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Loophole allowed combustible insulation on social housing in the 90s

Combustible insulation was approved for use on tower blocks in the 1990s using a loophole in official guidance, documents show.

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The UK's main certification body approved combustible insulation in the 1990s despite an official ban #ukhousing

Six insulation manufacturers used a loophole to get combustible insulation approved in the 90s #ukhousing

The British Board of Agrément (BBA), an independent body set up by the government in 1966, provides certificates for building materials.

In the 1990s, it signed off on six combustible insulation materials saying they complied with Approved Document B, the government’s official guidance on how to comply with building regulations, because they achieved ‘Class 0’, a classification related to the external spread of flame.

Following the Knowsley Heights fire of 1991, however, in which fire spread up the side of an 11-storey building, the building regulations were reviewed.


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The 1992 version of Approved Document B introduced the more stringent requirement for insulation materials to be of limited combustibility, which these six materials were not.

The materials in question are made by insulation companies Sto, Alsecco, Dryvit, Structherm, Alumasc and Wetherby.

Although Wetherby’s product was licensed for buildings of any height, the firm told Inside Housing it has never used it on high rise blocks and deems it safe only for low rise.

Inside Housing has contacted the other five to ask how many high rises have had these materials installed on them.

The 1992 version of Approved Document B reads: “In a building with a storey more than 20m above ground level, insulation material used in the external wall construction should be of limited combustibility.”

It adds: “Advice on the use of thermal insulation material is given in the Building Research Establishment [BRE] report ‘Fire performance of external thermal insulation for walls of multi-storey buildings (BR 135: 1988).”

This report, based on large-scale tests but produced before the Knowsley Heights fire, listed certain circumstances in which combustible insulation would be acceptable.

A spokesperson for the BBA told Inside Housing it believed that this report could be used to override the requirement for insulation of limited combustibility.

Debbie Smith, managing director of the BRE, which shares a site with the BBA, agreed that this loophole existed but added: “You would have expected perhaps their certificate to have referred to the fact that they had used BR 135 rather than just referred to Approved Document B.”

A government spokesperson said: “BBA are an independent certification body and it is up to them to take their own decisions about building safety.”

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