The Blame Game

[Odds]

After five years, thousands of hours of cross-examination, 320,000 documents and £150 million in legal costs the families of the 72 victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy are no closer to finding the truth: Long before the fire in 2017, Peter Apps reported on the dangers of cladding with a "core of solid petrol" being fitted to old, draughty tower blocks for insulation and he goes on to highlight flaws and failures in government and the construction industry from the mid-80s when 'government replaced 300+ pages of building regulations with 24 standards.
His new book; Show Me The Bodies, is taken from a quote allegedly given by a civil servant responsible for guidance on fire safety in 2016 when warned a similar fire to the one at Lakanal House in 2009, killing 3 adults and 3 children, was likely to happen again...

Construction Enquirer.com

...for which nobody is prepared to take responsibility:

The stand-out evidence of corporate malice is a rigged fire-safety test that enabled flammable Celotex insulation to be used and the mutual dependence of businesses and government to hide the truth from the public. In 1999 a committee of MPs urged ministers to require cladding to be fireproof and the government's response was that it would've been "unpopular with industry". Companies perennially complain about 'cumbersome regulations' but when they're diluted or removed then the peril of such events becomes clear.

 

[Odds]

The Chief lawyer for the inquiry, Richard Millett, said: “If you listen closely to the tune, you can begin to hear that many core participants have adopted a particular technique; namely, the deflection of criticism by reference to causative relevance, and then, in turn, to take a narrow and technical approach to causative relevance in order to escape blame for the fire and the ensuing deaths, but then to blame others without any regard necessarily to causative impact...
Many of the failings of many of the organisations revealed by the fire and the evidence about it are redolent of a culture pervasive through these organisations of dissociation, blame−shifting and defensiveness to cover up incompetence, lack of skill and experience, false and unverified assumptions, and plain carelessness or lack of engagement.

There will have been many times in the evidence when I don’t doubt that you will have been struck by how many witnesses thought that something was somebody else’s job, but never bothered to check. If everything that has been said is correct, then nobody was to blame for the Grenfell Tower fire,” he said. “Can that really be right? He added: “A tragedy of these dimensions ought to have provoked a strong sense of public responsibility. Instead, many − not all , many − core participants appear simply to have used the Inquiry as an opportunity to position themselves for any legal proceedings which might or might not follow in order to minimise their own exposure to legal liability.”

 

[Odds]

 

[Odds]

Watchdog names social landlords in England with worst complaints records​

The social landlords in England with the worst records of maladministration have been named by the housing ombudsman, who said failures were “deeply concerning” and that poor performance was “still at unacceptably high levels”.
Richard Blakeway, the ombudsman for England’s 4.4m social homes, concluded there was maladministration in 90% of the complaints cases brought to it by tenants of Golding Homes, which provides housing for more than 21,000 people across Kent, including in the case of a resident who complained for seven years about problems including damp and cold.
He said 86% of complaints considered about Lambeth and Southwark Housing Association in London were judged to amount to maladministration, and 89% of complaints about East Devon district council. The figures relate to the period from April 2021 to March 2022.
The physical condition of homes was the biggest reason for referrals to the watchdog over that period, and in more than half of cases it concluded there had been service failures by the landlord.
...social landlords and residents are facing unprecedented challenges, with a cost of living crisis and ageing homes, but a positive complaints handling culture remains vital. Our review highlights the challenges with embedding this and also shows poor performance in some service areas still at unacceptably high levels. “Too often landlords can focus on managing the reputational risk to their organisation when things go wrong, rather than learning and improvement.”

 

[Vinty]

After five years, thousands of hours of cross-examination, 320,000 documents and £150 million in legal costs the families of the 72 victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy are no closer to finding the truth: Long before the fire in 2017, Peter Apps reported on the dangers of cladding with a "core of solid petrol" being fitted to old, draughty tower blocks for insulation and he goes on to highlight flaws and failures in government and the construction industry from the mid-80s when 'government replaced 300+ pages of building regulations with 24 standards.
His new book; Show Me The Bodies, is taken from a quote allegedly given by a civil servant responsible for guidance on fire safety in 2016 when warned a similar fire to the one at Lakanal House in 2009, killing 3 adults and 3 children, was likely to happen again...

Construction Enquirer.com

...for which nobody is prepared to take responsibility:

The stand-out evidence of corporate malice is a rigged fire-safety test that enabled flammable Celotex insulation to be used and the mutual dependence of businesses and government to hide the truth from the public. In 1999 a committee of MPs urged ministers to require cladding to be fireproof and the government's response was that it would've been "unpopular with industry". Companies perennially complain about 'cumbersome regulations' but when they're diluted or removed then the peril of such events becomes clear.

The Tories boasted that they wanted to make a bonfire of regulations and red tape and with Grenfell tower, thats what they got.

 

[JonathanM]

Is there a good alternative to foam based insulation in cladding systems?

I've read you can use Rockwool slabs. But how do they compare in practice?

This is something I wondered about a lot at the time, but never really found the answer.

 

[Odds]

Is there a good alternative to foam based insulation in cladding systems?

I've read you can use Rockwool slabs. But how do they compare in practice?

This is something I wondered about a lot at the time, but never really found the answer.

Many answers to your question, there will be in this forum.
The truth is out there...

 

[JonathanM]

Many answers to your question, there will be in this forum.
The truth is out there...

I'm not talking about DIY. I'm talking about large scale projects. High rise flats etc.

 

[Dork Lard]

The truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth.

Why should anyone expect the truth from an enquiry that is itself denying the truth?

 

[Odds]

I'm not talking about DIY. I'm talking about large scale projects. High rise flats etc.

I know.
Same answer applies.

 

[JonathanM]

I know.
Same answer applies.

Could you just tell me the answer instead?

 

[Odds]

Could you just tell me the answer instead?

Sorry, man, i'm only a gardener.

 

[JonathanM]

I’ve done my best to search on here, but I haven’t found many answers. In fact, only one was partially relevant. That may be down to my search skills.

Googling elsewhere, I have found a few references to the thickness of Rockwool causing aesthetic problems, and a couple of vague references to “buildability” issues. There may be more technical stuff out there, but I think that it will be beyond my ability.

I’m still interested in how foam insulation and Rockwool compare in these building systems, if somebody who knows about this stuff can provide a quick (DIY level) answer! And also, if Rockwool cladding in these building systems lasts as long, and how it copes with the weather.

 

[denso13]

I've read you can use Rockwool slabs. But how do they compare in practice?

Yes, rockwool with a rendered finish isn't flammable at all and has no cavity. Can even be structural spanning floor to floor.

Renders And Finishes - Structherm

www.structherm.co.uk

 

[motorbiking]

PIR is about 50% more thermally efficient than Rockwool. Rockwool has the obvious benefit of being largely fire proof. There is a lot of things in a building which are flammable, the key is to ensue they are encapsulated so they are less likely to catch fire and that they are not installed in systems where an air gap can cause a chimney effect in a fire. Unfortunately there is so much sensitivity around this, that not much effort has been put in to designing a safer PIR based system.