Grenfell Tower fire- thread three

[RhythmAndStealth]

Seventeen tragic deaths confirmed so far, six victims provisionally identified.
Number of those who perished feared to rise into triple figures as search proceeds
Search for remaining victims expected to take weeks, sadly it’s considered unlikely that it will be possible to identify all the victims
Names of those still missing start to emerge
Nearly 80 victims being treated across six hospitals, with 15 still in critical care
Hundreds of people displaced and dispossessed, concerned about when and where they will be rehoused

Public inquiry ordered.
Criminal investigation launched.
Serious questions being asked about fire safety regulations, management of social housing, austerity and inequality.
Fire Brigade search of building expected to take weeks due to complexity of building, extent of fire damage and the necessity of undertaking a painstaking fingertip search.

“There must be arrests after this monstrous crime” David Lammy MP

‘Families rehoused last night been left clueless about where to spend next nights. No word from #kccouncil. Chaos.” Emily Maitlis, BBC

“We have to act as if it was our friends, our family in that block” Nick Hurd MP, Policing and Fire Minister

“Someone needs to be held accountable. These deaths could have been prevented.” Local resident to Sadiq Khan

Thread 2
Thread 1

Here's a bit about the D-Notice.

(It's a link to Guido Fawkes, so the suggestion that it's a Corbynista conspiracy should be taken with a huge dollop of salt, but it appears that it's fake news)

order-order.com/2017/06/16/corbynistas-peddle-grenfell-d-notice-fake-news/

My dad works for a building company who have a tender for refurbishment's in a London council. Next week they supposed to be refurbishing a 20 or so story tower block but it has now been cancelled so the building can be assed.

Whilst the FSO was enacted in 2005, all except one provision didn't come in to force until 1st April 2006.

Also, under the fire safety order the responsible person remains responsible. The fire service are there to enforce the order, not to check everything themselves.

@Helenadove that happened to us multiple times - plumbers booked to come and fix hot water (multiple times per month) who never showed up and also because the previous contractors business went under as a result of the contract being taken over, one of their staff poured a tonne of sand into our heating system so none of it worked for months.

Emily - in our case, our contractors signed off on finished drawings. They should reflect what has or hasn't been done, so no need to see whether something has been drilled into or not . IF they have not shown accurate drawings, they will be culpable. Fire inspection company don't visit the property, they look at all drawings.

So who would be the responsible person in the case of social housing?

Albadross that does not surprise me in the least. A tenant i spoke to years ago found that a workman had dumped her gorgeous huge mirror that she owned........into his skip.

If you go into the twitter search engine and look for the companies i have mentioned the complaints are many.

You can see if someone has drilled a hole in a wall or floor, but you cannot see if the wall itself was built properly.

Isn't that why building control regularly attend during the build process - so that they can see what's what before it gets covered up?

I know that when I had some RSJ's fitted inside my office, the builders left each end of the RSJ's open without plasterboard nor render to wait for the building control guy to check what had been used and how they'd been fixed to the walls. The builders told me that if they'd not left them open, the building control guy would have made them expose the beams anyway to check.

Surely the same kind of checking happens during a refurbishment??

IF something is wrong, e.g. fire barriers which were in the initial planning permission drawings were not installed and that is not reflected in the finished drawings sent to the Fire Inspection company, then it's the contractor at fault and liable - they usually have to have 20million or similar insurance though.
IF something is wrong, and it is on the drawings that they're missing, then the Fire Inspection company is at fault for overlooking it.

user, I am focussing on buildings in current use at the moment. Building regs deal with "signing off" works which is separate.

The responsible person is defined in the legislation, but it is almost always the person (or person running the organisation) who in control of the building. So in this case presumably the HA. If not it is the owner.

bad, anything which is done during building or major refurbishment (such as drilling through fire walls and then resealing) is dealt with by building regulations.

I have been answering questions on fire certs and inspections relating to buildings in current use. The building process is separate and very complicated, and I will try to answer as best as I can!

But the owner can pass responsibility to contractor or sub-contractors.

IF something is wrong, and it is on the drawings that they're missing, then the Fire Inspection company is at fault for overlooking it.

This isn't always true. It will depend on the terms of the contract between the person paying for the works and the fire engineering company. Some big firms will share liability for meeting building regulations, but not all do.

I also dealt with refurbishments. I was auditing their documentation to ensure complete compliance with everything.

user, in terms of "responsible person" I am talking about the Fire Safety Order, NOT building regulations. I'm pretty sure that the responsible person cannot delegate their responsibilities under the FSO. They can, of course, delegate individual tasks (such as carrying out a fire risk assessment) but I'm almost certain they retain ultimate responsibility for complying with the FSO.

What I suspect has happened here Emily, is that the contractors may have not done what was on their PP. I'm not sure building regs would have signed off on lack of fireproofing between floors of the cladding. PP would have been granted on the basis that it would have been in place. This is only speculation though from what whispers are doing the rounds on the news. I wouldn't fancy auditing that block though. I'm guessing documentation missing left right and centre.

The FSO relates to building in normal use, not those undergoing refurbishments. So it covers after the refurbishments were complete. I'm sorry if that has been unclear.

I hope that whatever happened during the refurbishment work will come out in the end.

I was trying to clear up some of Sylvia's questions about the fire service "signing off" buildings - which I took to relate to when a lot of buildings required a fire safety certificate. This was replaced with the FSO which only deals with buildings in current use, and includes a fire risk assessment (often considered a "tick box exercise") which can be done by any competent person.

Is any competent person defined Emily?

So the residents seem to have had (at least) four different fire related concerns.

1. The housing association were blocking the emergency access (behind a gate only they and the fire service could open), and then removing vehicles when the fire service came to inspect.

So I'm assuming that inspection of emergency services access is the responsibility of the fire service?

1. That the building was being used unsafely (where rubbish, including large items like sofas) were being kept for prolonged periods.

I think this comes under the fire safety order risk assessment?

1. Boilers were installed in front of doorways and gas pipes were sticking out into stair areas.

Months after the work is completed, does this come under a fire safety order inspection or is it still part of building regs? Who deals with it?

1. Fire retardant material between floors was removed to put in heating pipes. It is unclear from the housing association's documents whether this was ever replaced.

Does this come under building regulations, rather than a fire safety order, and if so, how is it inspected?

Sorry if this crossposts with loads of relevant answers.

Sylvia - I think we're coming at this from two different angles really.

Me - the construction
You - the day to day use

I firmly believe the construction was at fault.

'I was trying to clear up some of Sylvia's questions about the fire service "signing off" buildings - which I took to relate to when a lot of buildings required a fire safety certificate. This was replaced with the FSO which only deals with buildings in current use, and includes a fire risk assessment (often considered a "tick box exercise") which can be done by any competent person.'

Yes, thanks for all your time on this, it was what I was originally asking about - fire safety orders.

"Competent" isn't defined. Probably because it would depend on the building. For complex buildings (like airports) you want someone who has been properly trained and has sufficient experience. For something small (like a single shop) you wouldn't necessarily need someone that experienced.

From what I understand of Grenfell a fire risk assessment was last done in December 2015. That risk assessment will also (most likely) form part of any investigation.

Sorry, I feel a bit like I've hijacked this thread and turned it in to a lesson on fire safety law. Apologies.

Maybe the residents should have just been moved out. Proper refurb done, without working around people's belongingings then moved back.

1 and 2 would come under day to day use and hard to place blame.

3 and 3? would come under construction and heads can be found to roll.