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Building cladding was brought into stark focus following the Grenfell disaster on the 14th June 2017. The official Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry pointed towards issues with external cladding (installed between 2015 and 2016) that exacerbated the spread of the fire, and ultimately led to the block becoming engulfed in flame within 4 hours of the fire first being reported.
While the tragedy of Grenfell is something we can’t (and shouldn’t) overlook, it’s prompted significant discussions around dangerous cladding on high-rise residential buildings, and how this contributes towards resident safety, fire containment, and wider fire safety strategies (such as Waking Watch services).
Cladding refers to the external “skin” or layer that’s applied to a building after construction is complete. It’s often used to improve thermoregulation and energy efficiency, or offer additional protection against inclement weather (called “rainscreen”), but older construction may also utilise cladding to improve the aesthetics and make it more palatable to buyers, or to better fit with the current aesthetic of the surrounding area.
It can either be retrofitted (meaning that it’s applied to an already-existing building, such as high-rise flats that were built in the 1960s and 70s to provide affordable housing) or built into the construction process of a more modern building. Cladding is not needed for load-bearing purposes, meaning that it isn’t structurally integral, and effectively functions as decoration and insulation rather than as a more necessary part of the build phase.
The Fire Protection Association breaks down the construction of most cladding into two core components – the thermal insulation and the façade panel. Here’s a brief breakdown of what these are:
While these are the central parts of cladding, they’re unfortunately also a major contributor towards what can make cladding dangerous, alongside a few other key factors.
Various factors combine to make any form of cladding dangerous, with the key contributors being the overall quality of the construction, the materials used, the “core” element, and the gap between the cladding and the building itself. However, certain cladding materials make some options more dangerous than others.
Three factors are most significant in contributing to the danger level of your cladding.
All cladding, wherever it is used, will have a gap between the building itself and the cladding panels. This is referred to as a cavity, and is usually in place for ventilation, mould and rot prevention, and rainscreen purposes, as well as acting as a “chimney” which helps regulate temperatures. In most construction, it’s usually between 25mm and 50mm.
However, while that cavity does have its significant benefits and is essential in creating a habitable space for occupants, it also effectively functions as a “flue” in the event of a fire. Hot air is drawn upwards through convection currents, which can intensify any fire and allow it to spread further across the building and internally (where windows are open). The Grenfell Tower fire was characterised by this phenomenon, where flames spread rapidly across the upper floors.
In circumstances where cladding is used on high-rise buildings (such as Grenfell), having the right mitigation in place is essential. This usually takes the form of intumescent cavity barriers, which react to heat by expanding to decelerate and mitigate the spread of fire, as well as closing off any access for hot air.
Products like ARC’s Open State Cavity Barriers (OSCB) utilise a “non-combustible rockfibre mineral wool”, which effectively limits the amount of flammable material in the intumescent barriers. It also pairs well with a similar “core” in the thermal insulation.
Often determined by the exterior aesthetics of the building, the choice of façade panel also plays a role in how dangerous cladding is. Certain materials (like brick or fibre cement) offer more resistance to fire than others, with plywood or timber weatherboarding offering very limited protection against any external fires.
Façades often utilise composite materials, which have varying degrees of safety and fire resistance. Aluminium composite material (ACM) – the type of panelling that exacerbated the spread of the fire at Grenfell – is one such option, but certain types are now banned in the UK as a direct result of the Grenfell Tower fire.
While many façade panels aren’t as instrumental in the spread of fire as the central core (which we’ll discuss shortly), they can and do contribute towards how fire spreads and the amount of containment that the cladding offers. Those ACM panels are cited by the Fire Protection Association as one of the main contributors towards the “rapid vertical fire spread” that was present at the Grenfell Tower fire.
One of the biggest accelerators of any cladding fires, the thermal insulation component of external wall cladding is, in equal parts, essential and dangerous when utilised incorrectly.
The current recommendation from all appropriate fire authorities (including the FSE and Regulatory Reform Order of 2005) is to use a non-combustible mineral wool insulation (like Rockwool), as this offers the ideal blend between fire resistance and internal heat retention.
However, cheaper insulators are still very much present, and are incredibly dangerous where fire is concerned. Foam and combustible insulations (such as phenolic, polyurethane cores (PUR), or expanded polystyrene (EPS)) are widely deployed as part of historic installations across the UK, and are the subject of a much wider, in-depth resolution.
An improper thermal insulator – the “core” of your cladding – burns rapidly and, when combined with the necessary cavity, allows flames to rise rapidly and unimpeded. This combines with the panel choices to create a self-fuelling blaze, and also means that the exterior of the building is engulfed and unreachable for any fire crews.
It’s unfortunately backed by real-world examples. Thin aluminium composite panels around a polyethylene core were the root cause of the rapid expansion of the Grenfell fire, according to the Fire Brigades Union, and “non-compliant cladding” also meant that the Freshwater Road fires in Dagenham ultimately led to the demolition of the Spectrum Building, as per The Telegraph.
Legislation has evolved substantially since the Grenfell Tower fires in June of 2017, and the subsequent, much-needed inquiry into the causes, failings, and learnings that can be gleaned from the tragedy. Chief among these is the fervent desire to never see this happen again, and resources like the Cladding Safety Scheme seek to act as a remedy to those legacy issues.
That all begins with understanding, though, and detailed assessments from trained professionals are pivotal in that.
Unsafe cladding is uncovered through the completion of a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Wall (FRAEW). This is an in-depth, technical assessment of your external walls, completed by a trained and licensed professional (such as a fire engineer or chartered building surveyor) in compliance with PAS 9980.
As part of this, samples of your external cladding may be taken and checked for any potential fire hazards that need urgent attention. This can involve controlled burning in a safe environment away from your property. Any sample taking will follow a close inspection of all relevant building documentation, if this is available, and will only utilise testing as a last resort.
An FRAEW will follow a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA), which, alongside those more surface-level inspections, can quickly identify the need for an FRAEW at a property that needs it. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, all multi-occupied residential buildings – that’s properties with two or more sets of domestic properties, like a block of flats or apartment complex – will require an FRA.
As per the Government’s Guidance on FRAEWs, most properties will not require the more in-depth FRAEW and will instead receive concrete next steps as part of the more routine FRA. Those may be adjustments to existing fire measures (such as more routine checks of your fire extinguishers, or an increased presence of emergency lighting), or new measures (such as more detailed Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPS)).
However, where an FRAEW is identified as a requirement, it’s a legal obligation to contact a suitably qualified professional to complete it.
We’ve covered the whole fire risk assessment process in much greater detail as part of our guide on waking watch, but in brief, your FRAEW will both identify the fact that your building has unsafe cladding (i.e., dangerous “core” materials like polyurethane or phenolic foam, a lack of proper open state cavity barriers, or flammable materials in its panelling) and pinpoint the next steps.
Once a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Wall (FRAEW) is completed, and dangerous or unsafe cladding is identified, you’ll receive next actions from the trained professional who conducted your FRAEW.
This will involve remedial actions, the timescales by which they need to be completed, and any urgent actions (such as an interim alarm system or a Waking Watch service) that should be actioned as soon as feasible. An interim solution is temporary by design, but that does not make it any less important..
Our guide to how to choose a Waking Watch provider, and what happens after that, explains the immediately actionable solutions you may need following an FRAEW.
These are often separate from more long-term solutions that are in place to facilitate “Stay Put” guidance that’s now the norm at more modern construction, or those where cladding does not present an issue. Where cladding is an issue, however, the next step is to remove it and replace it with more appropriate materials (mineral wool insulation and brick façade panels, for instance).
As part of the Building Safety Act (BSA) of 2022, there are different circumstances wherein different parties are expected to foot the bill for cladding remediation. In the Government’s guidance on cladding remediation, they offer a few different example scenarios:
The Grenfell Inquiry has also given rise to initiatives like the Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS), which seek to provide a clear path forward to resident safety and the funding with which to achieve that for buildings “where a responsible developer cannot be identified, traced, or held responsible”.
First introduced in July 2023 and closely linked with the BSA, the CSS is designed as a failsafe for residents who live in buildings where developers may have ceased to trade or that predominantly operate overseas (as is the case with the French developer Arconic, which fitted the cladding sheets that were present at Grenfell).
It’s cases like these that make the CSS essential for ensuring that all buildings across the UK are safe for habitation, that the spread of fire is mitigated wherever and whenever possible, and that the most up-to-date “Stay Put” guidance can be implemented.
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