Thursday 29 June 2017

Inflammatory comments

I hear they have appointed a retired High Court judge to head the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower business, and they still have not released the full figure of how many died. All we know is that is more than the 78 or whatever they have confirmed. A lot more.

I also hear that the same flammable polyethylene foam cladding they have used in hundreds of other tower blocks throughout the UK is made in and imported from the USA. Long before the Brexit vote, we have had a very strong trading link with the U.S. and I don't see how Brexit will affect the upper realms of business other than to force us to decrease import duties for countries who are still willing to trade with us in our weakened state.

Years ago when I used to do general building work, I - and a few others - refused to use a foam insulation board stocked by all the merchants in Britain, because it was made by the Dow Chemicals Corporation of the USA, but it was often quite difficult to find an alternative.

The reason why many builders did not want to use the Dow insulation board? Because Dow developed and supplied all the Napalm used in Vietnam. That stuff was supposed to catch fire.

15 comments:

  1. You can't buy a second-hand settle because it burns like buggery. Cladding, on the other hand....

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    1. You can buy whatever you want if you are not a landlord.

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    2. You can also sell whatever want.

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  2. What happened to BS 476.
    Did somebody forget about it?
    (BS recommendation and adopted after the Summerland fire 1973 Isle of Man). I haven't seen any one mention it.

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    1. As you would expect, people are blaming cutbacks for the lack of safety officers to check and enforce the regulations. It's not the whole problem but it has to be a part of it. Relentless austerity for 8 years changes people's attitudes too.

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    2. If you are building a private house or making alterations to an existing house Building Regs are enforced by local authorities to the nth degree.

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    3. Unless you are a government landlord or approved equivalent. Do you not understand the implications of my previous comment? I would not be at all surprised if many government employees have not heard of BS 476. I certainly haven't.

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    4. Yes I understood but I don't want to believe them.

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    5. It turns out that they saved about £300,000 on the cheaper cladding. Even more of an incentive, though I do not believe they would have opted for it unless under extreme pressure to save money.

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    6. Tender approved specs are often not specs applied in the end but not sure who "they" are you refer to.

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    7. Whoever awarded the contract, of course.

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  3. This really adds fuel to the fire - no pun intended - so interesting Tom.

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    1. In the light of this title, then that was a good pun. Lacking humour, but good.

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  4. I think Napalm was originally developed by/at Harvard University. That would probably put quite a lot of things off the builders shopping list.

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