Haven’t you got something better to do - like go build a listening room? 
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Am I alone in finding this disappointing but sadly unsurprising (i don’t mean their resignation)?
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Turns out that building regs don’t call for cladding to be fireproof, other than the outside skin of the cladding. Who’d of thunk it, regulations that don’t cover the hazzard, quelle suprise!
I wonder what a survey of public sector building other than flats (hospitals, offices, schools etc) would turn up. God knows whats fitted to the thousands of private sector flats that have sprung up in city centres of late.
Sadly the stable door was made by Arconic and so disintegrated into ash before it could slam behind this particular bolting horse.
I understand that these tower blocks.as conceived in the 50’s & 60’s were actually pretty safe in terms of fire risk. OK they would benefit from better insulation & double glazing but as for the cladding applied, they may as well have painted them with tar.
Apart from the single means of escape, which is a huge problem in a tall building.
Shouldn’t such buildings have a fan at the top to pressurise the stairwell & keep smoke out?
That is an option, but the Fire Brigade don’t particularly favour electrical/mechanical systems which can become disabled in a fire situation.
Far better is a second protected external fire escape staircase which is fairly easy to add to an older building.
May sound like a joke but when my Nan lived in shirley towers in southampton my uncle kept a 60m climbing rope with loop in the cupboard so in the event of a bad fire he could lower the kids out of the window.
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I suspect you’d have struggled if you’d tried to go down the outside of Grenfell tower, certainly in most places anyway…
Yes wouldn’t have been great,worth a shot over the other options though.
Yes, definitely.
FFS - it seems that The Building Regs are The Building Regs. Unless you think you know better and can afford to pay someone to agree with you. In which case why don’t you just do something cheaper instead …
Tell me again, what’s the point of having rules ? Isn’t this the sort of thing that bankers do ?
VB
Money. It all comes down to money. How much is a life worth?
Reading that beeb article it will be difficult to make any prosecutions stand, I can see the court case being dragged out for years with arguments over legislation and guidance etc.
How much is a life worth? Around £5000 / 79 as it stands.
The concluding sentence is the important bit in that whole article IMHO, and likely to be the bit that is not acted upon:
“the catastrophe at Grenfell Tower has showed up the weakness of the whole framework in which our building regulations sit. The basis on which we decide whether a tower block is fire-safe is a mess.
Accepted professional practice has systematically reduced the fire resistance of our tall buildings.”
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