In this case they thought that they could weather the storm and tough it out. But when the PM apologised in the Commons for the Council's failings, then No.10 criticised them for cutting a public Council meeting short, their positions were simply untenable given the media scrutiny.
Group will have to hold an internal election to find a new Leader and Deputy Leader from amongst their numbers. I understand that they are both staying on as Councillors so there won't be any by-elections.
I was hoping to learn whether this particular cladding, Reynobond PE was being used elsewhere, or banned but not much info has been posted. The tower count that has failed fire tests is now 181 out of 600, and it is expected that the others will also fail as unsafe. But there is a report that says quite differently.
Why cannot the so called experts agree? Why is there so much conflicting information? Meanwhile peoples lives could be at risk. Anyway, at present this is a particular UK thing, and this is an international site, so I think I will leave it here, and wait for the official enquiry report, before commenting any further.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Why cannot the so called experts agree? Why is there so much conflicting information?
It is all so very simple, who is paying the expert? That is the opinion you will get!
Don't mean to be quite that cynical, but it does boil down there is a bias to find what your employer want to have found. Also matters exactly how a question is asked. Frequently the expert will tell you how to ask the question so they can give you the answer you want to hear.
It does seem upon the face of it to be a bit cynical to be honest, but maybe an overall fair comment in today's world. But also to be fair you are commenting as a USA citizen I am commenting as a UK one. But the real question to be asked is just how independent are these so called "independent"experts? What is not in doubt is that both local and central government were simply not able to deal with an incident of this nature in the immediate aftermath.
Late edit. They now say there are 530 tower blocks not 600 as previously believed.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
It could be the criteria offered ie. not everyone using the same rulers. In general that's messy detail as to how standards are applied. The best standards are uniquely determined by physical measurement using straight forward and unambiguous methodology. I'd vote for what was down at Lacrosse Towers that I mentioned at the start of this thread : the CSIRO prescription was readily translated into sample testing. However not everything is amenable to that simplicity eg. predictions of fire spread in large structures.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) On reading the Guardian report ( assuming it's faithfully reported etc ) there appear to be two issues :
- comparing current cladding to no cladding at all ie. remove but not replace. Will this increase fire risk ? Obviously that depends on what is underneath and so now the discussion de-references to considering the whole constructed object. Tower by tower now.
- do you test samples or components of the cladding, or do you test an entire portion of cladding as manufactured ? IMHO this is a furphy. The polyethylene is highly inflammable, no question whatsoever. No one could contend otherwise. The only hope to down-rate that risk is to assert that the aluminium component mitigates that. This is silly, as self evidently it hasn't ie. why are we talking at all ? An entire tower block was incinerated : that's your test. Already demonstrated.
FWIW I sense the beginnings of an effort to subvert process to channel subsequent events ie. so that costs of rectification may be reduced and/or other liabilities deflected. Very NASA-esque ..... decide what conclusion suits and then pad out the essay/narrative to lead to that. This is the old propaganda trick ( though very heavily in play nowadays ) : give the appearance of naturalness of conclusions for what are actually highly scripted and manufactured lines of thought. The worst assumptions are the unchallenged ones. :-(((
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
I would have thought that the best way was not to concentrate on testing individual components of just one bit of cladding, what about the insulation behind the cladding etc. Surely a more accurate test would be to construct a faithful replica of the Grenfell tower, say 20ft square and set fire to it and see what happens.
My three main concerns at the present are these.
1. There was a BBC report that the Reynobond PE cladding was given a certificate for use on high rise tower blocks in 1997. Then the Government said it shouldn't be used over 18M high. Now the manufacturers have withdrawn the product.
(1a) Does that certificate exist? If so then the Councils and the contractors are covered for its use at the time.
(1b) If it should NOT have been given a certificate for high rise use, who screwed up?
2. Extra fire inspections of other blocks on the Grenfell estate have found gas pipes not properly lagged and insulated, and problems with fire doors.
(2a) Why were these problems not found and highlighted before on the Annual fire safety inspections?
(2b) Did the mandatory fire inspections take place, who did them? And who signed them off.
3. The appointed Judge has also said that his remit is too narrow to get to the bottom of the whole truth about what happened and who was responsible.
I sense the beginnings of an effort to subvert process to channel subsequent events ie. so that costs of rectification may be reduced and/or other liabilities deflected.
The public mood at the moment is unlikely to stomach any whiff whatsoever about a cover up. or a Nixon-esque whitewash. The worst scenario is that all 530 tower blocks with over 500 people in each (could be 300,000 total) will simply revolt and demand alternative housing elsewhere. Councils won't have the money or accommodation, and the Government won't want to bail them out and put up taxes to pay for it.
The Government promises no prosecutions for sub-letting or people whose eligibility to remain here is in doubt, if they come forward to ascertain who was actually in the building at the time. That is totally naive. It has been well known for decades that sub-letting goes on all the time in Council properties in the UK. It is also well known that in conjunction with that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK whose Visas or leave to stay has run out, or simply chose not to go home after a holiday.
Councils turn a blind eye to it all as long as they get their rent each month. No inspections are ever made of who is in their properties because they don't want to get embroiled in the various Race Relations Acts & Eqquality Acts, or be faced with finding even more accommodation for homeless people. The government never checks whether people have gone home, when their permission to stay runs out. These people slip below the radar because they don't register on the voters lists nor apply for benefits, and are cash in hand part time workers, for obvious reasons. Officially they don't exist. But it's all non PC to mention.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Yes I have read the Telegraph's report into the chimney effect. As far as I am aware there has not been any tests to confirm that. It is one avenue being looked, as is the Building regulations not requiring a second staircase and a sprinkler system on older blocks.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Yes I have read the Telegraph's report into the chimney effect. As far as I am aware there has not been any tests to confirm that. It is one avenue being looked, as is the Building regulations not requiring a second staircase and a sprinkler system on older blocks.
You can go into tons of old buildings and see things that would NEVER pass todays codes if they were updated, building owners are aware of the costs and the limits of how much remodeling kicks in the new codes, or how little remodeling means you do NOT have to upgrade to the new code standards. The costs can be quite extensive if you have to go to the new codes, even prohibitive in fact. In the US we have an ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, that says that anytime you remodel a building you must provide allowances for the handicapped. MANY buildings and restaurants do NOT remodel just so they do NOT have to comply with that, wider doorways, handicapped ramps, etc, etc. They choose to serve the demographic they already have rather than expand their customer base.
Chris S_2 wrote:Why did it
Today was pay day?
In this case they thought
In this case they thought that they could weather the storm and tough it out. But when the PM apologised in the Commons for the Council's failings, then No.10 criticised them for cutting a public Council meeting short, their positions were simply untenable given the media scrutiny.
Group will have to hold an internal election to find a new Leader and Deputy Leader from amongst their numbers. I understand that they are both staying on as Councillors so there won't be any by-elections.
It's certainly not looking good for the Council
BBC latest
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
I was hoping to learn whether
I was hoping to learn whether this particular cladding, Reynobond PE was being used elsewhere, or banned but not much info has been posted. The tower count that has failed fire tests is now 181 out of 600, and it is expected that the others will also fail as unsafe. But there is a report that says quite differently.
Guardian
Why cannot the so called experts agree? Why is there so much conflicting information? Meanwhile peoples lives could be at risk. Anyway, at present this is a particular UK thing, and this is an international site, so I think I will leave it here, and wait for the official enquiry report, before commenting any further.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Chris S_2 wrote:Why cannot
It is all so very simple, who is paying the expert? That is the opinion you will get!
Don't mean to be quite that cynical, but it does boil down there is a bias to find what your employer want to have found. Also matters exactly how a question is asked. Frequently the expert will tell you how to ask the question so they can give you the answer you want to hear.
It does seem upon the face of
It does seem upon the face of it to be a bit cynical to be honest, but maybe an overall fair comment in today's world. But also to be fair you are commenting as a USA citizen I am commenting as a UK one. But the real question to be asked is just how independent are these so called "independent"experts? What is not in doubt is that both local and central government were simply not able to deal with an incident of this nature in the immediate aftermath.
Late edit. They now say there are 530 tower blocks not 600 as previously believed.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
It could be the criteria
It could be the criteria offered ie. not everyone using the same rulers. In general that's messy detail as to how standards are applied. The best standards are uniquely determined by physical measurement using straight forward and unambiguous methodology. I'd vote for what was down at Lacrosse Towers that I mentioned at the start of this thread : the CSIRO prescription was readily translated into sample testing. However not everything is amenable to that simplicity eg. predictions of fire spread in large structures.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) On reading the Guardian report ( assuming it's faithfully reported etc ) there appear to be two issues :
- comparing current cladding to no cladding at all ie. remove but not replace. Will this increase fire risk ? Obviously that depends on what is underneath and so now the discussion de-references to considering the whole constructed object. Tower by tower now.
- do you test samples or components of the cladding, or do you test an entire portion of cladding as manufactured ? IMHO this is a furphy. The polyethylene is highly inflammable, no question whatsoever. No one could contend otherwise. The only hope to down-rate that risk is to assert that the aluminium component mitigates that. This is silly, as self evidently it hasn't ie. why are we talking at all ? An entire tower block was incinerated : that's your test. Already demonstrated.
FWIW I sense the beginnings of an effort to subvert process to channel subsequent events ie. so that costs of rectification may be reduced and/or other liabilities deflected. Very NASA-esque ..... decide what conclusion suits and then pad out the essay/narrative to lead to that. This is the old propaganda trick ( though very heavily in play nowadays ) : give the appearance of naturalness of conclusions for what are actually highly scripted and manufactured lines of thought. The worst assumptions are the unchallenged ones. :-(((
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
I would have thought that the
I would have thought that the best way was not to concentrate on testing individual components of just one bit of cladding, what about the insulation behind the cladding etc. Surely a more accurate test would be to construct a faithful replica of the Grenfell tower, say 20ft square and set fire to it and see what happens.
My three main concerns at the present are these.
1. There was a BBC report that the Reynobond PE cladding was given a certificate for use on high rise tower blocks in 1997. Then the Government said it shouldn't be used over 18M high. Now the manufacturers have withdrawn the product.
(1a) Does that certificate exist? If so then the Councils and the contractors are covered for its use at the time.
(1b) If it should NOT have been given a certificate for high rise use, who screwed up?
2. Extra fire inspections of other blocks on the Grenfell estate have found gas pipes not properly lagged and insulated, and problems with fire doors.
(2a) Why were these problems not found and highlighted before on the Annual fire safety inspections?
(2b) Did the mandatory fire inspections take place, who did them? And who signed them off.
3. The appointed Judge has also said that his remit is too narrow to get to the bottom of the whole truth about what happened and who was responsible.
The public mood at the moment is unlikely to stomach any whiff whatsoever about a cover up. or a Nixon-esque whitewash. The worst scenario is that all 530 tower blocks with over 500 people in each (could be 300,000 total) will simply revolt and demand alternative housing elsewhere. Councils won't have the money or accommodation, and the Government won't want to bail them out and put up taxes to pay for it.
The Government promises no prosecutions for sub-letting or people whose eligibility to remain here is in doubt, if they come forward to ascertain who was actually in the building at the time. That is totally naive. It has been well known for decades that sub-letting goes on all the time in Council properties in the UK. It is also well known that in conjunction with that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK whose Visas or leave to stay has run out, or simply chose not to go home after a holiday.
Councils turn a blind eye to it all as long as they get their rent each month. No inspections are ever made of who is in their properties because they don't want to get embroiled in the various Race Relations Acts & Eqquality Acts, or be faced with finding even more accommodation for homeless people. The government never checks whether people have gone home, when their permission to stay runs out. These people slip below the radar because they don't register on the voters lists nor apply for benefits, and are cash in hand part time workers, for obvious reasons. Officially they don't exist. But it's all non PC to mention.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Could it be that the type of
Could it be that the type of panels used can be safe if installed differently?
From the Telegraph Chimney effect: Grenfell's unusual design led blaze to spread, say investigators it looks like the building had decorative fluting originally. This fluting because it ran all the way up the building, because it was not either filled in or blocked at intervals, caused a chimney effect.
Which opens up the question, would any of the types currently available be safe, using the same installation method?
Yes I have read the
Yes I have read the Telegraph's report into the chimney effect. As far as I am aware there has not been any tests to confirm that. It is one avenue being looked, as is the Building regulations not requiring a second staircase and a sprinkler system on older blocks.
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
Chris S_2 wrote:Yes I have
You can go into tons of old buildings and see things that would NEVER pass todays codes if they were updated, building owners are aware of the costs and the limits of how much remodeling kicks in the new codes, or how little remodeling means you do NOT have to upgrade to the new code standards. The costs can be quite extensive if you have to go to the new codes, even prohibitive in fact. In the US we have an ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, that says that anytime you remodel a building you must provide allowances for the handicapped. MANY buildings and restaurants do NOT remodel just so they do NOT have to comply with that, wider doorways, handicapped ramps, etc, etc. They choose to serve the demographic they already have rather than expand their customer base.