Grenfell Tower Gas Pipes Left Exposed, Despite Fire Safety Expert’s Orders
The title of this post is that of an article in the Guardian.
Read the article and you’ll see the standard of the work done on the gas system in the tower by National Grid.
This is a paragraph.
In March, three months before the blaze, residents told the London fire brigade (LFB) that people living in the 24-storey tower were so scared by the pipes “that they are having a panic attack”.
There is a lot more like that.
Interestingly, Cadent Gas; the division of National Grid that did the work was spun off and is now owned partly by the Qatari government.
A gas system, when it is installed by nincompoops is a disaster waiting to happen.
Workmanship of the quality shown in the pictures would have been rejected by the inspectors on the chemical plants, I worked on in the 1960s, so why when the consultant rejected the installation, was action not taken by Cadent?
The gas may not have caused the Grenfell House fire, but I wonder if the unprotected gas pipe fractured in the heat of the fire and then just added to the inferno.
Help For Charlie Gard
This article on the BBC is entitled Charlie Gard: Pope and Trump offer parents support.
I think this Pope is a good man, and I suspect his kind words would be welcome.
But whilst Trummkopf does nothing to abolish the death penalty in the United States, his unwanted comments should be treated with the contempt they deserve.
The Spanish Like Their Beer
I took these pictures in Spain
I actually drunk four or possibly five different varieties of gluten-free beer in my week in the country.
I was also surprised to see gluten-free Brewdog and beer from St. Peter’s in El Cortes Ingles.
Fashion Goes Around And Around
This is the front page of today’s Times 2.
Note the bottom line.
(brace yourself for the velvet bikini)
Celia had a bright French orange velvet bikini in the mid-1970s.
Nothing is new.
If I remember Celia liked it, but then she always liked bright colours! Except yellow!
An Interesting Insight Into The Grenfell House Fire
This article on Construction News is a must read.
It describes the experiences of a Morgan Sindall employee, who lived in the tower and was in bed, when the fire started.
He works on Crossrail, so he is obviously fully-trained and actually states that training said to stay put.
He didn’t and got out safely although in very little clothing.
It does appear that the treatment of their employee by Morgan Sindall is exemplary, so it looks to me that as this story gets more well-known, they won’t be short of applicants for permanent positions in the future.
Home To A Kafkaesque Situation
I got back from holiday last night and with great difficulty managed to get in using my key, as the lock was so stiff.
I then found getting the key out was extremely difficult and after about ten minutes of pulling, I was able to get it out by using a screwdriver through the hole in the key.
I dare not go out, as suppose the key broke getting back in, then I would really be in the doodah.
As I’ve just returned from holiday, I’ve got no food in the house at all.
I actually think the problem could be just down to the heat.
Governor LePage Is Angry At Being Called A Racist
According to this article on the BBC, Governor LePage is angry at being called a racist. I’m angry too, at how such a man got to be the Governor of a US State.
The man and those who voted for him are an effing disgrace! And incredibly stupid too!
I’m thinking of going to the States around the 19th to 21st of August to see the most amazing solar eclipse of the Century. It goes through major cities like St. Louis, Kansas City and Charlestown. The latter looks the best and I can manage it without driving. Anybody fancy tagging along?
A Week North Of Seville
This holiday is proving to be a disaster. Only one reason; the heat. It is 30 now and it’s seven on the morning. Yesterday, it was 44 in the day. We’re only about twenty miles from the fires in Portugal and the fire fighting helocopters are going overhead. I think prudence says make a run for it! I’ll see after today! Everything else like food, room, people and puppies is fine. Yes puppies! Three Portuguese water dogs.
Gas Should Be Banned In All Buildings With Multiple Occupation
I am now remembering more and more of the conversations I had in the 1960s, with fellow engineers, whilst I was working at ICI Plastics Division at Welwyn Garden City.
I arrived just after the explosion in Polythene Plant No 6 at Wilton had killed two plant operators. That and the dark shadow of the Flixborough disaster changed the way the company looked at process design. My role was to do the dynamic calculations to make sure that the mathematics of the plant were safe and correct. In the design of one new plant, we looked at all possible combinations of vessels to make sure we were designing the best plant.
If this work led me to any personal conclusions, it was how dangerous gases like hydrogen and methane can be. I remember that it was found by investigators that the Six Plant explosion was caused by perhaps a couple of kilograms of ethylene gas that ignited and did a large amount of damage.
The Section I worked in, had actually installed an IBM 1800 process control computer on this plant and I heard rumours it went up in the air and when it came down, it continued to work.
Since then, I have only lived in one flat that relied on gas for cooking and that was a flat that was converted when we lived there from town gas to natural gas.
We nearly had a serious fire there, when one of the children got the matches from the gas stove and set fire to a duvet. Luckily, I smelt burning and put out the fire.
Our first real place to live was in Cromwell Tower in the Barbican. This is my thoughts as I expressed them in an e-mail to the BBC. They intended to put me on air, but the previous more important interview overran.
My late wife and myself brought our three children up in a high-rise 1960s block in the Barbican.
For safety there were escape passages everywhere, as I suspect there were in Grenfell Tower.
These passages would be ideal places for gas to seep and propagate the fire.
In my view, no tower block is safe with a gas supply, as a leak compromises safety.
According to The Times, the new gas supply was an unprotected steel pipe up the stairwell installed by National Grid! Talking to an engineer with lots of experience of pipework on oil rigs, could it just have buckled and fractured in the heat? If so, that is criminal!
Sprinklers wouldn’t have contained the resulting gas fire and the intense heat got the cladding to burn.
Note that. I joined ICI in the 1960s and worked on process design, just after a series of serious gas-related explosions in UK chemical plants. All those stories about Flixborough and other disasters told over pints of beer have come back to me.
I’ve never trusted gas in a house, and my next dwelling will probably be an all-electric flat.
Gas should never be allowed in any multiple-occupation dwelling.
This will never be made law, as so many people swear by their gas cookers and the Big Six Gas companies would lobby against it.
The Anonymous Widower 