Hi
In light of last weeks tragic incident at Grenfell we are understandably seeing a lot of concerns from staff regarding the use of cladding in our own premises, as I'm sure a lot of you are too. We are now looking at our own estate to establish whether we are exposed in any way.
Our premises are offices, some of them quite high (9 storeys) mainly built in the last 10 years and we do have cladding. I have to be honest and say that when conducting fire risk assessments I've included cladding in the description of the premises, but not really looked any further into the type of kind used. Instead relying on the building control process to make sure this was to standard and safe.
With tragic incidents like these, afterwards there is often (and should be) a period of self reflection and looking to see how we can learn (both as individuals and for the organisations we work for). While I'm sure there will be many findings from Grenfell, and I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions. But the issue of cladding seems to be a major factor, and has been in a number of incidents worldwide. So I'm starting with that issue to try and find out what we have installed and where.
The actions we've identified so far are to look at what buildings have cladding , and review documentation to see what specification it is.
* how do we identify what kind of cladding is used where we don't have the information to hand?
* does the issue relate only to aluminium cladding or are all claddings to be reviewed (some are rendered in concrete - but who knows what behind it)
* what is the minimum specification that we can have comfort with?
* where a building is under 18m (not requiring limited combustibility) should we take further action? If the exterior is combustible it would still raise issues from a property protection if not a life safety perspective.
I thought I would appeal to the wisdom of the forum to understand what action you are taking or indeed what you think a reasonable response is. If you disagree with anything I've outlined that would be of use as well.
Many thanks for reading.
F123
