Revealed: the most common fire safety problems in tower blocks

In the weeks following the Grenfell Tower disaster, attention rightly turned to the cladding system on the outside of the building that appears to have allowed the blaze to spread. But fire safety is about much more than what is on the outside of a building. Internal features such as fire doors, vents and escape routes can be the difference between life and death in a high-rise fire.

The public inquiry will, it is hoped, establish whether or not these features performed properly in the Grenfell blaze, but to understand where the common problems are, Inside Housing decided to look at other properties.

We asked 153 social landlords to provide their most recent fire risk assessments (FRAs), and have so far received them from 36 councils. Housing associations, not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws, were less transparent, with only seven providing the documents.

The research is intended to create a resource for social landlords and other stakeholders, including tenants, to better understand the potential risks to their properties.

Indeed, the 436 FRAs provided paint a worrying picture: there were fire safety problems in the majority of blocks, with 61% experiencing some issue with fire doors, a further 71 blocks with problems with emergency lighting and 109 with holes or gaps in service rooms such as electrical cupboards and drying rooms. There were also exposed pipes or cables hanging down from ceilings in 44 blocks, and 54 had no ventilation or faulty ventilation in staircases to clear smoke from a fire.

To see details of the main issues uncovered click here

To see the full list of FRAs click here

In eight of the 436, the problems were so severe that the risk assessor ranked the property as posing a “substantial” risk to life. Two of these were Babington Court and Chancellors Court, which – like Grenfell – sit awkwardly in the heart of one of London’s wealthiest areas.

The issues identified in these two buildings were manifold. Corridors and airing cupboards were used as storage rooms. Tenants smoked in the corridors and stubbed out their cigarettes on windows, melting the uPVC frames. Many fire doors were non-compliant. Smoke alarms were damaged. Smoke vents were not fire-stopped. The list went on.

Recurring problems

This assessment was made in 2012. Camden carried out more recent assessments in June this year, which downgraded the risk to normal, after Inside Housing’s FOIA request. A spokesperson said the council carried out works to address highlighted issues, including to tenants’ front entrance doors, and is carrying out works to address other issues as highlighted by the recent FRA reports.

When Inside Housing visited the buildings, there were signs of improvement. But significant issues remain. Cigarette butts litter the windows and there is a smell of tobacco smoke in the air. At least one of the doors from the drying room to the main corridor does not close by itself. And the panel doors on electricity boxes are made of tatty plywood, leaving significant gaps from the wall.

“You need a massive wealth of knowledge to properly fire risk assess a tower block.”

The FRA said doors should be replaced by September 2012, and many look new. But residents say they were only installed last year. And there appear to be several old front doors scattered through the building.

These kinds of problems with fire doors were the most frequent issues in the FRAs we saw. As Hannah Mansell, technical manager at the British Woodworking Federation, says, they “come up over and over again as one of the big things” in risk assessments. A particular problem in relation to this is rooted in the Right to Buy, which has pepper-potted tower blocks with leaseholders and private landlords.

These private owners may replace doors with more attractive or security-conscious alternatives that have a lower fire rating. “The problem is the council thinks they don’t have the power to change the front door [of a leaseholder’s flat],” says Ms Mansell.

However, she says a 2015 court case brought by Croydon Council has made it much easier. In what was deemed a ‘test case’ at Croydon County Court, the council sued a leaseholder who was denying access for her uPVC door to be changed. The council won the case, setting a precedent for other social landlords. Many landlords, however, are not aware of this change, Ms Mansell says.

The presence of holes in walls and ceilings was another major, and frequent, issue flagged by the risk assessments. Improper fire doors, holes and gaps, and poorly boxed-in pipes all represent breaches in a building’s compartmentation – the technical name for its ability to contain a blaze in a single flat.

As is now notorious in the aftermath of Grenfell, tenants are usually advised to ‘stay put’ in their flats when a fire breaks out. This relies on the compartmentation functioning properly, which means finding and fixing potential breaches could not be more important.

Other frequent issues included were flammable items, such as mobility scooters, blocking escape routes and an absence of emergency lighting in stairways and other communal areas – an issue which appears to have been the case at Grenfell. Survivors have recalled the terror of being forced to feel their way in the dark down the staircase to escape with no emergency lighting to guide them.

Too basic?

While it is positive that these issues have been identified by the FRAs, there is scepticism among experts about how useful the assessment process is. Of the 436 risk assessments seen by Inside Housing, 305 were identified as Type 1 – the most basic form of assessment which only looks at the communal areas of a block and a sample of front doors. The rest did not specify. While the Local Government Association’s guidance states this will “normally be sufficient for most blocks of purpose-built flats”, experts disagree.

Ronnie King, honorary secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, says: “Unless assessors go into flats and the cavities and ducting then there’s no point. Fire resistance can get punctured by people breaking into cavities to do other work,” he says.

Our analysis found that the level of detail provided could vary quite substantially. Some had questions relating to issues such as the presence of combustible items in corridors and then a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ tick box. Others had detailed comments and a risk scale. While eight graded the risk to life as substantial, 77 had no grading.

Part of the problem, experts say, is that the regulations are too vague. There is no requirement on who should carry out FRAs and no specific requirement on how frequently. In Babington Court and Chancellors Court, Camden waited five years before assessing the buildings again.

“Some of the risk assessments I’ve seen were just so basic that they simply wouldn’t do for a high-rise building and are not worth the paper they are written on,” says Ms Mansell. “The qualifications presented by fire risk assessors can be so varied. You need a massive wealth of knowledge to be able to properly fire risk assess a tower block and you can tell from some of the assessments that some of them don’t really have a clue.”

Since the Grenfell Tower fire a number of social landlords have switched to Type 3 and Type 4 fire risk assessments – the most rigorous types – as a matter of course. These assessments look inside flats, at the compartmentation between flats, and at the means of escape.

This, perhaps, points the way forward. Inside Housing’s Never Again campaign also calls for risk assessments to be carried out annually. Social landlords, and housing associations in particular, could also do with becoming more transparent about what their assessments have found.

As the horrible reality of the past month has proved, when it comes to fire safety, the stakes are just too high not to know the risks.

Additional reporting by Pete Apps and Nathaniel Barker