fire in London tower block

[Oldddudders]

Whatever happened to rising butt hinges?

[Mark Saunders]

Whatever happened to rising butt hinges?

Still defeated by wedges and fire extinguishers but in some places they are held open by mag' locks that release on activation of the fire system!

 

Mark Saunders

[Mallard60022]

I agree. In 2006 MiL broke her hip (she was at the time in 1st floor flat) and spent 5 months in hospital.  The Council rehoused her in quite a decent ground floor flat just across the road, so far so good. 

 

The door to the kitchen from the lounge had a really heavy spring on it, and I mean really heavy. It was pretty stiff for myself or wife to open the door, no way could a frail 85 y/o open it.  As it happened, she was pretty much chairbound and had carers visting 4 times per day so she never went into the kitchen in the 4 years she had left.  However, if she had still been ambulatory we'd have had to wedge the door open or get a man to loosen the spring (if possible) negating the point of the self-closing spring in the first place.  

Just as a point of interest, things like these door closers you mention (and many other household situations such as bathing and toileting), in both social and private housing, can be advised upon by communtity Occupational Therapists (if there are any left after the local Government Social Services and NHS cutbacks). Slightly O.T. (see what I did there?) but maybe not everyone knows about this service.

My SWMBO advises me that dealing with fire regs and similar was a bit difficult but the local Brigades she dealt with were always very helpful indeed and carried a lot of 'clout' with stubborn Councils.

Phil

Edited June 27, 2017 by Mallard60022

[Guius]

Whatever happened to rising butt hinges?

The bottom just dropped out of the market.

 

Guy

[Mallard60022]

The bottom just dropped out of the market.

 

Guy

I almost posted something similar but decided against it. However, well done for lightening the mood a little.

From today's news it appears that a great deal of rethinking related to this situation is happening throughout the land. Not before time? 

Sadly, as has been mentioned many times already, it can take a tragic fire event (remember the Bradford City FC and the Kings Cross Tube fires) to create action.

I remember visiting some student accommodation (not the Uni's blocks,but private rented stuff) in Bristol in the late 90s and I was absolutely shocked by the lack of fire safety measures.  It really was very scarey indeed.........but the students would not have/did not appear to have even noticed! I suspect things may not have changed that much?

Phil

[Horsetan]

.....I remember visiting some student accommodation (not the Uni's blocks,but private rented stuff) in Bristol in the late 90s and I was absolutely shocked by the lack of fire safety measures.  It really was very scarey indeed.........but the students would not have/did not appear to have even noticed! I suspect things may not have changed that much?

 

Slightly OT, but sometimes private developers don't exactly help themselves either - this particular incident near my area led to a complete redesign and a very large insurance claim!

[hayfield]

Another thing which is coming into discussion, which no one wants to talk about for understandable reasons, is the incidence of theft and vandalism in social housing.

 

A nephew of mine is involved in refurbishing a terrace of Edwardian workmen's houses, knocking three or four of them into a single residence. He reckons it will be nice, when it's done... the street is being converted from about 20 original houses into four or five, with parking round the back etc. The as-bought condition was appalling - previous tenants had stripped them to the point where they were beyond economic repair, and the hapless BTL landlord had simply dumped them on the market, to cut his losses.

 

 

Certainly Camden is a mixed flats with owner occupiers and tenants. The vast majority of tenants being decent law abiding and considerate folk.

 

There are however a small section of the population who are anti social, many with social problems with what is now described as chaotic lifestyles, some being dangerous to both themselves and others.

 

Others living a completely a different lifestyle with no regard to either the law or others.

 

Then you have the rogue landlords, who rent out their social housing to those who are under the radar, normally overcrowding the properties with all the issues this causes

 

With this mixture no wonder the places get vandalised, badly treated and in some cases hazardous, so far no one has found the answer, and I guess having to repair / replace items which have been damaged constantly leads to ethos of is it worth doing just to come back again quickly to repair the repair

 

Perhaps after this tragedy another area that will need addressing is what to do with tenants who regularly damage property and put others in danger, or abuse their tenancy with either illegal activities or sub letting. 

[Horsetan]

.....a small section of the population who are anti social, many with social problems with what is now described as chaotic lifestyles, some being dangerous to both themselves and others.

 

Others living a completely a different lifestyle with no regard to either the law or others.

 

Then you have the rogue landlords, who rent out their social housing to those who are under the radar, normally overcrowding the properties with all the issues this causes

 

With this mixture no wonder the places get vandalised, badly treated and in some cases hazardous, so far no one has found the answer, and I guess having to repair / replace items which have been damaged constantly leads to ethos of is it worth doing just to come back again quickly to repair the repair

 

Perhaps after this tragedy another area that will need addressing is what to do with tenants who regularly damage property and put others in danger, or abuse their tenancy with either illegal activities or sub letting. 

 

Where might you be going with this one? I can think of a few ideas, but I think they would be deemed unlawful.

[chris p bacon]

What we're talking about here are people who by reason of being unlucky enough to be born with low intelligence, or who are afflicted with mental problems, or who drew bad parents in the lottery of life, and/or who fell prey to people who make a stack of money out of alcohol or illegal drugs, end-up deeply troubled, and tend to cause trouble to those around them.

 

In a civilised society we'd be talking about how best to avoid the cycle perpetuating.

 

Is RMWeb a civilised society?

 

Kevin

 

This is going OT but it isn't always because of those reasons. I was amazed to learn recently that someone who was just finishing his degree was dabbling in drugs, his parents were horrified, but to him it was " whats the big deal, it's my choice". This is an intelligent person who had no debt or problems to escape from.

 

Sadly the cycle will continue and there is very little to stop it.

[Jonboy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40420954 Similar block in Germany now being evacuated over cladding. Edited June 27, 2017 by Jonboy

[Nearholmer]

I zapped the post, because I realised I'd misunderstood which windmill Horsetan was tilting at, but I'd put your instance under the heading "falling prey", although I do admit that the case of very intelligent, privileged young people dabbling has a very long history , going back at least to the romantic poets.

 

Part of the faintly insane rebellious phase that we all went through in one way or another?

Edited June 27, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Mallard60022]

I zapped the post, because I realised I'd misunderstood which windmill Horsetan was tilting at, but I'd put your instance under the heading "falling prey", although I do admit that the case of very intelligent, privileged young people dabbling has a very long history , going back at least to the romantic poets.

Actually your zapped post hit a note that resounds and is a situation that is deffo to do with lack of resources and not a lot of good thinking from the authorities. Mental Health support in particular is bouncing along the bottom at the moment despite Harry's input. A significant number of those in overcrowded prisons are those that should be in a better place and then many folk with 'difficulties' are now living in the community (and rightly so if the correct support is there) where they are not always safe and secure. Prisons are not fit for purpose in many cases and certainly not the place to deal with Mental Health treatment and Rehab. One of the few High Security facilities is near where I live. It has just received a scathing report after Inspection stating that understaffing and lack of funding is resulting in poor conditions for Patients and Staff. 

This thread is about a terrible fire and yet the bigger story about 'problems' in the community to me illustrates that we as a Country are struggling to cope because maybe many are unwilling to take difficult decisions or create more funding for such situations? Departments such as those in Social Services dealing with vulnerable people and mental health professionals are struggling to cope. Overall there needs to be a huge rethink about what's going on here.

Phil

[jjb1970]

On the subject of human behaviours I tend to think that a good part of it is the permissiveness of our society. Now I am not disputing that there are people with mental health problems who need help, or that some people are let down by parents from hell or who suffer terrible economic hardship. However none of these factors can obscure the fact that there are severely dysfunctional people who have no sense of ethics or social responsibility (or as you might say, there are bad people out there). Decades of government policy, post industrial decline, educationalists and criminologists have brought us to a point where a not insignificant part of society exists as an almost feral underclass, yet pointing fingers at failed social experiments and economic changes cannot in itself explain (or excuse) anti-social behaviour for the simple reason that the majority of those who have had to endure the same conditions are law abiding, caring people who for example take their parental responsibilities seriously. I grew up adjacent to a sink estate and attended a state school alongside the kids from that estate, over the years it has been interesting and entirely predictable to observe some of the life trajectories of my school contemporaries. Most have done OK for themselves but quite a few became career petty (and not so petty) criminals with drug problems and more, and in most cases those trajectories were the result of decisions and choices made by the individuals. I often wonder what might have happened if they'd been subject to tough love and discipline rather than existing in a culture where they were allowed to just go into a spiral of crime by the quiescence of educationalists and the law and order system.

[Nearholmer]

Mallard

 

This thread is contributed to by several evidently well-schooled engineers, who are advocates of proper root-cause analysis, asking "why, why, why, why, why", to get to the bottom of a matter.

 

I never cease to be amazed (sorry, sounds like a letter to The Daily Telegraph) by the inability or unwillingness of many who comment upon, and indeed many who work with, social issues to (a) adopt rigorous root-cause analysis, and/or (b) act in accordance with its findings.

 

A neighbour of mine was a senior social worker, and until I told him about it while we were out walking our dogs, had never even heard of RCA - to his credit, he got very into it, and arranged for one of the foremost RCA experts in the UK to speak at a conference of social workers.

 

Unless or until social matters are treated to a genuine RCA-based approach, which implies spending a stack of resource on things like Sure Start, preventative mental health, genuinely sheltered living places for the very vulnerable, and punishing exploiters like drug barons really, really hard etc etc, the dysfunctional will always be with us, and we will always be wasting money keeping them in misery, whether that be prisons, or cr@p-quality housing.

 

Rant temporarily suspended!

 

Kevin

Edited June 27, 2017 by Nearholmer

[rockershovel]

But, but, but... apply RCA to social issues and what do you get? It's all very well to deduce a root cause, that a fastening has failed because it wasn't strong enough for the load put upon it. Any fool can understand that, even if the original designer didn't appear to be among their number.

 

But social work is a matter of belief, not facts; a Lewis Carroll world in which there are no absolutes, and everything is a matter of interpretation.

[EddieB]

But social work is a matter of belief, not facts; a Lewis Carroll world in which there are no absolutes, and everything is a matter of interpretation.

Indeed, that just about describes post-modernism, and the spirit of the present age.

[Guius]

On the subject of human behaviours I tend to think that a good part of it is the permissiveness of our society. Now I am not disputing that there are people with mental health problems who need help, or that some people are let down by parents from hell or who suffer terrible economic hardship. However none of these factors can obscure the fact that there are severely dysfunctional people who have no sense of ethics or social responsibility (or as you might say, there are bad people out there). Decades of government policy, post industrial decline, educationalists and criminologists have brought us to a point where a not insignificant part of society exists as an almost feral underclass, yet pointing fingers at failed social experiments and economic changes cannot in itself explain (or excuse) anti-social behaviour for the simple reason that the majority of those who have had to endure the same conditions are law abiding, caring people who for example take their parental responsibilities seriously. I grew up adjacent to a sink estate and attended a state school alongside the kids from that estate, over the years it has been interesting and entirely predictable to observe some of the life trajectories of my school contemporaries. Most have done OK for themselves but quite a few became career petty (and not so petty) criminals with drug problems and more, and in most cases those trajectories were the result of decisions and choices made by the individuals. I often wonder what might have happened if they'd been subject to tough love and discipline rather than existing in a culture where they were allowed to just go into a spiral of crime by the quiescence of educationalists and the law and order system.

Very strong opinion opinions there on the nature of our socio-economic woes in post industrial Britain. The "feral" untermensch class you describe are just people, I'll expand a little if I may, but for the intervening years these are exactly the people who fought and died for our freedom in two World Wars. Further back still these are the self same people who where worked into early graves in appalling conditions to create the first industrial economy in the world. The people you are so quick to denigrate are a product of our society and they to be found in greater or lesser numbers in all countries.Quiet frankly the idea that you could "entirely predict" the course of an individuals life events at an early age is laughable in its pomposity. At any given gathering of City bankers, brokers, traders, lawyers etc. I would suggest you'll find the same proportion of drug users and criminals as in your "underclass" just better dressed. 

 

Guy

[Horsetan]

....Part of the faintly insane rebellious phase that we all went through in one way or another?

 

Some are still rebelling today. They even head political parties.

[The Stationmaster]

 

Slightly OT, but sometimes private developers don't exactly help themselves either - this particular incident near my area led to a complete redesign and a very large insurance claim!

 

But it hasn't stopped timber frame construction being used on a massive scale in Britain, and with buildings packed closely together.  Every time I see pictures or film of a timber frame building being erected I must admit to lots of 'what if ...' thoughts.

[DougN]

Umm, to make a couple of comments:-

 

Mag release door closers- These Magnetic hold open's which can be either wall mounted or the more expensive version in the closer them selves. These work on a drop in voltage from the Fire detection system IE they are charged all the time. These are generally used on doors that are in corridors to "compartmentalize" the building. Very efficient for life safety from my experience they are also relatively cheap to install. They also release on power failure therefore not draining the Fire dectection systems batteries.

 

The UK's fire/ Building regulations I find curious. Here in Australia under the NCC internal to any SOU (single occupancy unit) there is no requirements for door closers between living spaces. Ie Kitchen to lounge etc. Generally a Class 1 or 10 building is a stand alone house. Class 2 is apartments/ flats with common passage ways either on one or more level. This is where Grenfell gets interesting for me as I am building apartment blocks on a regular basis.

 

Generally Each SOU is fire rated for 90min (90/90/90)  from the rest of the building. This includes the external cladding from fire out side to in and vs versa (OK getting into the confusing bit of fire rating). 

 

Any apartment block (up to 25m high) must have a Fire rated escape of 120/120/120 (min) with Hydrants over 2 stories, Fire hose reels in various areas as well.  Also they must be no more than 30m from any point in the building to the exit including twists and turns through door ways, addressable fire detection (means the Fire indicator panel (FIP) will ring the fire brigade!) The FIP will also identify which detector has gone off! On top of that there will be a fire engineers report stating any further requirements such as water flow, pressure supply rates, Booster connections and access around the building. Let alone Booster connections with in 10m of a "fire source"must also be sprinkler protected to any openings. 

 

There is also one major item here in Australia this is practically drilled into every one because of our bush fires but goes to all buildings as well. "Leave and leave early" Our fire brigade also has a habit of evacuating all surrounding buildings as well. They have no interest in saving the building over the saving of life. Which no doubt is the same as the UK Fire services. 

 

From a professional point of view the Building code in the UK needs to be totally up graded. The interesting comment to this is the Australian code has no interest in the age / historical nature of the building fabric when it comes to fire protection. Saving life will always override practically all other requirements, as a side effect this also saves the historic buildings! 

[kevinlms]

Actually your zapped post hit a note that resounds and is a situation that is deffo to do with lack of resources and not a lot of good thinking from the authorities. Mental Health support in particular is bouncing along the bottom at the moment despite Harry's input. A significant number of those in overcrowded prisons are those that should be in a better place and then many folk with 'difficulties' are now living in the community (and rightly so if the correct support is there) where they are not always safe and secure. Prisons are not fit for purpose in many cases and certainly not the place to deal with Mental Health treatment and Rehab. One of the few High Security facilities is near where I live. It has just received a scathing report after Inspection stating that understaffing and lack of funding is resulting in poor conditions for Patients and Staff. 

This thread is about a terrible fire and yet the bigger story about 'problems' in the community to me illustrates that we as a Country are struggling to cope because maybe many are unwilling to take difficult decisions or create more funding for such situations? Departments such as those in Social Services dealing with vulnerable people and mental health professionals are struggling to cope. Overall there needs to be a huge rethink about what's going on here.

Phil

Yet at the same time, many governments around the world, are quick to drop company tax rates, to allegedly encourage business growth. But what happens to the expenses that governments have, either it adds to the overall debt, or services/standards get cut, or increasingly both.

[rockershovel]

Really, none of this is anything new.

 

George Orwell posited a class of "proles... who had reverted to an ancestral life" in "1984". His "proles" lived in a 1940s world of full employment in heavy industry, but practiced a great deal of criminality, prostitution, gambling, heavy drinking and drug use amongst themselves. Among Dickens' iconic monsters, Bill Sykes is a violent criminal, Fagin an organiser of child crime, the Artful Dodger is actually a rather nasty piece of work and Nancy, a prostitute. Hogarth depicted similar people, and similar conditions in the 1750s.

 

Boredom, lack of education and opportunity, insecurity and poverty, the effects of heavy manual work in all sorts of conditions and poor quality housing, access to cheap drink. Always a losing combination.

[EddieB]

Yet at the same time, many governments around the world, are quick to drop company tax rates, to allegedly encourage business growth. But what happens to the expenses that governments have, either it adds to the overall debt, or services/standards get cut, or increasingly both.

I don't know how corporate taxation is affected, but personal taxation works counter-intuitively - reducing the tax rate generally leads to a greater overall tax take (and vice versa).  Some politicians understand this, many do not.  Even more startling is that, rather than adding to national debt or reducing services, Governments can reduce their expenses - principally by removing layers of bureaucracy.

 

With the way most countries organise corporate taxation, and trans-national businesses become less dependent on fixed premises, those companies are able to "relocate" (essentially a name on a door) to lower tax regimes.  Many countries are in a "race to the bottom" thinking they will increase their tax receipts by attracting more businesses to their lower tax regime.  This is foolish, and what is needed is to tax profits in the country they are realised - more complicated, but not beyond the wit of man.

[Nearholmer]

Rocker

 

Indeed, "the underclass" gets billing in all sorts of literature, including, of course, political theory, "the lumpen proletariat" for instance.

 

But, if you want to move beyond "the poor will always be with us", it is necessary to take some action ........ the problem being: what action will actually do any lasting good? Which is why I bang on about an RCA-based approach, because if one can get beyond opinion and orthodoxy, to understand what real root causes are, and then act on that knowledge, things could be changed.

 

The current generation are effectiv my "a car crash that already happened", so 'first aid' and punishment in the time-dishonoured way, the real target is to reduce the number of car crashes generation on generation.

 

Alternative? Pull up the drawbridge, dig the moat, arm yourself, and live in the medieval compound ......... ever been to Pakistan? It's the ultimate in divided societies, which, if you take the religious toxicity out, could be a prototype for the "small government" model ...... and it is b horrible.

 

Kevin

[jjb1970]

Or maybe pomposity is living in denial of as serious social issue. Who are the losers in this society we live in? Not the wealthy or the middle classes who are able to practice economic segregation and exist in a world which for the most part is completely separated from those left behind and who are able to manipulate government services so as to ensure their children are able to attend the better schools, access good healthcare etc. OK they (or if you like, I’ll) admit to whinging about taxes but it doesn’t alter the fact that they (we) live a comfortable existence shielded from the underside of society. The losers are those who cannot escape the ghettos of sink estates and slum land lords, whose lives are reduced to misery by being forced to live alongside people who are violent, aggressive, see anybody else’s property as fair game to take and who are just abandoned in areas with no regard for those around them. Why is a sink estate a sink estate? In many cases when I was growing up council housing stock was better built, larger and altogether nicer than the typical two up two down terraces of most home owners or private tenants, yet they slowly became societal sin bins in a vicious circle where as more problem tenants were dumped there more decent people wanted out, to be replaced by more problem tenants etc. The problem was not poor housing.

Maybe I’m just blessed with good judgement, but when I watched a kid get expelled from my school for threatening to kick a young teacher in her private parts followed by physically assaulting another teacher and then being expelled from his next school for similar behaviour it was not really that surprising that after multiple sort prison spells for the usual youthful japes of burglary and brawling he ended up with a rather long sentence for almost kicking a young French student to death after he was offended by the presence of somebody speaking French. We lived next door to each other and played with each other for many years and it was noticeable how he changed from being a sort of loveable rogue into a thoroughly nasty piece of work. His behaviour wasn’t the result of poverty (he had clothes, plenty to eat, a warm home, the opportunity to be educated), it was something else. And I saw plenty of kids like him in school. I think it is too easy, incorrect and profoundly offensive to blame poverty for such people. The majority of people in the sink estates I grew up around were good people, caring people, whose lives ended up ruined by a sub-set of society dumped in their midst and by permissive policies that just allowed the problem to grow and to become a vicious circle of decay in which more people are dragged into a version of hell which destroys their lives.

Most social indicators in the UK show that social mobility has gone into reverse despite decades of government efforts to support those at the base of society. The problem is not a lack of money (although it may be a lack of good judgement in how available funds are spent), it is something deeper and unless we figure out a way of reversing it and lifting those at the bottom of the society up we are heading for an explosion.