Who knows their way round Building Regs? (fire)

[John D v2.0]

Although if the building hadn't been wrapped in flammable foam that generates toxic smoke, the question of blaming the residents for their death wouldn't come up.

Just for the record, I don't think Tony is.
In my opinion, unless the residents are willfully propping doors then it's down to the building management to provide a building that is safe and enforce any conditions needed to ensure that.
Even paying someone to patrol the tower 24/7 closing doors if that's deemed more appropriate then building low rise housing.

 

[wessex101]

Most of the deaths at Grenfell would have been through toxic smoke inhalation.
It begs the question: were fire doors to the flats and the staircase lobbies perhaps useless because of being propped open?
If the staircase enclosure had been used/maintained as designed, there seems no reason why occupants could not have escaped, even from the upper floors. The staircase enclosure would of course be structurally sound for a long period (1 hour? [not sure]).

The standard of news report on this story have been rather sensationalist and focusing on trite tear jerking stories but some of the eye witness reports have said there was no fire alarm and they were asleep in bed and it was only when friends phoned them to see if they were OK that they found out the building was on fire. By then the one hour fire resistance of the fire doors to the single protected staircase and fire compartmentation were probably already compromised. As for the official "stay put" policy, what bloody genius dreamt that up? Maybe on a medium rise building where the fire brigade have a chance of reaching you with a hydraulic platform but on a 24 storey high rise where there is no available equipment to reach those people sheltering in their flat with wet towels under the door? Insanity.

Funnily enough I got an email this afternoon. A block of flats I surveyed recently and I flagged up that most of their fire doors were defective and missing fire stopping to risers which went down like a lead balloon. Now all of a sudden the building owners want to know what they need to do to rectify the defects.

 

[John D v2.0]

it was only when friends phoned them to see if they were OK that they found out the building was on fire. By then the one hour fire resistance of the fire doors to the single protected staircase and fire compartmentation were probably already compromised.

I think the intention was the one hour wasn't for escaping, it was time for the fire brigade to come and put the fire out while the rest of the block sleeps soundly.
We can see how that worked out disastrously though.
On a building that needs a stay put policy, the only other option I can think of is demolition. See what the inquiry recommends.

 

[tony1851]

Although if the building hadn't been wrapped in flammable foam that generates toxic smoke, the question of blaming the residents for their death wouldn't come up.

No, of course I would not blame the residents as the building was basically unsafe, but it is not unknown for fire doors to be propped open.

 

[tony1851]

I think the intention was the one hour wasn't for escaping, it was time for the fire brigade to come and put the fire out while the rest of the block sleeps soundly.
We can see how that worked out disastrously though.
On a building that needs a stay put policy, the only other option I can think of is demolition. See what the inquiry recommends.

This is quite true, but when they were built (1960s/70s) these blocks were of of a construction in which each self-contained flat was capable of containing a fire, allowing the fire service to deal with it, and without compromising the structure of the building as a whole.
A communal alarm might cause panic, with several hundred people trying to get down the stairs.
But of course in those simpler days, the idea of wrapping the building in flammable crap was not even thought of.

 

[^woody^]

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 replaced a lot of fire related legislation, and also took the job of fire safety inspections off the fire brigade, and put the onus on the landlord or building owner to carry out fire safety annual risk assessments.

These risk assessments can trump building regs and require enhanced fire safety work - such as the fitting of alarms, smoke extraction even sprinklers if need be. The good thing about this is that as a building's use changes, and occupancy changes over time, the old "it was built to the building standards of the day", can be side stepped and improvements forced on the building owner.

The down side of the risk assessments, is that when done by a numpty, impractical and costly improvements are recommended. Fire sprinklers in social housing are guaranteed to be set off daily with the associated flooding for instance. The ability to fit a smoke extraction system in typical council high rise is almost impossible.

There are already good regulations for building and for subsequent use of the building. But it's just the implementation that causes the problem. Some BCO's are allowed a set number of minutes per inspection, and a certain number of plans need to be checked per day. So things do slip.