London Fire and Aftermath RIP

Yuser.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/16/a-raging-inferno-testimony-reveals-how-deadly-cladding-ended-up-on-grenfell-tower

Makes for shocking reading

There was questions raised along the way

tara73

Yuser. wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/16/a-raging-inferno-testimony-reveals-how-deadly-cladding-ended-up-on-grenfell-tower

Makes for shocking reading

There was questions raised along the way

thanks for that, yes, shocking, was mentioned like this in the former article.

but it's confusing, there are three companies at play here, Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex (Saint-Gobain). Where all of them used on the facade? Would be unusual to use three different cladding companies on one project. Anybody knows circumstances here (for sure, no speculation)?

Yuser.

tara73 wrote: »

thanks for that, yes, shocking, was mentioned like this in the former article.

but it's confusing, there are three companies at play here, Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex (Saint-Gobain). Where all of them used on the facade? Would be unusual to use three different cladding companies on one project. Anybody knows circumstances here (for sure, no speculation)?

Kingspan, i think supplied only some according to the article

tara73

Yuser. wrote: »

Kingspan, i think supplied only some according to the article

yes, but that's what I mean. why did they use three different products/companies..??

Yuser.

tara73 wrote: »

yes, but that's what I mean. why did they use three different products/companies..??

Supply shortages or tendering for different sections?

its a familiar story to anyone involved in construction

Time and money pressure and lack of oversight and regulations

tara73

Yuser. wrote: »

Supply shortages or tendering for different sections?

its a familiar story to anyone involved in construction

Time and money pressure and lack of oversight and regulations

yes, could all be, but obviously you don't know the real reason, that's why I asked for people who might know the definite reason for the three suppliers.

Yuser.

tara73 wrote: »

yes, could all be, but obviously you don't know the real reason, that's why I asked for people who might know the definite reason for the three suppliers.

Not trying to be smart but big jobs will have loads of tenders for different sections

Its routine in big construction

tara73

Yuser. wrote: »

Not trying to be smart but big jobs will have loads of tenders for different sections

Its routine in big construction

yes, I know, I work in construction too. Could you accept I'm looking for the answer from somebody who knows the definite reasons and meanwhile refraining from posting to this question? Thanks!

Yuser.

tara73 wrote: »

yes, I know, I work in construction too. Could you accept I'm looking for the answer from somebody who knows the definite reasons and meanwhile refraining from posting to this question? Thanks!

Either the main contractor ran out of product or he was sourcing it cheaper from kingspan

Kingspan wasn't on the tender

Rainscreens were supplied by the third supplier not celotex kingspsn

Muahahaha

tara73 wrote: »

yes, could all be, but obviously you don't know the real reason, that's why I asked for people who might know the definite reason for the three suppliers.

The Irish Times reported that the vast majority of insulation was supplied by Celotex but that they ran out of insulation before it was complete. So they bought the final 5% of insulation off Kingspan. However despite it being a relatively small amount the Kingspan product (Kooltherm 15) was used on the vertical columns of the building. Firefighters described this part of the building as going up in an inferno, one desciption was they were looking at burning chimneys going all the way up the building.

Its now come out that Kingspan faked fire tests, their head of fire safety was a drug addict and employees who sold this insulation knew it had failed fire tests but were still selling it anyway. This article has a good overview of what came out about Kingspan at the Grenfell Inquiry last week, its not pretty

There was a litany of failed fire tests on K15, one that ended in a “raging inferno”. The results were never made public. It continued to rely on the 2005 test which was for a product no longer on the market, the inquiry heard

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/is-the-grenfell-tower-inferno-kingspan-s-volkswagen-moment-1.4434411

The plastic foam Kooltherm K15 insulation had failed several full-scale fire tests but was being sold on high-rise buildings on the basis of tests that related to the spread of flames across its foil surface rather than the whole material, and on an earlier full-scale test of a different, less combustible version of the product.

In a November 2016 text chat Peter Moss, a member of the firm’s technical team, asked his colleague Arron Chalmers, about the fire performance of the foam insulation, which was marketed as having a class-0 rating – the safest for spread of flames across the surface of a product.

After telling Moss that it was class 0, Chalmers added: “Doesn’t actually get class 0 when we test the whole product tho. LOL.”

Moss replied: “WHAT. We lied? Honest opinion now.”

Chalmers said: “Yeahhhh. Tested K15 as a whole – got class 1 [a worse performance]. Whey. Lol.”

Moss’s response was: “**** product. Scrap it.”

Chalmers then explained that it was “worded in such a way that it ‘implies’ the facing can give you class 0 … But don’t tell anyone that.”

Moss then quoted the Kingspan marketing literature: “Kingspan Kooltherm K15 is class 0 (non combustible).”

Chalmers said: “All lies mate … Alls we do is lie in here”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/08/staff-joked-safety-claims-about-material-used-on-grenfell-were-all-lies-inquiry-told

GreeBo

Why is it possible to self certify their products? Why is there non unbiased external testing?

Yuser.

GreeBo wrote: »

Why is it possible to self certify their products? Why is there non unbiased external testing?

System was a joke, that's how

Government/Building Control should have stopped it happening

tara73

GreeBo wrote: »

Why is it possible to self certify their products? Why is there non unbiased external testing?

as far as I understood, they didn't 'self certify', they developed the K15 which had the aluminium layer to prevent fire spread and it passed the test, got the certificate, everything fine. Afterwards they altered the K15 panels, omitted the aluminium layer to save costs in producing, still sold it as the original K15 panel which passed the test. with that, Kingspan was able to offer the lowest prices in tender offers and got all the jobs, dominating the market.


The others (as Celotex) wondered how this could be, got behind the fraud, but instead of reporting it, joined the game.

That's it in a nutshell, I think.

Muahahaha

tara73 wrote: »

as far as I understood, they didn't 'self certify', they developed the K15 which had the aluminium layer to prevent fire spread and it passed the test, got the certificate, everything fine. Afterwards they altered the K15 panels, omitted the aluminium layer to save costs in producing, still sold it as the original K15 panel which passed the test. with that, Kingspan was able to offer the lowest prices in tender offers and got all the jobs, dominating the market.


The others (as Celotex) wondered how this could be, got behind the fraud, but instead of reporting it, joined the game.

That's it in a nutshell, I think.

And in the interim of them changing the product fire tests were done on the K15 product without the aluminium layer and it resulted in a 600c inferno. Another fire test was done on a building in Bangkok in front of a group of architects and they were reportedly shocked at how quickly the fire spread.

Kingspan employees knew about all of this yet still sold the product. In the time period concerned there was a boom of high rise buildings in the UK, over 250 of them built and Kingspan were doing anything they could to secure this market against their main competitor Celotex. This meant that they knowingly misrepresented the product in their marketing literature as one that passed fire tests when they knew it hadnt. Even as late as 2014 Kingspan went to an academic in Trinity College to try to get them to pass it and she came back and said she couldnt stand over the product for use in high rise buildings.

beggars_bush

Muahahaha wrote: »

And in the interim of them changing the product fire tests were done on the K15 product without the aluminium layer and it resulted in a 600c inferno. Another fire test was done on a building in Bangkok in front of a group of architects and they were reportedly shocked at how quickly the fire spread.

Kingspan employees knew about all of this yet still sold the product. In the time period concerned there was a boom of high rise buildings in the UK, over 250 of them built and Kingspan were doing anything they could to secure this market against their main competitor Celotex. This meant that they knowingly misrepresented the product in their marketing literature as one that passed fire tests when they knew it hadnt. Even as late as 2014 Kingspan went to an academic in Trinity College to try to get them to pass it and she came back and said she couldnt stand over the product for use in high rise buildings.

the management in kingspan are meant to be pr**ks of the highest order

Yuser.

Muahahaha wrote: »

And in the interim of them changing the product fire tests were done on the K15 product without the aluminium layer and it resulted in a 600c inferno. Another fire test was done on a building in Bangkok in front of a group of architects and they were reportedly shocked at how quickly the fire spread.

Kingspan employees knew about all of this yet still sold the product. In the time period concerned there was a boom of high rise buildings in the UK, over 250 of them built and Kingspan were doing anything they could to secure this market against their main competitor Celotex. This meant that they knowingly misrepresented the product in their marketing literature as one that passed fire tests when they knew it hadnt. Even as late as 2014 Kingspan went to an academic in Trinity College to try to get them to pass it and she came back and said she couldnt stand over the product for use in high rise buildings.

This was retrofits not new builds

tara73

beggars_bush wrote: »

the management in kingspan are meant to be pr**ks of the highest order

yes, but the others as celotex/saintgobain were not much better, showing no responsibility either in reporting the fraud but copying it. obviously that's how the market works...mafia. being so, so careful in this business, keeping every certificate, emails as a site manager or architect is the only way to go with projects like this.

tara73

hoping so much this companies will be fu*** and their owners go to jail but probably will be an unaccomplished hope, they'll be back under a different name continuing their sh*** one way or the other.

have saint-gobain to work with on a project at the minute, will hint to this story to my boss and see what he says..:pac:

Dyr

And yet people still repeat the mantra "Trust the science" with religious fervour.

tara73

Bambi wrote: »

And yet people still repeat the mantra "Trust the science" with religious fervour.

producing building materials, then altering the components on purpose to suit them bank accounts doesn't has anything to do with science...:rolleyes: but I think you know that..

tara73

I still wonder why they used this three different facade companies. Yes, it can happen on site to use material with same specifics from different producers (although it normally means hassle and additional work to deal with another company, so not really something contractors like to do) but that's done with parts that are not visible, like inner insulation or anything else.

This was the facade, the sandwich panels, that's different. No products from different companies, although with the same requierements, are never the same. The haptics, the colour, even when agreed from a fixed colour table are never completely the same.

No architect would accept the facade being done from three different companies without being consulted first and giving the ok to it, otherwise he risks a crappy outlook. Tha facade is one of the most prominent parts of the building and therefore the part which results in the biggest reputation for the architect. No architect with any sort of professional honour leaves that open to the contractor.

Even if there were shortages from one firm and they agreed to do this bit or that storey consistently in the cladding from x firm to avoid bad outlook, there's still a third company involved. So shortages from both, the global player Kingspan and Saint-Gobain? Pull the other one.

It's very weird, I smell another rat here in addition to all this fraud.

GreeBo

Bambi wrote: »

And yet people still repeat the mantra "Trust the science" with religious fervour.

The science was 100% correct, who do you propose we trust if not science?