tomo & Robert Christopher

Someone had to substitute ordinary doors for Fire Doors, to save money or increase profit. The materials cost saving would have been £50-£100ish per door. Multiplied by a thousand, that is a lot of money, and it must be recorded somewhere.

'Missing fire doors'

Have the doors been replaced by non-fire-doors, or have they just gone. Or were they never there in the first place.

I would expect the entrance of each flat to have a door, hopefully a fire door, so they could be inspected to determine the explanation. The absence doors along the corridors and at the stairwell entrances could be disappearance or replacement.

Very poor reporting.

Could the removal of the internal fire doors helped the fire to spread so quickly?

Jun 26, 2017 at 11:38 PM | Pcar

Has it occurred to you that Councils/Housing Association may have saved themselves £100 ish per door? In light of the link provide here:
Jun 26, 2017 at 1:25 PM | tomo
who committed murder? I am no fan of the Green Blob, and the BBC are increasingly disappointing, but cladding these 1960-70s tower blocks to improve conditions for residents remains a "good idea", unfortunately the materials, design and methodology has been disastrous.

Robert Christopher & Steve Richards please reread comments above, but doors that SHOULD have been Fire Doors, were NOT Fire Doors. I/we do not know whether it was negligence/cost-cutting in design or project management. The Local Authority's own Building Control Department must have signed off the job on completion.

The "missing" Fire Doors" MAY mean that inadequate doors were used, not that no door existed at all. A Fire Door should prevent fire moving from one side, to the other. Fire Doors should also prevent smoke and fumes moving, but also more air with fresh supplies of oxygen. In the US, they talk about backdraft.

A 1 Hour Fire Resistant Door is only designed to last for 1 Hour. The advice to stay in the flat, and wait for Fire Fighters, would have been made on the assumption that a Fire in a communal area would be put out before penetrating the DOOR to a flat. Fire penetrated these flats, from the outside through the WINDOW openings.

What was the Fire Resistance of the windows- glass and frames?

I certainly agree that there has been some very bad reporting since the Grenfell Tower Fire, yet there have been no reports about the design and construction of this refurbishment, or the others now being investigated.

The corruption of thought that out gave green demands a serious place at the grown up table left fallow ground for over looking things like fire resistance, fire safety codes and the like. Selling/trading off the fire doors for some quiet little bit of payola was barely a bump in the road....

hunter & Robert Christopher

The Fire Doors were PROBABLY substituted for doors of inferior and cheaper quality BEFORE the refurbishment was complete.

This MAY have been instigated by cost cutting by the CLIENT or CONTRACTOR. Either way, IF the Building Control Department and/or Fire Officers signed the work as being satisfactory and the building fit for multiple occupation, where does fault lie?

We MAY not know whether occupants of the flats were dead BEFORE their front doors failed. The fire DID NOT spread up through the inside of the building. No external Fire Doors were fitted above Ground Level because there was no external Fire Escape Staircase..

The "1,000 Fire Doors missing" story may be a scandal in relation to other buildings, but is PROBABLY irrelevant with regard to Grenfell Tower.

Sorry to disagree golfCharlie but photographs on the Tallblokes site clearly show interiors of flats alight before the exterior cladding burns - demonstrating that fires spread internally.

Sorry to disagree golfCharlie but photographs on the Tallblokes site clearly show interiors of flats alight before the exterior cladding burns - demonstrating that fires spread internally.

Jun 28, 2017 at 4:10 PM | Supertroll

Once fire had spread into the building........

We do not know the quality of the internal doors. We do not know how many people attempted to flee leaving doors open behind them.

People talk of the chimney effect within the cladding. A Tower Block IS a chimney once there are vents at high level and low level with a fire inbetween. Forget chimney effect, think Dresden Firestorm effect.

Remember it was a warm night. Many flats would have had windows open, whether or not they were occupied. Any deficiency in door quality or installation would have allowed the passage of smoke and air.

I do not know what the Fire Resistance of the Fire Doors SHOULD HAVE been (One Hour? Two Hours?) but as the Fire Rescue Services did not get in, or upto the upper floors, it became sadly academic.

Once fire had got INTO the building

It was a hot night, how many doors (of any kind) were jammed open to help produce a cooling through draught?

A scary thought.

Jun 29, 2017 at 3:34 PM | Steve Richards

That is a question that forensics may be able to answer. If damage to walls, floors and ceilings is the same, either side of where a door was, it is likely the door was open, and this is sometimes very obvious from a visual inspection.

Remember that the concrete structure of the building may have been damaged by intense heat, but would not have burned.

A 2 Hour Fire Resistant Door can not be expected to last more than 2 Hours. That is where Forensics can provide evidence.

tomo, interesting links to Raedweld and Richard North

All Councils have Emergency plans, as previously mentioned here:
Jun 18, 2017 at 2:46 PM | Steve Richards
Jun 18, 2017 at 9:42 PM | golf charlie

The Emergency Services and Voluntary Organisations rehearse regularly, AND put their accumulated knowledge and experience into practice. Councils just have meetings.

From the links you provide, it seems that other London Councils had to have a meeting to decide what they could do to help, and then they did something.

Too many Taxpayer funded salaries are paid to people who excel in Meetings, but lack any practical experience.

Thankfully, no UK Council has recent experience of dealing with disasters involving this number of deaths, but buildings across the country are available as Emergency Morgues etc, a legacy of the Cold War. The dead are unable to complain and protest.

They do have experience of this number of people becoming homeless, due to flooding etc. Sports and Leisure Centres etc were put into service in this instance. With flooding, most people manage to escape with, or subsequently retrieve, Bank Cards and other critical possessions. With Flooding, Councils rely on Home Owners (or their Tenants) having Insurance Companies and Policies to cover all costs involved with rehousing and provide the staff to deal with the problems.

Most (?) Councils have sold their Housing , and transferred their obligations as Landlords, to Housing Associations etc, such as KCTMO.

Tomo. BBC Radio 4 had a report last night (around 10.15pm?) of a meeting where the leader of the K&C Council read out a written statement about Grenfell, only to stop and terminate the meeting when he was informed that journalists were present. Democracy in action over at Kensington and Chelsea?

Say there was a design brief.

To kill 100 civilians in a slow and excruciating and terrifying manner. And make it appear as an accident of fate.

I am not sure any design team could have done a better job. Long term planning, everything perfectly in place. And then just wait for the trigger.

Experts here, experts there. Even journalism now has no value because all they do is hide behind experts. In sports journalists give assessments. All I saw in every report was "experts say".

It was so obvious. Glaringly obvious. Experts are not needed for the opinion. And with the years of inquests and public inquiries will have experts flowing into the aisles.

Also, my family has had dealings with Councils and everyone connected (lawyers, experts, courts etc. all taking their nice little cuts of the pie) and the result? Always less than the sum of their parts. And the interests those actually under discussion never considered.

How did a system by fate, come up with almost a perfect design to kill the maximum number of people?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40453054

"Documents show the zinc cladding originally proposed was replaced with an aluminium type, which was less fire resistant, saving nearly £300,000."

"The documents obtained by the BBC reveal contractors working for Kensington and Chelsea council were asked in 2014 to replace zinc cladding with a more economical aluminium version."

It is on the BBC, so it must be true. What other changes were made, for reasons of economy?

If it is true, the Contract Instructions originated with a decision by the Client, not the Contractor. Was the Variation in the Specification submitted for Approval by Building Control Inspectors and Fire Officers?

golfCharlie. Shows you just how confusing matters are. Earlier this morning I read that both types of cladding are given the same fire resistance rating, yet have seen numerous statements to the effect that zinc cladding is more resistant. Who to believe. My neighbour confirms both propositions.

Jun 30, 2017 at 11:07 AM | Supertroll

I don't have a clue either. I do know that the terminology used by manufacturers is intended to fit with the requirements of Legislation.

Fire Resistant, Fire Proof, etc are not the same and have various classifications.

Product A and Product B both look the same, even though they are NOT the same. Subtle benefits of Product A may be ignored for the cheaper Product B.

Jun 30, 2017 at 11:07 AM | Supertroll

Numerous samples of the Cladding Material USED on Grenfell Tower have been "tested", and they "failed". I do not know what the test was, or what constituted a fail.

We do not know how the Cladding Material originally specified would have faired in a similar test.

Any proprietary Cladding Material needs to be installed in accordance with the manufacturers instructions to perform in accordance with the designers intentions.

For example, if panels were secured by fixings screwed into plastic wallplugs, it would not take much heat for panels to fall off. Slate roofs need replacing not because the slates have deteriorated, but because the fixing nails have failed through rust (known as nail sickness)

Forensics will be able to confirm whether the Cladding Materials/Panels were installed as intended, and if a chimney effect was inevitable.