Originally Posted by
infrequentflyer789
To my mind the materials testing (although there are still a lot of questions in that area) wasn't the biggest issue with Grenfell. The real problem was grafting new-standard-stuff onto old-standard-design without fully understanding how the old and new interact ...........So, where, you ask, was that building control inspector, or his London brethren, when they did the Grenfell refurb (which added extra accommodation floors as well as cladding, and definitely involved more than four floors and no sprinklers)? Well he wasn't involved, because the big guys get to do "self certification" on building projects (which brings us right back on topic again)...
Very accurate post and very much on topic.
- Old thing with safety critical new stuff grafted on top which changed fundamental characteristics
- Inadequate testing (in the case of Grenfell no testing at all) and definitely no destructive testing
- Pretence that the new thing is the same as the old thing, just better performance
- Insufficient training ( in Grenfell's case the fire crews hadn't got a clue what they were dealing with or how to deal with it and they killed a lot of people by telling them to stay put when they should have bust a gut to get everyone out ASAP)
- Insufficient or compromised or just non-existent regulatory oversight
Is any of this going to change? Is society willing to pay the cost of doing things right?