Massive Apartment Fire in London

[bob48]

No sprinkler system, and the fire alarm was not active.

[Gusington]

How is that even remotely legal??

[Jarhead0331]

How is that even remotely legal??

Its not.

[bob48]

This will, I suspect, be part of the investigation. The whole sorry mess will likely come down to cost-cutting by the local authorities. Somewhere, though, someone must have authorised the using of inferior materials, and that should not be too difficult to establish. I would not want to be in that persons shoes given the current mood of the country.

Of course, the company that carried out the work on the building went into liquidation, but there should, by law, still be records available, and certainly the records maintained by the local council should be available for auditing.

There will be many people who live in similar building who will now be feeling very insecure and wanting some answers with regards to their own safety. My youngest son lives in an apartment block (although not in that area) and its made him look more closely at safety aspects.

[Marty Ward]

How can you build a high rise without a fire suppresson system? Jesus you need to install a sprinkler system in new single family homes here!

[Barthheart]

How can you build a high rise without a fire suppresson system? Jesus you need to install a sprinkler system in new single family homes here!

Really?

[DoctorQuest]

How can you build a high rise without a fire suppresson system? Jesus you need to install a sprinkler system in new single family homes here!

Where is "here"?

[Marty Ward]

How can you build a high rise without a fire suppresson system? Jesus you need to install a sprinkler system in new single family homes here!

Really?

Yes. In most counties here any new construction home must have a sprinkler system, or some other fire suppression system, installed. If your wife thought smoke detectors conflicted with the decor wait until they need to deal with sprinkler heads sticking out of the ceiling! :)

[Marty Ward]

How can you build a high rise without a fire suppresson system? Jesus you need to install a sprinkler system in new single family homes here!

Where is "here"?

Maryland.

California and DC also have the requirement. Take a guess if Maryland is a Red or Blue State :)

http://www.firesprinklerinitiative.org/legislation/sprinkler-requirements-by-state.aspx

[Bison]

How can you build a high rise without a fire suppresson system? Jesus you need to install a sprinkler system in new single family homes here!

Where is "here"?

Maryland.

California and DC also have the requirement. Take a guess if Maryland is a Red or Blue State :)

http://www.firesprinklerinitiative.org/legislation/sprinkler-requirements-by-state.aspx

Doesn't Maryland tax you for rain runoff?

[Marty Ward]

Doesn't Maryland tax you for rain runoff?

We called it the Rain Tax! O'Malley signed it. I hope he was sufficiently humiliated by his failed Presidential bid to just leave us alone forever.

Hogan made it an optional assessment for each county affected. Only 9 counties and Baltimore City had to pay it, as if the runoff from the other counties didn't make it to the Bay!!.

[Zulu1966]

How is that even remotely legal??

Its not.

Ah yes but this is the good old UK. It is true new buildings need a sprinkler system. But it is not required by law to retro fit them to existing buildings. There are currently around 4000 tower blocks in the UK with no fire suppression system - and no compulsion on local authorities to fit them. So they spent 8.6 million making the building look nice and didon't spend 200k fitting sprinklers.

[Gusington]

4000. How many people does that put in danger? Half million? More?

[mirth]

Detailed article on why Grenfell Tower burned so rapidly and intensely

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/world/europe/grenfell-tower-london-fire.html

[JudgeDredd]

So - the latest is the cladding on 27 blocks of flats in England (so far) have failed fire safety tests