Original Tower

• Floors: 24

• Completed: 1974

• Residential units: 120

Grenfell Tower comprises 20 storeys of residential flats and four storeys of community/office spaces at podium level. It is roughly square in plan and the residential floors are identical: 4no. 2-bed flats – one on each corner –and 2no. 1-bed flats – one facing east and the other west. The north and south elevations are almost identical, as are the east and west.

The structural frame: columns, core, stairs and floor plates are in-situ poured concrete. Pre-cast concrete panels form the cladding to the residential floors: one panel type serves as a horizontal structural spandrel, spanning column to column and the other is a facing to the columns, each panel a full storey height.

Grenfell Tower, Lancaster West Estate by w_faich, on Flickr

 

Refurbishment

• Planning application: Kensington & Chelsea PP/12/04097

• Client: KCTMO Limited

• Main contractor: Rydon

• Contract Value: £8.7 million

• Contract Period: 66 weeks

• Internal reconfiguration of podium levels and external reclad

• 7 new residential units (three at the mezzanine level, four at the walkway +1 level)

Refurb summary from Rydon:

"Rydon delivered an £8.6m upgrade to the 24-storey Grenfell Tower as part of a £57m borough-wide regeneration in Kensington & Chelsea, London. Located in the Lancaster West Estate in North Kensington, the project on the 1970s-built tower has delivered a number of improvements, with residents still in occupation, to the community facilities and energy efficiency of the building. Additional new homes have also been created using vacant space. Externally, rain screen cladding, curtain wall façade and replacement windows were fitted, improving thermal insulation and modernising the exterior of the building. Internally, lower floor space was remodelled to incorporate extra new homes as well as a nursery, which was relocated from another part of the building. A completely new heating system was installed, which contributes to reducing living costs of residents. Resident liaison is an important part of this redevelopment and residents were actively consulted as the project progressed. Rydon achievied a BREEAM rating and secured eco funding from KCTMO."

 

At 3:03am on the BBC News Channel:

 

Fire Rages At London Apartment Building
CBS Pittsburgh | 13 June 2017

 

Massive fire engulfs London block of flats
The Star Online | 13 June 2017

 

Massive fire blazes through London high-rise
Fox News | 13 June 2017

 

I wonder how much longer can the structure stiand before collapsing. It's been almost four hours since the fire break out.

 

Buildings in this time had over-dimensioned strucuture. At least in Brazil.

Here we had several blazes like happened to Grenfell in the 1970's and the buildings has been recovered, improved and are still used until today.

 

Photo by @Natalie_Oxford

 

Photo by @Natalie_Oxford

 

Apparently there was even an action group for the fire risk inside the building.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/grenfell-tower-still-a-fire-risk/

 

According to that site, there were major concerns about fire risk.

 

Absolutely shocking! This building is still occupied and is burning like a dry Christmas tree.

If this building is of concrete construction, how could a fire spread as it clearly has. Hope its not a case of combustible new insulated metal cladding from China which caused a series of high rise fires a few years ago.

The images of the combustible furniture dumped in the hallways is also terrible. Kensington and Chelsea seem to be trying to upgrade their council housing stock but something has gone very terribly wrong.

Its an awful happening, though SE9 you have done a great service in providing this background info.

 

Clearly the cladding went up and the building burned from the outside in. Same deal as Camberwell. Without checking, what do the building regs have to say about recladding and new window schemes? I've watched these again and again and wondered how and why floor to ceiling UPVC windows are allowed and flammable composite claddings are installed... other than he fact that they're cheap. Neither would be allowed on a new building because of the obvious risk of upward spread of fire.

 

London Fire: 200 fire fighters called to west London blaze
TRT World

 

Just checked the building regs and they are clear about the risk of fire spread up the outside of a building in B4 section 12.5 to 12.9 so this should not be possible in a new building. Seems the same rules do not apply to recladding schemes. Why, I do not know.

 

Some news organisations are incorrectly reporting Grenfell Tower as having 27 floors.

The building comprises 24 levels post-refurbishment (4 podium levels, 20 residential levels):

 

Advice in the event of fire:

 

 

Grenfell Tower in 2016, following its refurbishment:

 

Cladding design brief for the Grenfell Tower refurb:

 

The Material Palette for the Grenfell Tower refurbishment:

 

The Material Palette for the Grenfell Tower refurbishment:

I don't suppose you have the pallette for the internal finishes too? Like others in this thread I don't think the cladding is the only culprit contributing to rapid flame spread in this instance. Rapid flame spread over multiple layered painted surfaces is a well known and documented problem going back to the Mostyn, Kings Cross and Gloucester Grove fires. I'd be interested to see what the last internal finishes applied were, if it was Dulux Trade (or any similar product), then we may have found another culprit. A "fire upgrading system" should have been used, which is compliant with the BS476 test and is covered in Approved Document B.

 

The refurbishment also apparently included a smoke exhaust system, but with that size fire it looks like it wasn't sufficient. Also no fire alarm sounding and cladding that appears to have burned very quickly. It doesn't look good at all.

 

The blog posted earlier has made a post about the fire. Not good reading...

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/grenfell-tower-fire/

 

From Twitter:
Seems the company have taken down the refurbishment details now.

Edit: Seems they have put the information back up.

Same for the company that supplied the smoke-ventilation systems (WITT UK). Original: http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...he:http://wittukgroup.co.uk/grenfell-tower-london-w11-1tq-regeneration-project/ … Now: http://bit.ly/2tkGcKH

 

@SE9 – thanks for compiling all the pics and info.

What a terrible tragedy.

 

IMG-20170614-WA0000 by Starscraper1980, on Flickr

Taken by my brother at Canary Wharf earlier this morning.