Grenfell Tower

[RhythmAndStealth]

Watching the news just now and I can't believe my eyes. It looks absolutely horrific.

I want to think everyone got out safe, but sadly I just can't.

Some of the news reports are about alleged poor safety standards and dangerous living conditions. If that's true it just beggars belief.

OP neither cathf nor I said that- I totally agree with you.

However, when you really don't know about something it's probably best not to speculate and this thread is full of totally incorrect statements about fire safety, construction, the buildings owners and managers, the way insurance works, absolutely loads. And they are being addressed. Not with speculation, or what your mate down the road thinks, or what you can google and skim read, but with direct knowledge.

I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with that.

And I mean the royal "you" not you, OP

"they need to confirm the cladding actually caused the fire ."

I think it's fairly certain that an electrical appliance caused the fire.

However, the way it has so quickly spread to the entire building (15 mins?!?), visibly from the outside facade, suggests that the cladding was at least in part flammable and that there were no non-combustible partitions in place.

Someone mentioned whoever is at faults insurance paying but what if they didn't have it? I assume there will be a joint buildings insurance policy but not contents.

I know it's a long way away till it gets to that stage but interested to know?

There will be insurance it's a legal requirement. So if it's the landlord they have insurance. The contractor who did the refurb, they have insurance.

If it's no fault- ie an electrical fire in a flat- the buildings insurance willl pay

There is always insurance.

Yes, there's almost always insurance - but there's a difference between contents and building insurance?

There was someone talking on radio 4 earlier (sorry, I missed who he was) saying that the cladding consisted of two parts of metal, the width of tin foil, with some sort of insulation in the middle like a sandwich. The whole layer of cladding acts as a cover over the whole building and the fire hunts for fuel and air so travels under the cladding in search of both. You wouldn't be able to see it from the outside so firefighters would have no idea where the fire was spreading too. Bits of melted metal would start falling off the building and set fire to other areas.

He said there were 10s or 100s of thousands of buildings across the UK similarly clad

And insurance generally only pays out if it's conditions are met?

As someone upthread has already said, this block would have to be risk assessed for everything, including fire.
Speculation and blaming is a waste of energy.

From the Guardian:

"Residents at the block were so concerned about fire safety after the recent refurbishment works in March that they requested an independent fire safety assessor to come in to review the safety of the building, but their request was rejected, the Labour councillor responsible for the block said.

She said tenants were concerned about the fire risk during and after recent refurbishment works and repeatedly raised their concerns with her.

Judith Blackman, Labour housing spokeswoman and who is on the board of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which runs the council’s homes, said:

We were constantly being fobbed off. All our concerns were being ignored. Our request for an independent safety adjudicator was turned down. We were told it was unnecessary.

Blackman said she raised the concerns of the residents with colleagues on the board so frequently that the board tried to have her removed from her position. The board said there was no need to employ an independent assessor, told her that their own checks were adequate, and said it “was not necessary to fund or instruct an independent adjudicator at this time”.

Blackman said: I was treated like I was a nuisance. I raised 19 complaints on behalf of individual residents. Every single time we were told that the board had satisfied itself that the fire safety was fine. We were told that the go inside and wait policy was absolutely right."

These people have blood on their hands.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but if the fire precautions weren't up to code, wouldn't that have affected the buildings' owners being able to insure the place?

The only experience I have of this sort of thing is in running a community centre years ago. The idiot Council disabled one of the fire doors when doing some work and refused to remedy it promptly, so I took advice and was told to inform the insurers who promptly removed cover, thus forcing the Council to act

Of course, that only works if you've got proper insurance in the first place ... whether that's the case here I obviously have no way of knowing

Thanks condensed

Change - re "I feel very deeply for my ex colleagues who did a very good job."

Er... Clearly not ALL of your ex-colleagues who manage this building did a very good job

Someone somewhere did a very bad job, indeed.

Even steel structures don't go up in flames like kindling doused in petroleum within minutes. Reinforced concrete structures certainly don't, as concrete is non-flammable.

As you certainly should be aware, there are regulations in place that specify fire safety indices for construction materials. Where were your ex-colleagues (you?) when this building was renovated and then (presumably) inspected?

Even WTC towers that are (1) steel structures without concrete sheathing and (2) got doused in highly flammable jet fuel didn't go completely up in flames in minutes.

It is very wrong that this building did.

There isn't always third party liability insurance, that's not a legal requirement (unlike motor and employers liability).

But any company that does work like this for councils will have it.

And if a fridge exploded because of negligence on the part of the fridge manufacturer, and that was the cause, then they will also have insurance (or some type of insurance mechanism).

Buildings insurance will pay out for contents of (for want of a better word) "victims" of the body they insure.

Say like 3rd party fire and theft- if I'm the third party your insurer will have to pay for my whip lash, not just my car.

That said, it's not easy or quick, and to be fair, this is no different to any house fire where there is no contents insurance. Just a much bigger impact due to the number of people (who may or may not have contents insurance, I'm not sure why so many posters are assuming the residents are alll dirt poor)

User, actually I'm sorry , I was a bit snappy . Probably because I'd just put the phone down from work , begging me to come in and help with this for night duty . Which I have of course said I will , but I've listened to some of the news coverage of this all day , and some of the reporters are beginning to seriously piss me off with their speculations.

Having insurance or not isn't always about money. A high majority of my friends don't have it as they just don't get they need it.

www.stoparsonuk.org/documents/resources/Fire%20Safety%20of%20Exterior%20Wall%20Claddings.pdf

I am pretty sure that building should not have gone up like that and there are serious questions to be answered. A culture of profit over safety resulting in the devastating loss of life is most likely. I feel so angry for these people.

I see it as you trying to stifle discussion Changed. Of course there are going to be different theories and some speculation, some of which are more grounded in experience, data or expertise that others.

And I think it's right and healthy that people keep up discussion. That different avenues and aspects of this are not dropped until a definitive narrative comes out. And proper changes implemented appropriately .

The fire regulations review promised as a result of the the 2009 Lakanal fire hasn't been properly completed and implemented yet. That's eight years. link.
Among the areas the FPA wanted reviewed, Glocking said, was a lack of compulsion for external insulation underneath cladding on tower blocks to be fire resistant

So it is just factually incorrect to say that there will be a professional inquiry and then everything will be fine in time. For it example, whilst it's true that it might not be the cladding insulation that caused this tragedy- but surely being able to hang sheets of polystyrene on the outside of tower blocks is something that should now be reviewed on an urgent timescale anyway? Because that's a risk that has been highlighted by such discussion, and it's a risk worth examining in it's own right.

What if another tower block becomes an inferno next week or next month? Public pressure and outrage, and pointed questions, can sometimes be effective in ensuring swifter action is taken. And I would strongly suggest that swift action is needed here. Not eight years umming and ahhing.

Yes, there's almost always insurance - but there's a difference between contents and building insurance?

Not when you're a third party. The building will be insured by the council (or whoever owns it, I'm assuming it's the RBK&C Council who own it). The residents may or may not have had their own contents insurance.

But if this fire was the fault of a fridge manufacturer, or a dodgy rewiring job, (just examples) then they are liable for the damage to all property, and injuries, regardless of whether the first party insured them themselves.

Those who have contents insurance of their own may get a pay out from their own insurer sooner, before all the investigations are completed, then their contents insurer will get the money back from the insurer who insured the party who was responsible for the fire (eg fridge, electrician...). But those without insurance will be compensated (eventually) too.

From the Guardian's website:

In a statement, Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, which runs the council’s homes and has been a target for criticism by some residents, acknowledged concerns had previously been raised. It said:

'It is too early to speculate what caused the fire and contributed to its spread. We will cooperate fully with all the relevant authorities in order to ascertain the cause of this tragedy.

We are aware that concerns have been raised historically by residents. We always take all concerns seriously and these will form part of our forthcoming investigations. While these investigations continue with our cooperation, our core priority at the moment is our residents'

Judith Blackman, Labour housing spokeswoman and who is on the board of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), which runs the council’s homes, said:

'We were constantly being fobbed off. All our concerns were being ignored. Our request for an independent safety adjudicator was turned down. We were told it was unnecessary.'

Blackman said she raised the concerns of the residents with colleagues on the board so frequently that the board tried to have her removed from her position. The board said there was no need to employ an independent assessor, told her that their own checks were adequate, and said it “was not necessary to fund or instruct an independent adjudicator at this time”.

Sorry, have just noticed that's already been posted!

Just looking at the devastation it's clear that it's the cladding that spread it & made it so serious, even to someone who knows nothing at all about it

There are hundreds of thousands of buildings that have been facelifted like this; an MP who chairs a cross party committee for something related was interviewed a wee while ago & he's said that all councils should have been doing urgent inventories today to figure out how many they have.

It's just awful.

Is it really going to be possible to pin this down to a specific brand of fridge? The place is gutted.

12 dead