‘Approved’ replacement cladding fails fire test
As a result of the test failure the cladding’s official assessment of fire safety is no longer valid.
By Gerard Tubb, Sky News Correspondent, and Nick Stylianou, Sky News Producer
Government assurances about fire safety in tower blocks have been thrown into doubt after Sky News discovered a previously approved cladding system has failed a fire test.
It is thought scores of high-rise buildings have been fitted with cladding consisting of combustible Xtratherm Safe-R foam insulation and fire-resistant ACM panels which had been assessed as capable of complying with building regulations.
As a result of the test failure the cladding’s official assessment of fire safety, which was published in 2015 and is relied on by architects and developers, is no longer valid.
Xtratherm told Sky News: “As a response to the tragedy in Grenfell, we as a responsible manufacturer felt it prudent to validate this assessment and commissioned a full-scale test. The build-up did not pass.”
The initial assessment was carried out by UK firm Exova, who also carried out last month’s fire test. They confirmed that the system “failed to meet the criteria” and the assessment has been withdrawn.
Xtratherm did not say how many tower blocks have fitted their assessed cladding system but one industry insider said there could be more than 50 high-rise buildings at risk.
Residents and landlords of affected buildings may not be aware their cladding could be unsafe because nothing has been said publicly about the test failure by the Government, the certification bodies involved or by Xtratherm which paid for both the original approval and the latest test.
Combustible cladding on the outside of tower blocks fitted to meet government energy-saving regulations has been contentious since it was blamed for spreading the fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, which killed 71 people.
In response to the disaster the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) launched the Hackitt Review of building regulations, appointed an independent expert advisory panel, and paid for seven cladding systems to be fire tested.
It issued detailed guidance to the owners of tower blocks including that combustible plastic-filled panels on the outside should be removed and replaced.
In the almost eight months since the Grenfell disaster removal work has started on just 57 of the 160 social housing tower blocks affected.
According to government figures released last month there are still 299 residential or public high-rise buildings which are “unlikely to meet current building regulation guidance” on fire safety.
Buildings fitted with the Xtratherm and Alucobond system will not be included in that number.
Government assurances about fire safety in tower blocks have been thrown into doubt after Sky News discovered that a previously approved cladding system has failed a fire test.
At least one tower block owner, the Peabody housing association, removed combustible panels after the Grenfell Tower fire and fitted the Xtratherm system.
It is thought the new Alucobond panels which are in the process of being fitted over the existing Xtratherm insulation at its Lucent Point shared ownership housing block in Lewisham cost around £500,000.
It is unclear who will pay if those panels now have to be removed and replaced.
The system was given the green light under a building regulation standard known as BR135 via a paper-based exercise called a desktop study assessment. These cost a few thousand pounds, in contrast with up to £40,000 for the official fire test known as British Standard 8414.
Advice from the independent expert advisory panel set up to ensure buildings are safe and published by MHCLG in December 2017 tells building owners they can still rely on desktop assessments.
“Where only a technical assessment (sometimes referred to as a desktop study) of the likely performance of particular external wall systems has been undertaken and where directly applicable BS 8414 test data is not available, the technical basis of such assessments should be checked,” it said.
A spokesperson for MHCLG said: “We are already restructuring guidance and tightening restrictions on the use of desktop studies, as recommended by Dame Judith Hackitt in her independent interim report… Building owners should seek their own professional advice, including where only a desktop study is available.”
Exova told Sky News it conducts all assessments according to the regulations.
Government assurances about fire safety in tower blocks have been thrown into doubt after Sky News discovered that a previously approved cladding system has failed a fire test.
“We carefully review and analyse all relevant new evidence and guidance when it, and subsequent test evidence, is made available to us,” it said.
“Once we have completed a review and better understand this new evidence, we will consider it in relation to assessments we have undertaken in the past and take appropriate action, including their withdrawal if required.”
Answering an Urgent Question in the House of Commons, housing minister Dominic Raab told MPs critical of fire safety advice for landlords: “There is no new advice because the existing advice is sound.”
Shadow housing minister John Healey told Sky News that claim is no longer valid.
“The pattern of response from the government has been across the piece is too slow, too confused, too narrow,” he said.
“They simply can’t tell us yet how many buildings have unsafe cladding and insulation on them they’ve got to do a great deal more both to issue fresh advice and take action to make sure those buildings are identified and all the remedial work to remove the danger is done.”
The Xtratherm test failure comes less than a week after the BR135 report for the Celotex insulation that burned on Grenfell Tower was withdrawn when its manufacturer announced errors in its original fire test.