Thread by @PeteApps

Here is a tale of the building safety crisis which encapsulates so many of the failures which have led us to this point.

Gather round. We begin our story in late 2013...

insidehousing.co.uk/news/failed-fi…

At around this time Kingspan K15 (a combustible plastic insulation) was the market leading brand for high rise buildings. But people in the industry were starting to ask questions about its fire safety. Was the one test which supported its use really adequate?

As a result, an organisation called the National House Building Council (NHBC) told Kingspan it needed to see more testing proving its suitability. The NHBC is a private firm which signs off new builds as compliant with regulations and also provides warranties for them

Kingspan commissioned some more tests at the BRE (formerly a government-owned laboratory, now a private company). But these tests did not go well.

A first effort in January failed. A second effort in March failed to. But this time it was a bit closer.

The test fails if flames made it above the top of the eight metre rig inside an hour. In the March test, this clearly happened 43 minutes in. But instead of stopping the test immediately (as it was supposed to) the BRE allowed it to run on. But it was still considered a failure

Kingspan challenged this. “Surely we risk making fools of ourselves?” wrote one staff member. Another responded saying they wanted to “sow some seeds to influence that result”. They cc-ed lawyers into an email to the BRE insisting it should be "interpretted as a positive result"

The BRE declined to do so, but did take the unusual step of issuing a test report anyway (they are not typically issued for failed tests). The technician who did this agreed that “very great care would need to be taken” to ensure it was not misconstrued as a pass

But he also accepted this care was not taken. In fact he said “the test report doesn’t necessarily, unless you thoroughly read it, make it clear that the system has failed”. The only way to tell this was to notice the reference to flaming above the rig at 43 minutes.

Outside of this testing regime, the market was changing. Concerned that many buildings were being approved with cladding systems that had not been tested a group of building inspectors led by the NHBC came together to find a way forward.

They ultimately settled on a system of 'desktop studies', where test data could be used to justify systems which had not been specifically tested.

This brings us on to the building in question, Turnberry Quay in east London.

That block was completed in 2017 by developer Bellway. Two years ago, an EWS1 survey found Kingspan K15 insulation behind zinc cladding which the assessor said required remediation. The building had been signed off and warrantied by the NHBC.

Two years on, residents have spent £3,500 each on legal fees, surveys and fire alarms. They have been unable to sell their homes and move. They could still face life-changing bills for remediation.

In the course of investigating this, they have obtained the desktop study, produced in 2016 by fire engineering consultancy Warringtonfire which justified the use of K15 on their building.

Among other data, this report cited the March 2014 test as evidence of the product's compliance with regulations. The test which had failed. Not to mention that, we now know other tests which passed were carried out on versions of K15 which were not on the market.

Kingspan say it's perfectly normal to use data from failed fire tests as part of the evidence in a desktop study. They say it would have been obvious to Warringtonfire's engineers that the test failed and say that much post-Grenfell testing has proved K15 can be used safely

But this is little comfort to the residents. They are yet to hear if they qualify for the Building Safety Fund. Neither NHBC (which warranties the building) or Bellway have yet confirmed they will pay for the remediation.

This story is the building safety crisis in a microcosm: a failed testing regime, non-existent oversight of the use of combustible materials and now a system which seems incapable of holding anyone to account except those who live in the block. All of it must change.

For more on the bits in this thread you can read about Kingspan's testing here:

insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insigh…

More about the BRE's role here:

insidehousing.co.uk/home/home/gren…

And more about the NHBC here:

insidehousing.co.uk/insight/grenfe…