61–70 of 95 posts
Single-stair egress costs lives. It shouldn't be allowed. They were right to ban them, no matter how 'ugly' or costly it makes the buildings.
Spreading out housing more also costs lives, just indirectly. (Increases costs, pollution, land usage, travel distance/time/risk, etc.) Very few things have a single, simplistic effect in the complex world system.
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The decorative cyan colored cladding had quite a bit to do with what caused that fire to go our of control with a bonus of cyanide gas when combusted. The cladding left a space between the building that carried the fire up the side of the building like a chimney.
Right, but as you can see in the resulting buck passing, everybody says it wasn't their fault that this obviously unsuitable material was used. The people who made it said they hadn't intended it to be for these high rise buildings (if you clad my building in this stuff it would look ugly but the fire danger isn't significant because the building isn't very tall). The people who chose it said it passed fire regulatio…
> The regulators say they thought they'd banned it.
That sounds like they're saying it is their fault.
In Tokyo there can be one stairwell, and then the balconies have foldable ladders in their floors. How about that?
Concrete stairwells are supposed to double as refuges, if you can't climb. Also devices that allow easier access to an apartment are more acceptable in Japan. In the US there is a much greater need for security oriented design.
I suspect the 6 story and shorter buildings will end up having an alternative design where the stairwell and possibly certain walls are concrete, poured around the same time as the foundation, but the remaining structure is engineered timber. The challenge is going to be convincing fire departments and insurance agencies that theyre safe enough to not prevent.
Would metal stairwells be too costly? Seems to me like it might be an easier construction job (especially with some standardized heights)
It's a thought-provoking article. I have mixed feelings about the idea: on one hand, visiting a friend's Weimar-era home in the DDR side of Berlin really impressed me. It was slightly different from those depicted in the article (it was part of a longer row of connected buildings), but the green space afforded by the courtyard was wonderful and the opportunities for community building palpable. Yet, on the other hand…
In Grenfel, the building itself won't have been particularly combustible in the first instance, but the cladding - being plastic most certainly was. Add to that the lack sprinklers, and a council that is not sympathetic to the residents there and we got a disaster. It was a confluence of indifference by the council to residents calls to sort out sprinklers and firedoors, pandering to richer residents of Kensington: t…
> the cladding only went on to make richer residents view better.
The cladding should have reduced the residents' heating bills substantially, reducing fuel poverty and helping the environment. In fact one of the reasons the building was clad in turns-out-its-highly-flammable Celotex instead of a truly non-flammable insulation like Rockwool was because of its higher U-value.
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Only the ones who are bad at geography :)
It depends on if your definition of "Europe" is purely geographic or it has a political dimension (EU vs not). In the context of building safety regulation and the UK's laxness at that, the political interpretation is definitely valid. "Geography" would be more valid if this was about rock formations or trade routes. If someone says "when it comes to building codes, the UK is no longer in Europe", then everyone knows…
The UK is in Europe.
The fact that we know what they mean by saying the UK is no longer in Europe does not make that statement any more correct.
I often see comments from people outside of Europe who think that the UK "left Europe" (not realising the distinction between Europe and the EU). I don't blame them, but I think it's worth pointing out.
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"What I found was that fire deaths that could have been prevented by a second staircase are extremely rare." I agree. At least in my limited experience, it seems a lot of the deaths in the US are related to either intoxication or sleeping. In these states, it's common for the person to have never even been aware of the danger.
> At least in my limited experience, it seems a lot of the deaths in the US are related to either intoxication or sleeping. In these states, it's common for the person to have never even been aware of the danger. That won't work as evidence that US fire policies aren't helping. You need data from somewhere where those policies aren't in place, like presumably Finland.
Policies that would help save lives are sprinklers in all houses. This policy is controversial due to the cost and maintenance involved. But the very scenario that has brought this about was a Maryland politician's son burnt down his house and died while passed out drunk. Now that state has a law requiring sprinklers.
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> Why can't we have both multiple staircases and fire-retardant construction? If your goal is to save lives, there are other things you can regulate that are orders of magnitude more cost-effective. Where the expected price of each saved life is just millions instead of billions. When there was another discussion on this topic a while ago, I spent some time reading about fire deaths in Finland. Finland is a country w…
"What I found was that fire deaths that could have been prevented by a second staircase are extremely rare." I agree. At least in my limited experience, it seems a lot of the deaths in the US are related to either intoxication or sleeping. In these states, it's common for the person to have never even been aware of the danger.
Since pushing hard for fire alarms and mandatory retrofit obligation, Germany was able to reduce fire deaths by almost 50% (study in German):
https://www.hekatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Studie_Wirksam...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but as you can see in the resulting buck passing, everybody says it wasn't their fault that this obviously unsuitable material was used. The people who made it said they hadn't intended it to be for these high rise buildings (if you clad my building in this stuff it would look ugly but the fire danger isn't significant because the building isn't very tall). The people who chose it said it passed fire regulatio…
> but as you can see in the resulting buck passing, everybody says it wasn't their fault that this obviously unsuitable material was used. > The regulators say they thought they'd banned it. That sounds like they're saying it is their fault.
As an example of this sort stuff, maybe you carefully define "Must not be used" in your legislation for banning materials and then you later actually write that a material "Should not be used". If a bunch of people die you can say "Actually we said very clearly that it shouldn't be used!" but if instead a bunch of companies are annoyed by how expensive it is to find an alternative you say "Actually we didn't ban it - we only used the word 'should'".
Five stories of timberframe? How is it good to have a fireproof ground floor, if you happen to live on the fifth?