51 local authority areas in England has failed fire safety tests, latest figures reveal."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40396448
Added: Itsmoked: maybe 3 times as many as noted in my earlier posting... and it could get worse.
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Recall that cast-iron bridges were built in quantity for some time before they started failing from fatigue and undetectable inclusions. Once that was sorted out the rate of failures (presumably) dropped. Then came the Tacoma Narrows bridge with a really interesting failure mode, and so on. Complacency and ignorance are contributors to spectacular failure.
It seems like this sort of failure can happen in a large number of buildings - at the least, previous assurances of fire-resistance have seemingly been eliminated. If true, then any of the other buildings might have gone up first.
Wrapping a building in easily ignited fuel cannot be excused by eliminating common ignition sources.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
In my opinion UK codes - or more specifically the adopted European Norms in the guise of BS EN standards - seem to have become less prescriptive over time compared to the older British Standards and now leave a lot of room for judgement and (mis)interpretation because they are full of increasingly complex methods of describing things in a way which is difficult to apply to the real world. By contrast the handful of US codes I've worked with - mainly power generation, with US manufacturers selling into the Middle East where my employer was the Owner's Engineer - are a lot more prescriptive than the equivalent EN codes. Generally the US codes are easier to follow than ours because they are fairly explicit in their requirements.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The issue of prescriptive vs interpretative codes is a thorny one. If you want to promote innovation, design / building Codes need to allow for a degree of subjective assessment and interpretation, and this will require "experts" to ensure the intent is satisfied. If you stick with prescriptive codes, then all designs will use the same "tried and tested" materials and methods of construction, and end up pretty much looking the same.
It's early days in the investigation, and I hope the Inquiries will determine the real root cause, but it seems to me that the core problem at Grenfell was a joint failure by the designers, specifiers, suppliers and installers: they all seem to have forgotten the underlying principles of preventing spread of fire and smoke, and they introduced a new path of fire attack (from the outside in). This is the biggest mystery to me: how can a building cladding system be designed and installed where none of the parties apparently had a fundamental understanding of the principles of fire engineering?
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
KCLBC (landlord) wants to upgrade building
Hapless designer draws up an external cladding system using zinc cladding, an airgap, and a fairly non flammable insulation layer
Design is accepted/signed off by KCLBC Planning section
A firm bids to build that design and wins the contract.
KCLBC (landlord) asks for cost reductions
Winning firm suggests aluminium/PE composite non FR cladding, saving UKP300000 over zinc
KCLBC Planning section signs off change
Winning firm installs signed off design.
KCLBC Building Inspectors confirm it is built to the design.
And that is why KCLBC's meetings are closed door with no minutes issued.
Tin foil hat /off/.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40453054
"Cladding fitted to Grenfell Tower during its refurbishment was changed to a cheaper version, documents obtained by the BBC suggest.
Documents show the zinc cladding originally proposed was replaced with an aluminium type, which was less fire resistant, saving nearly £300,000."
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I agree with your observations re. prescriptive vs interpretative codes. My work is largely process plant / power plant rather than buildings, so the prescriptive codes possibly suit these risk-averse industries with established technologies better than the interpretive ones.
The problems with regulatory oversight go back much much further than the current government, but it happened on their watch so they will likely take whatever blame is apportioned. The cynic in me says that they're terrified that a damning report might be the final nail in their electoral coffin given the fragile grip they have on power.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The council has been heavily criticised for its handling of the disaster on 14 June that killed at least 80 people.
Both the council leader and chief executive have resigned as a result.
Now the government has ordered a taskforce to take over the housing department, as well as other council operations."
link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40504145
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The fact of the matter is the occupants of this tower were very low income persons with a high percentage being immigrants from third world countries who had previously expressed severe reservations about their living areas , whose complaints were ignored by those responsible. Does anyone here really think justice will prevail??
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"This is the biggest mystery to me: how can a building cladding system be designed and installed where none of the parties apparently had a fundamental understanding of the principles of fire engineering?"
Unfortunately, I don't think there is a lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of fire engineering, I think there is a culture throughout the process and it includes the local councils, curtainwall construction sector/consultants. contractor & project management firms. The email from KCTMO’s project manager sent to Artelia, its cost consultant, about cladding prices. It said said: “We need good costs for Cllr Feilding-Mellen and the planner tomorrow at 8.45am!” Rock Feilding-Mellen is chairman of Kensington and Chelsea’s housing committee. Artelia replied with three options including that “fully cassette-fixed cladding” would save £293,368. On July 1st 2014, IGI Taylor the town planner for RBKC prepared a submittal to the RBKC Planning Dept. for approval. It seems the RBKC Council waited until the 11th hour to ask for "incentives" to award Rydon Construction the contract. The contract was awarded to Rydon the day after the submittal, on 2 July, 2014. It is RBKC that chose which of the 3 cladding options to go with. That said EXOVA WarringtonFire was a consultant to KCTMO for the greater Lancaster Estate redevelopment project; which included the Sports Center & School.
Ref: dik (Structural) post on 1 Jul 17 05:35
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Even though a D-Notice has not been issued, there is in some aspect, the equivalent. Those involved in the first response & aftermath of the Grenfell Tower Fire are under Coroner's Restrictions and then the site itself is restricted and being walled off with solid metal sheet fencing.
Given the estimate, that recovery will not be complete until the end of 2017 and coroner's investigation, longer still, it might as well be a D-Notice.
There is a general description of the Fire Fighting response on Firehouse.com Forum. Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I guess we will have to wait & see just how many other structures have the same combination of Celotex RS5000 & Reynobond PE. With two large companies like Arconic/Alcoa & Celotex; there are surely to be more. If an architect or engineer were presented with a list of 20 other buildings where the two materials has been used in a similar applications, they would have to be quite knowledgeable on the subject to not feel somewhat compelled to accept such a submittal. Finding themselves in a defensive position. Something has gone terribly wrong with the concept of Unconscionable in the UK Building Design community. Worse, the powers that be in government, don't have the good sense to realize they are completely out of their depth at making determinations about building safety and should stick to choosing colors they like.
Having just read up on how fires are dealt with, one of the primary concerns for the crew at the point of attack, is reducing the volume of smoke and heat in the affected area. Venting the fire, as close to the fire as possible is a standard tactic. Yet, it can be argued that, the use of Polyethylene ACM cladding, completely changes the manner in which firefighters can extinguish a fire in a dwelling. Not being able to vent a fire for fear it will set the exterior on fire, greatly increases the danger for the firefighter and the ability to contain the fire to one unit in a multi-family dwelling. It is entirely possible the London Fire Brigade vented the Grenfell Tower fire and the flames set the bottom edge of the 4th floor ACM cassette on fire. On the whole there is comparatively little exterior damage to Flat 16 where the fire originated.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I don't know what kind of panel Greg was considering, but the architect's drawings did show "zinc composite panels". Apparently, some of these are made with zinc on one side, aluminum on the other, with other stuff in the middle.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Worse, the powers that be in government, don't have the good sense to realize they are completely out of their depth at making determinations about building safety and should stick to choosing colors they like."
The powers that be, may have been acting in good faith...
As I noted in my posting above to miningman,
"Combustible cladding has been permitted based on reports arguing fires involving combustible aluminium panels would behave similarly to ones with non-combustible ceramic tiles.
Developers use them to persuade inspectors to sign off buildings.
Exova, the company that produced the reports, refused to comment.
The company, also known as Exova Warringtonfire, is a fire testing and engineering company."
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
" The Grenfell inquiry will be a stitch-up...
We don’t allow defendants in court cases to select the charges on which they will be tried. So why should the government set the terms of a public inquiry into its own failings? We don’t allow criminal suspects to vet the trial judge. Why should the government approve the inquiry’s chair?
Even before the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster has begun, it looks like a stitch-up, its initial terms of reference set so narrowly that government policy remains outside the frame. An inquiry that honours the dead would investigate the wider causes of this crime. It would examine a governing ideology that sees torching public protections as a sacred duty.
Let me give you an example. On the morning of 14 June, as the tower blazed, an organisation called the Red Tape Initiative convened for its prearranged discussion about building regulations. One of the organisation’s tasks was to consider whether rules determining the fire resistance of cladding materials should be removed for the sake of construction industry profits."
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
What is interesting is that neither of these materials could have behaved separately as they did together. Removing an external flame source from ignited polyethylene, the flame retracts to just above the surface of the the leading edge of thermal decomposition. Along this edge, there is a pronounced blue component to the flame, denoting efficient fuel consumption & pronounced "convective" heat generation. Of the 3 types of heat that contribute to a fire; Conductive, Convective & Radiant, conductive heating is the worst. The conductive heat released of Red Oak is only a third of its total caloric heat value, whereas Polyethylene releases almost half its total heat in the form of conductive heat. Add back to the Polyethylene the original flame source at Grenfell Tower and confine it to a chimney like space and it creates very suitable conditions for the Celotex to ignite.
What makes the insulation special, is that once its initial resistance to burning is overcome and the Isocyanate component burns, it releases the other main component of the Polyisocyanurate foam, Polyols. The fire generated by polyols is fast and "vigorous" and like the polyethylene produce large amounts of heat. The burning fridge at Grenfell provided the flame source to ignite the polyethylene and the burning polyethylene created the right conditions for the fire resistance of the insulation to be overcome, where by the burning insulation provided the polyol charged flame that kept the polyethylene in near absolute fuel mode. Throw in the air gap and the aluminum for a 'conductive heat' component, pre-heat the polyethylene ACM in advance of the flames and it really was a worst case scenario. Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
That sounds like an open neutral. With no neutral reference, the voltage would increase above 230 based on the loading on the various phases. A lightly loaded phase could approach 400V. Nearly everything electrical would fail under those conditions, with a great possibility of them bursting into flames.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"At least one survivor of the Grenfell Tower fire was diagnosed with cyanide poisoning, BBC Newsnight has learned.
Medical discharge papers show 12-year-old Luana Gomes was treated for the effects of the highly toxic gas, which may have been released by burning of insulation or plastics during the fire.
Her sister and mother were also treated for risk of cyanide poisoning.
Mrs Gomes was seven months pregnant at the time of the blaze. Her unborn baby died after the fire.
It has previously been reported that three Grenfell survivors were treated with a cyanide antidote but this is the first confirmation of a cyanide poisoning diagnosis.
Andreia Gomes and her daughters were placed in medically induced comas when they were admitted to Kings College Hospital."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40568640
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/13/gr...
The comment about them being 30% cheaper clearly won. Ditto the cheaper outer panels.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Dozens of residents of Grenfell Tower suffered electricity power surges so strong their appliances malfunctioned, overheated and emitted smoke a few years before the fire, it has emerged.
Documents seen by the BBC reveal how 25 residents claimed compensation from the council following the surges in 2013.
Some say electricity problems persisted into the months before June's fire."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40632705
I think I'll just add new info to the one message.
From the BBC,
"Burning cladding on Grenfell Tower would have released 14 times more heat than a key government safety test allows, the BBC has learned.
Energy emitted from the cladding and insulation would have been equivalent to burning 51 tonnes of pinewood, University of Leeds research suggests.
The cladding's plastic core would have burned "as quickly as petrol", it said.
The contractors who fitted the cladding and insulation said they both passed all regulations."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40645205
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
This was a great concern to the RBKC, not because people were at risk but because replacing all the doors was going to be costly and the time frame required by the LFB didn't allow for procrastination & creative budgeting. People within the council & from KCTMO postulated that maybe the door to a Flat was the occupants responsibility, regardless of the fact that they don't actually own the flat. The wording used to justify this advantageous position was that the occupant had "Control" of the door.
When one considers other things the occupant has "Control" over, the toilet & faucets, the windows, doorknobs, SMOKE DETECTORS etc., their reasoning becomes Chuckle-Headed to say the least. But that is the declaration made by the RBKC council and followed up by KCTMO with pressing notifications to the tenants. What will the council & KCTMO do when on the day a tenant moves house and they remove THEIR door, frame & threshold, leaving the flat open to the comings and goings of the curious & needy. This is an excellent example of just how self-serving and intent on having everything go their way, the RBKC & KCTMO really behave.
When you consider that this was all going on parallel to the 4 years of planning & work carried out on the Grenfell Tower Refurbishment; with almost monthly meets or inspections by the LFB and frequent updates to the RBKC council, the idea that Fire Safety & Risk was somehow missed by KCTMO is unfathomable.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
So why was smoke entering the flats from the window casement surround? I suspect an air gap was left unsealed when the horizontal surface mounted aluminum L brackets were installed against the exposed aggregate spandrel panels. The new windows were reset outward onto the aluminum L brackets, mounted top & bottom, from the older window's original placement on the concrete spandrel by approximately 8 inches. Add in that the concrete spandrel panels would have had a chamfered edge along with the very rough surface texture of an exposed aggregate (large aggregate) and the matter of fire & smoke compartmentalization becomes a problem, not just side to side but top & bottom. The gap between the window angles should have been filled with non sag cementitious compound. Rough numbers, about 600 cubic feet for all four sides.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Sky News provides the best aerial video, including a breif view of the East facade 4th floor, post fire: Link
Tom Clarke, Science Editor at UK Channel 4 has some of the best fire investigation reports. Channel 4 works for me here in the US over the internet but you may have to try different browsers. Link
Channel 4's total Grenfell coverage is here: Link
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
BACKGROUND
Extract from an email sent on 13th May 2013 by Shah Ahmed, Chair of the Grenfell Tower Leaseholders Association, to Robert Black at KCTMO and various RBKC councillors and TMO officers:
“Continuous Power Surges in Grenfell Tower".
There have been two weeks of power surges in the building, most notably in the early hours of the morning and throughout the evening and night time. Electronic apparatus are seriously affected by these surges. Computers are turned on and off; lights continually flicker becoming very dim and extremely bright in the space of a few seconds.
On 11th May 2013 at 9:05pm we had numerous power surges in the space of a minute, and in that process my computer and monitor literally exploded with smoke seeping out from the back and the smell of burnt electronics filled our entire computer. My monitor also fused at the same time. When I called the TMO out of hours service the standard textbook response was given to us that I was the first one to report such a problem and I was made to feel like a fool reporting such an issue, which resulted in years of data being lost forever.
Please note if the power surges continue at Grenfell Tower, it would be very dangerous and costly because it is interfering with electric and electronic items in the household, including the telephone line, television, fridge, washing machine, computer etc”.
Grenfell Action Group Blog - "GRENFELL TOWER – FROM BAD TO WORSE" Despite the fact that these dangerous and highly alarming incidents were reported to the KCTMO on 11th May no serious action was taken until the problems escalated out of control on 29th May 2013.
• Decisive action was only taken yesterday after highly distressed residents descended en masse on the estate office to demand action. They had woken to find smoke issuing from various electrical appliances in their homes, including the light fixtures, and descended in panic to the estate office to demand help and assistance. Emergency electricians who attended later in the day were finally, it seems, able to identify the source of the problem. An emergency temporary electrical by-pass supply has been provided and the necessary follow–up works will be carried out in the near future.
• Grenfell Tower residents are demanding an emergency meeting with RBKC and TMO officers to fully explain what went wrong with the electrical supply, and why the TMO failed to respond with appropriate urgency. This meeting should be arranged as a matter of urgency.
• Officers attending the meeting should be prepared to explain why electrical engineers who ordered the planned power cut in Grenfell Tower between 08:30-17:30 on Saturday 18th May failed to identify and rectify a serious and dangerous fault in the electrical supply at that time.
16 July 2013 - THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA - HOUSING AND PROPERTY SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
As a matter arising related to A5, Mr Maddison reassured the Vice Chairman that expertise from qualified electrical engineers had been used from the outset in establishing the cause of the Grenfell Tower power surge. The officers’ view remained that it had been caused by an arced incoming mains cable.
A fault has been identified on the incoming mains supply and a repair has been carried out to a faulty cable. There have been no further surges since this repair was completed and further tests have been carried out on the mains.
• Ongoing monitoring of the incoming electrical supply and we are investigating whether there are other factors that have contributed to the surges.
• Full renewal of the rising electricity main is planned to commence on 7th July. This work will include the installation of surge protection to give additional protection to the block.
In a later report to the council - Mr Maddison reported that Zurich Insurance, the company used by the TMO, had reviewed all claims for damage and had confirmed that the TMO had taken appropriate steps to ensure the power supply infrastructure was in a reasonable state and the TMO therefore, had not been negligent and was not liable for loss or damage to tenants’ equipment.
TMO officers had met residents and advised them by letter to claim for damage via their own home contents insurance. As a token of goodwill and in compensation for disruption, a payment of £200 had been made to each tenant. Mr Maddison said the TMO recognized this might not cover the cost of lost equipment.
QUESTIONS
Based on descriptions given by the residents of smoking fixtures and appliances, including Washing Machines & Refrigerators AND KCTMO's Mr Maddison, assertion that the electrical fault was identified as 'arching cables from the incoming mains'; is it just as, or more likely that the damage to appliances was the result of under supply as over supply? While power spikes might cycle too fast to trip the built-in fused plugs provided on plug-in appliances, wouldn't a persistent over supply have tripped the fuses, whereas an under supply would result in a persistent draw and heating?
I am assuming full or partial start capacitor damage could arise from such events but is this reasonable? And short of testing the capacitor on every large appliance, is there some other means of assuring that a still functional appliance isn't a damaged appliance & a fire waiting to happen?
Very Speculative Questions
When KCTMO's Mr Maddison informed the HOUSING AND PROPERTY SCRUTINY COMMITTEE that "Full renewal of the rising electricity main is planned"' wouldn't this indicate that the electrical problem was located on the property-owner side of the electrical supply?
If the electrical failure was on the owner side of the supply, and regardless of prior efforts to locate the source of the electrical hazard, which failed; doesn't it still remain the Landlord/Owner as the party responsible for delivering well regulated power to the junction box in each apartment and hence, for the damaged property? Fortuitously, Zurich Insurance was no longer the insurer when Grenfell Tower burned but if the Landlord/Owner and vis/vis Zurich Insurance snookered the residents on their insurance claims, and in so doing, failed to perform due diligence, leaving crippled appliances & long-term fire hazards in place, wouldn't Zurich even now be liable? EXAMPLE: When earthquakes strikes and liquor bottles fall to the floor, some but not all will break but since ingesting even slivers of shattered glass is a safety hazard, the insurance company compensates for all the liquor, broken or otherwise. So did KCTMO commit insurance fraud by omission of particulars to Zurich or did KCTMO & Zurich commit insurance fraud by Zurich writing KCTMO a get-out-of-jail-free-card? Does the UK Insurance Industry really decide Insurance Claims strictly on the basis of Negligence? It certainly wasn't an act of god. Maybe Gremlins but you can't blame it on Jinnis. If for instance on May 29, 2013 multiple flats in Grenfell Tower had gone up in flames because of the catastrophic electrical failure and people had died, would Zurich Insurance still argue that KCTMO bore no liability?
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The electrical fault has all the indications of a high impedance or lost neutral connection. The net effect of this failure mode is that the single-phase supply to each unit, which is derived from a 3-phase intake, is no longer fixed at 400/√3 = 230V. The voltage appearing at the individual units could range somewhere between zero and 400V, and the exact voltage is determined by how the overall loads on each phase interact with each other. Electronic loads would typically burn out / catch fire fairly rapidly when faced with a gross over-voltage. Rotating loads such as motors would probably tolerate if for a bit longer prior to blowing a line fuse. The problem isn't confined to capacitors by any means.
I can't answer any of the questions about insurance and liability for legacy problems.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Is the voltage a sinusoid from zero to +/- 400? or that the voltage delivered could range from zero to 400 (I assume +/-?
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I have since been reading about English Tort Law and it does appear that Negligence rather than Responsibility is a requirement for liability in the UK. So long as KCTMO hired a qualified Electrical Contractor to troubleshoot the fault, regardless of failing to identify the problem, they exercised due diligence and are not liable. I think in the US it could go quite differently, considering more than a 1/3 of the flats were affected by some kind of loss and deferred maintenance had been going on for years.
It is not widely discussed but more and more private power generation when supplied to the grid, especially PV systems are proving problematic in the UK and power surges are one of the consequences.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
I'm from a generation background and I'm not a great believer in embedded generators replacing central generating plant, but I don't see this as being a problem on the generation or transmission grids. This is almost certainly a problem within the building - either the main distribution LV infrastructure, or potentially with the building's LV substation if the building has a dedicated intake from the HV utility system.
Dik,
The voltage will be sinusoidal, but it's magnitude is determined by how the connected loads interact with each other and that will vary as loads change (i.e. things switch on and off, fuses blow, things go bang, etc). It's probably easier to explain with a couple of diagrams. They're not perfect for the task but I'll try to explain around them:
In a healthy electrical system the line-line and line-neutral voltages are defined by the transformer which comprises of three windings, each of 230V but with 120° of angular (time) displacement between them. This angular displacement results in there being 400V between any two lines, but 230V between any line and the neutral point. In the UK, residential supplies are connected between one line and the neutral point.
If we can assume that all the loads are connected to the neutral, but that the neutral conductor breaks or develops a bad joint somewhere near the transformer. The voltage between lines is still 400V, because that's determined by the transformer windings. Without the connection back to the transformer neutral point there nothing to force the line-neutral voltage to be 230V. The voltage between line and neutral will be determined by the relative impedances of the loads connected between each line and the neutral, so a heavily loaded phase will see the line-neutral voltage collapse, while lightly loaded phases could see something approaching the full line-line voltage of 400V.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Zurich's response wasn't really a get-out-of-jail-free-card. It was more a judgement that KCTMO had a defensible position so if they refused to pay out against the claims, the courts were unlikely to rule against them. Don't like like the mindset, but can't really see anything fraudulent about it.
A.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
A normal single phase installation with each phase being exactly half of the 440V supply because of the center tapped neutral.
With a faulty neutral often caused by a loose connection or corrosion or both you no longer have a rigid half of the 440V across the two loads. Instead you have something....worse. You have various voltages depending on the individual loads connected at any moment.
You can see the light bulb will take a beating. Typically this would just be a bright flash then the circuit would be open. However if the bulb was instead something with real mass like a small motor it would heat up in a few seconds to a fire starting temperature.
Picture the complexity of a large apartment complex where perhaps a thousand devices are in the mix. You typically get less of a voltage difference just because of the averaging of a great many typical loads. What you get though is perhaps 180V and 260V which can actually be more insidious with overheating and fire starting as it can allow things to overheat slowly enough that circuit breakers fail to trip as they would with a large overload.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The litany of professional mis-management at Grenfell Tower is just gob-smacking. It seems quite likely that defective power could have been a causative factor in the initial fire, and the on-going issues suggest that it was only a matter of time before a significant apartment fire broke out. This in itself is bad enough, but compounded with the choice and design of cladding system, a small manageable fire quickly became a catastrophe.
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
No, I did not. If I were a freshly minted electrical service repair technician though, my take away would be that if someone is reporting power surges, because that is what they can see with their eyes, then when a neutral fault is found, it also means that other electrical apparatus were experiencing..., what does one call it? Brown power aka low voltage? It is a critical, missed detail of the May 2013 power failure. In earlier discussions here with ScottyUK regarding the Fused Plugs in the UK, I struggled with how a Power Surge could result in the slow degradation of an appliance leading to a fire, brown outs made more sense. Now I know that power surges & brown outs happen simultaneously during a neutral fault.
itsmoked sketch made all the difference. It seems to confirm my thoughts that more widespread damage could have taken place in 2013, more than just to the 45 flats on the upper floors but via a "slow burn". It just wasn't catastrophic to other appliances..., yet. I really appreciate ScottyUK and itsmoked informing us on the UK power grid. While there has been a great deal of reporting on the Power Surges at Grenfell Tower in 2013, there hasn't been any real discussion of how the 2013 electrical problems may have contributed to the initial fire that destroyed the tower. I thought it worthy of examination here. Perhaps the recommendation in the 2008 Master Plan for Lancaster West to demolish Grenfell Tower was a better plan after all. Link
So the next question for ScottyUK & itsmoked is, how likely is it that an electrical contractor replacing the electrical riser at Grenfell, doesn't at some point tell KCTMO's Mr. Maddison, speculatively or assertively, that the whole building needs to be rewired. In my experience a contractor never fails to point out additional work if it really is needed.
I had somewhat down played witness statements because some were just bad reporting, some activist reporting and others are probably the result of language barriers but embellishments have also taken place. For instance, Maryann Adem on the Forth Floor, Flat 14 (one bedroom flat East facade/next door)“The fire was small in the kitchen. I could see it because the flat door was open. There was no alarm.” - Truth: There is absolutely no means possible to see the refrigerator from the flat entry door. So does she mean from the kitchen opening? Is this a language barrier/simplifying or is she embellishing? A number of Grenfell Tower victims have since embellished their version of events. Being an investigator, taking witness statements must be a very frustrating job.
Sajad Jamalvatan, a biomechanical engineering student, moved into one of the newly constructed "Hidden Homes" flats on the third floor of Grenfell Tower in August 2016; saying the newly installed electrical meter often made a strange buzzing sound at night and constantly had to be topped up with money. "I went to the basement once and I saw a huge mess in the basement. So much wiring." Is Sajad just taking his place in the limelight or did the noise from the electrical meter actually indicate there was still an electrical problem at Grenfell. After ScottyUK & itsmoked input, I'm now curious as to the proximity of his 3rd floor flat to flat 16, one floor above where the fire started.
All the electrical problems were late evening to dawn, when the electrical grid has a surplus of available power. The 'problem' could have been well within supplier & building code standards, except not for a building that was badly in need of rewiring. If the Council had known that Grenfell Tower needed rewiring along with all the other needed upgrades, it probably would have meant the demolition of Grenfell Tower, no matter the political fall out.
I wonder if the 2013 electrical problems will be part of the Public Inquiry. KCTMO's Mr Maddison's statement to the Council that a problem was found with the "Incoming Main" is suggestive that the problem was on London's UKPN supplier side. Maybe he was telling the Council what they wanted to hear. If not, then it is somewhat misleading. A more comprehensive explanation might have resulted in a closer examination of the building wide wiring by the refurbishment consultants, Max Fordham and concluded the wiring was at the end of its service life. Many of those who are demanding a wider Public Inquiry, want the relationship of the RBKC Council and KCTMO investigated on grounds of a more political nature but what about how the residents of Grenfell Tower may have contributed to the loss of life during the fire?
Grenfell did have a Floor by Floor Fire Alarm system. Soon after it was commissioned, there were incidents when the fire alarm was activated because a tenant had left their flat to smoke a cigarette but instead of going downstairs & outside, they lit up in the common area on their floor. Smoking in the common area was setting off the common area smoke detector. The smoke detector signal, then shuts down all the boilers in the basement, feeding Grenfell Tower & the finger blocks of Lancaster West Estate and activates the positive air ventilation system. KCTMO also had a problem with youth who would hang out in the stairwells, sometimes wanting a dark place, they would purposefully damage the stairwell lighting. KCTMO had staff assigned to check stairwell lighting on a quarterly basis but some of the female estate managers reported being intimidated by Anti-Social elements and not being able to complete their surveys. Grenfell also had a problem with tenants dumping appliances & mattresses, etc (Fly-tipping)in the main lobby and around the premises. So it is fair to question if the reason the fire alarms/smoke detectors & emergency ventilation system didn't work as designed, has more to do with certain tenant "Modifications" than a failure by KCTMO.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
A 'sag' or 'brown-out' doesn't bother conventional incandescent lighting one bit but modern CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lighting) or LED lighting controllers can be damaged by low voltage. Modern lighting uses 'switching power supplies' (an efficient type of power controller). Switching supplies dutifully try to supply constant power to their loads and these supplies supply all computers, lighting, wall-warts, cord-warts, expensive refrigerators, speed controlled blowers, etc., etc.
Remembering: Power = Voltage x Current
When a switching supply's supply voltage drops it tries to make this up by drawing more current. However, the cost of all these electronics is a function of the current. More current requires larger silicon, larger silicon costs more, so designers optimize their product designs to use the smallest (cheapest) semiconductors which makes the devices considerably more susceptible to out-of-spec supply voltage damage.
If a brown-out lasts very long or a device is running hot at 'this moment' the low voltage will overheat the controller semiconductors and they'll fail.
Motors are also this same type of constant power device that will draw more current if the voltage drops resulting in rapid overheating. Overheating a motor results in reduced efficiency, future hotter running, and a shortened life.
Most devices have been 'listed' and demonstrably are supposed to be burn-out-able without causing fires. However, the testing regimes often don't take into account a product being run or subjected to unusual voltages so the actual failures caused in those cases are probably less understood and can lead to product fires.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
One really does have to read up on the bidding process in the UK & Europe. The Grenfell Tower Refurbishment contract was a Pre-qualified, Two Stage tender process, where the Design/Builder first provides a bid and their thinking & approach to carrying forth the Architects design at the price they bid. If the purchaser accepts the bid, there is an agreement in place but not yet a contract and the contractor then sets about assembling a group of subcontractors to carry out various aspects of the work, who themselves make suggestions regarding the execution of the work. There is then a final agreed upon price and the Contractor will be paid this sum regardless of whether it costs more of less. Don't hold me to accuracy on this but the two-stage process is not favored by the industry but by the purchasers.
It all seems quite fuzzy, which is great for wheeling & dealing but maybe not so good if you are a purchaser like KCTMO with virtually no in-house experience on a extensive refurbishments, Ultimately, in the first go, they would have benefited from a more constrained & formal contract. Most refurbishment projects to social housing had previously been done by the Council itself, through Construction Management companies. The Council's constitution regarding the Tenant Management Organization had been rewritten and KCTMO's management agreement with the Council called for their having greater responsibility regarding large projects on properties under their control.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4114898/grenfell-tow...
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Link: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-k-police-corporate-m...
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
- Was the building supplied from the utility's high voltage system, or was it supplied directly at low voltage?
- In whose ownership is the HV/LV transformer and substation feeding the building?
If the utility intake is at high voltage then the problem rests squarely with the building owner because a neutral fault is exclusively confined to the LV side of the distribution transformer (the high voltage side is 3-wire delta; there's no neutral).Without some idea of the cabling design it is conjecture, but given the number of anecdotal reports of problems throughout the building my guess is that the neutral failed somewhere close to the transformer or main LV switchboard. The distribution system probably looks a little like the roots of a tree, gradually thinning out and becoming more numerous the further from the transformer and main switchboard they get.
The 'buzzing meter' may be a coin-operated type, and the buzzing is sometimes caused by the magnetic yokes of the contactor not seating cleanly. Irritating but not harmful - it's a noise which would keep me awake.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Thanks ScottyUK, the only substantive information we have to go on is the building design, it was designed as an open floor plan, so it could be converted to office space if that was a future need, it had a plant in the basement with boilers & water pumping facilities to distribute water to Grenfell Tower & the three housing blocks. Possibly the water pumping facility would be the only thing requiring the higher voltage.
Seems other have given some quality thought to how the 2013 power surges may have played a roll in the Grenfell Tower Fire.
Link
Link
This post on May 28 2013 from the Grenfell Action Group is interesting because it suggests that Data Logging was already in place BEFORE the May 29 2013 catastrophic power event. The question is if it was scheduled for installation or was actually up and recording. I assume Data Logging provided by UKPN would be strictly supplier side. Another bit of information that may or may not be useful is the statement that "Key Meters" were fused by the power event on May 29. I'm thinking Key Meters are prepayment meters in each flat.
I think we have established the 2013 Power Surge events of May 2013 are worthy of a critical examination leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire. There are 22 "perfectly" unscathed Flats from the Forth Floor & up that could be examined and other that may not have had their major appliance affected by the fire.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
"Eighty-two buildings have failed a new fire safety test set up in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, ministers say.
The test examines the safety of building cladding and insulation in combination.
It comes as an independent review of building regulations and fire safety has also been announced by the government."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40754125
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
January 2 2015 – RBKC Planning & Building Control - Jonathan Bore’s Decision letter of accepting the Non-Material change.
March 2015 – Harley Facades is well into installation of the first set of windows on the North Façade. (KCTMO March Newsletter w/ photo)
and then
May 3 2015 – Report to RBKC HOUSING AND PROPERTY SCRUTINY COMMITTEE Grenfell Tower Project
"The scheme is 7 weeks delayed, which has been agreed by an Extension of Time being issued, which gives a new completion date of 23 October.
The delay has been caused by planning issues associated with the new windows and late demolition work."
Since there wasn't any delay in accepting the Non-Material change, it seems more likely that at some point a building inspector reported that the new window scheme was wonky and compartmentalization was a problem.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4166631/dubai-fire-l...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Aluminum composite material (ACM) with mineral wool insulation have now failed the Building Research Establishment (BRE) tests. Link
I thought this would have a chance of passing but NO.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-04/flames-engul...
Looks kinda similar to Grenfell Tower, doesn't it?
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://www.smh.com.au/world/fire-engulfs-dubai-mar...
We have discussed a lot of these cladding fires in this forum. The main difference in the Grenfell fire is the loss of life. And it was closer to home for many of the posters. As well, it was a refurbishment, while the others were new construction.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The full terms of reference for the public inquiry, which have been accepted in full by the prime minister, are:
The cause and spread of the fire
The design, construction and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower
The scope and adequacy of the relevant regulations relating to high-rise buildings
Whether the relevant legislation and guidance were complied with in the case of Grenfell Tower
The actions of the local authority and other bodies before the tragedy
The response of the London Fire Brigade to the fire and the response of central and local government in the aftermath
link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40935955
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It seems to be the case that the building is supplied at low voltage from the public system rather than having its own HV intake and local substation.
A problem appears to have occured on the supply cable to the building which resulted in a high resistance or open neutral condition either in the cable itself or, more likely, at a joint in the cable.
It would be interesting to know a little more about the 2013 fault, and what was done to repair it, because it seems plausible that the 2013 repair has failed or the same problem has occurred again at a new location. Accurate technical reports don't appear to be readily available, but there are several references to a serious problem in 2013 which could well be the precursor to the 2017 fire.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Consistent with the above sketches showing an open neutral?
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Seems that way - the symptoms described are certainly similar, with brownouts, surges and a handful of appliance fires occurring. In the 2013 event the failed neutral appears to have occured externally to the building on an underground cable. Cable faults are rare in cables which are correctly layed and backfilled, but poor installation techniques can damage the cable which leads to failure many years later.
I also wonder - in a purely speculative way - whether the cable has a reduced cross-section neutral compared to the phase conductors and the basis that a well-balanced load would not result in a large neutral current. If the load became sufficiently imbalanced then it is possible, in theory at least, that the neutral conductor would be under-sized for the current it was carrying. This type of cable was definitely used in the early 1970's.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Leadbitter working on the KALC project adjacent to Grenfell Tower, denied that their work had anything to do with the power problems at Grenfell Tower. Here is a pre-construction site plan that, as near as I can tell, shows the power supply to Grenfell at the South side of the tower, running East, then Northeast across the park, up to Verity Close & on to Silchester Road; bisecting the KALC Project. Link
Surely at some point in the work done on the KALC project the power to Grenfell had to have been a complication. Maybe the original site work was fine and the temporary work around was not. That is, if the site plan & my interpretation is accurate.
When Peter Maddison – KCTMO Director of Assets and Regeneration told the RBKC Council's Housing & Property Scrutiny Committee that some of the residents had confused smoke with steam & the bulk of the Committee bought into this nonsense, it becomes hard to believe the Council was concerned with anything more than being able to distance themselves from the problem and thus the entire exchange between the Council Committee & KCTMO becomes suspect. It seems only the Council Woman representing the Estate took offense with the explanation. Anytime I've been offered mealy-mouthed explanations that stoop to implying utter stupidity by some other party, my confidence in the person voicing the the explanation takes a nose-dive. How does one confuse the acrid smell of an electrical fault with steam?
So the setting is as follows:
A contractor is working adjacent to Grenfell Tower, whose work may or may not have been the cause of power problems at Grenfell Tower.
A power problem that by resident accounts went on for 3 weeks leading to a catastrophic power event.
45 Flats, all on the upper floors of Grenfell Tower experiencing some loss of property because of the catastrophic power event.
Full renewal of Grenfell's rising electricity main.
And subsequent Data Logging.
No suggestions by the Council or KCTMO that Max Fordham, the Mechanical & Electrical Consultant for both the KALC & Grenfell Projects, make any kind of a Survey of the Grenfell Tower electrical services in advance of the refurbishment project.
I am ignorant on electrical but how does an external fault, fry appliances on just the upper floors, over 30% of the flats. Presumably, fry the main electrical riser yet the lower & intermediate floors are unaffected, even though they all experienced power issues? Separate mains?
It is too bad that none of the resident groups never thought to make a freedom of information request for the Data Logging. Most information regarding Council property operations are run through the Tenant Management Organization and KCTMO is a private enterprise, so it is a freedom of information black-hole but KCTMO doesn't own the property, the Council does so, a freedom of information request on the UKPN data-logging to Grenfell Tower may have been a Power Distributor/Owner record beyond the power of KCTMO to keep private.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
If the neutral fault occured in the main feeder cable then everything downstream of it would experience the symptoms of the fault - i.e. variable, load-dependent line-neutral voltages. I'm not at all clear on how the building power is distributed but it is vaguely possible that the top third of the building is on one phase, the middle third on a second phase, and the bottom third of the building on the third. Not how I would do it, but not impossible.
A single-line diagram of the building power distribution would be invalauble in ending the speculation, although I doubt one is likely to surface.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
One is that there are multiple feeds into the building and that one feed supplied the upper floors but not the lower floors. Open neutral could then have been most anywhere.
The other possibility, and far more likely to me, is that there's a single feed that goes up the building. My guess is that every few floors there's a distribution panel that feeds the panels for the individual units on a hand full of floors. Maybe one distribution panel every 3 or 5 floors to feed the units on that floor and the floor or two above and below as well as a pass through feed to the next distribution panel up the stack. The connection to the neutral at one of those distribution panels would have been what failed. Everything above has problems, nothing below.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Some of the problems a CCHP built by the KALC project were, the small footprints of the Academy & Sports/Leisure Center, the district (Grenfell Tower and the 3 Lancaster West Finger Block Flats) being the largest user of the CCHP and the amount of waste heat lost in supplying the energy to the district without doing an extensive refurbishment to the district heating system. There was also the concern of finding a long-term plant operator that would view operating a plant capable of only marginal surplus power sales & profit marketable. I got the impression the downside was driven home purposefully to justifiably eliminating the CCHP from the KALC project.
One idea the Energy Survey didn't look into was the RBKC Council providing a long-term lease of the basement at Grenfell Tower to the KALC project and in turn the KALC Project leasing the CCHP plant back to KCTMO, the Council's Residential Property Management Organization.
The RBKC Council & KCTMO were hamstrung when it came to spending on large council owned housing projects. Even though they had over 200 million in reserves in the Council Owned Housing-Housing Revenue Account, much of that was weighed against existing debt and the difference between the debt and the reserve, represented the total amount of borrowing the Housing Revenue Account could exercise if needed. They could borrow about 18 million. The Council was also restricted to using only money from income & rents generated in the Council Owned properties to fund the Housing Revenue Account.
If the KALC Project had leased the basement at Grenfell & leased back the CCHP to KCTMO, the Council would have been able to seemingly inject Council money from outside the Housing Revenue Account into a project that would have benefited the KALC project while meeting the District supply goal and solving the problem of replacing the boilers at Grenfell Tower without the Housing Revenue Account having to make a gross expenditure but one over time. KCTMO would sell discounted heat & power to the Academy & Sports/Leisure Center, be able to supply cheap power & heat to the district while still charging at a profit but also bear the responsibility of acquiring an interested operator. The Housing Revenue Account, not having to pay upfront costs for the new boilers & power generator plus the whole basement electrical would have been reworked, would seem to have been a Win/Win/Win.
But perhaps I give too much credit to the RBKC Council that they wouldn't have still done Grenfell's facelift on the cheap.
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
In the wake of the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in London, reporter Deb Whitmont investigates the risk of flammable aluminium cladding in Australia & the dangerous legacy of failed regulation in the building industry. #4Corners
ABC TV Broadcast 8:30pm Mon 4 Sep 2017. Published 12 hours ago, available until 9:17pm on 27 Sep 2017. File size approx. 358 MB
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/four-corners/NC17...
(I suspect the iView link is geo-blocked if you are not in Australia, but there might be other ways to access the show.)
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Putting together the comment that the diversity of the large number of loads would somewhat limit the overvoltage on one phase, and Keith's sketch.
In the sketch, replace the 100 Watt lamp with 4 25 Watt lamps. Same over voltage on the lamps but the weakest fails first.
Now we have 75 Watts in series with the tea pot and the voltage rises. The next weakest lamp fails and now we have 50 Watts in series with the tea pot and the voltage rises further.
The point is that while diversity may somewhat limit the original overvoltage, as devices progressively fail, the voltage progressively rises.
It is a situation with a natural tendency to become worse.
Actually the effect is different depending on whether one phase is lightly loaded with respect to the other two or if one phase is heavily loaded with respect to the other two.
With one phase lightly loaded the voltage will drop slightly on the other two phases and the devices on one phase will tend to fail.
The voltage on the high phase will approach approximately 400V/2 x 1.73 or 346 Volts.
If two phases are lightly loaded and devices on both phases begin to fail the voltages will approach 400 Volts.
The over voltages will initially not be as great on a three phase circuit and the failures may be spread over a greater time.
By comparison, open neutral failures on a single phase circuit typically progress much more rapidly.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
The symptoms are fairly straightforward dik.
A combination of under-voltage and over-voltage from lines to neutral.
With balanced loads there may not be any indication of an open neutral.
A failing connection may introduce a resistance in the neutral circuit, further confusing things.
There are some tests that look good on paper or as sound bites that are difficult to perform and less than perfect under real world conditions.
Measure the neutral resistance? Easy to say but often difficult in the real world.
The neutral circuit includes everything from the transformer to the final panel, or to the load in the case of a three wire circuit such as is common in many kitchen receptacle circuits in North America.
As devastating as they may be, open neutrals are so rare that regular testing is not normal.
A check of the neutral resistance as part of the commissioning process may be required, but this will not predict problems years in the future.
Normally, an open neutral is detected or suspected by the symptoms.
Then a series of voltage checks and physical inspection is used to locate the problem.
eg: The voltages are normal at panel "A" but unbalanced at sub panel "B". Look for a bad connection between "A" and "B".
History is also important. The first time there is an issue with an open neutral there may be some time lost before the cause is identified and located.
The second time that similar symptoms arise, there should be an immediate response and an aggressive effort to locate and rectify the problem.
What will an open or high resistance neutral look like in your home?
There is a difference.
The overwhelming number of open neutrals that I have encountered have been due to human error. As in the village idiot trying to be an electrician.
As a natural occurrence a high resistance connection is more likely.
This is often due to corrosion or heat cycling at a connection.
If you refer back to the sketch that Keith posted on 26 July, insert a resistance where an open neutral is shown.
Now with light unbalances there may be small change in voltage balance.
Consider a typical home in the morning:
A couple of lights, clocks and possibly a radio connected. A fairly low current through the neutral resistance and a fairly low voltage shift.
Now you plug in the toaster. Now we have a larger unbalanced current and a greater voltage shift. Along with the toast you want some coffee and the coffee maker happens to be on the same line. The radio happens to be on the other line and starts to release the magic smoke.
You call an electrician. You forget to tell him about the toast and coffee. (As a non-technical home owner you don't realise that it is important.)
The electrician checks the voltages and finds them to be reasonably close.
This may be the first time that he has ever encountered an open neutral. It may take him some time to locate the problem when the symptoms are not showing.
The second time this happens both the electrician and the home owner should immediately say;
"Looks like another open neutral!"
The first step in a successful CYA cover-up is is to set the terms of reference of the enquiry to exclude anything that will show your liability.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
Dik
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
STF
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
From the BBC:
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) told the Observer it would look at whether the authorities failed in their duty to protect life.
This aspect, it said, was "currently overlooked".
Meanwhile, the leader of the council that owns the tower told the Sunday Times she would not attend a memorial service, after a request from families.
Elizabeth Campbell, who took over at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) in the wake of the blaze, said the memorial service on Thursday marking six months since the disaster was not "about me".
The government appointed a retired judge to lead an inquiry into the 14 June blaze, which killed 71 people.
The EHRC's work will focus on whether the government and RBKC fell short in their duty to protect life, prevent inhuman treatment and provide safe housing.
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42299749
From the CBC:
London police are considering a variety of criminal charges related to the June fire at Grenfell Tower that left 71 people dead.
Police told an inquiry Monday that the possible charges include misconduct in public office, manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and breaches of fire safety regulation.
No one has yet been charged.
Jeremy Johnson, lawyer representing the police at the inquiry, said the scope of the investigation was "unprecedented" in a case that did not involve an extremist attack.
He said police are studying 31 million documents and 2,500 exhibits.
Johnson spoke at a hearing spelling out how a detailed inquiry into the disaster will be carried out.
Officials say the goal is to make sure there is never a repeat of the catastrophe.
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/grenfell-inquiry-char...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
http://view.fmglobal.myriskmanagement.com/?qs=d88b...
RE: 24-level building tower fire in West London
It doesn't look as limited in scope as some had portrayed it to be; I hope the judge has the the strength of character to pursue the investigation fully even though it will almost certainly cast a very unfavourable light upon parts of the UK's regulatory framework and upon both local and national government.