Part 3: The testing and marketing of products

Chapter 15: Introduction to Part 3

¶15.1 Safety in the built environment depends in a large measure on designers being able to assess with confidence how particular materials and products will behave when incorporated into a building. Safety from fire, therefore, depends in part on knowing how materials and products react to fire. It is therefore essential that they be tested in accordance with appropriate methods and that if manufacturers make claims about their performance they are supported by reliable information about the results of those tests.

¶15.2 In his Phase 1 report the chairman found that the principal reason why the flames spread so rapidly up, down and around Grenfell Tower was the presence of aluminium composite material (ACM) rainscreen panels with polyethylene cores that acted as a source of fuel. He also found that the presence of polyisocyanurate and phenolic foam insulation boards behind the ACM panels, and perhaps components of the window surrounds, contributed to the rate and extent of vertical flame spread.

¶15.3 One might legitimately ask how products which had such a propensity to support fire were chosen for use in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, whether they had been subjected to appropriate testing and, if so, whether the results of the tests had been made available to those who specified their use. In this Part of our report, therefore, we examine the way in which the products principally involved in the fire were manufactured, tested and presented to the market. We have concentrated our attention on the two products that were most heavily involved in the fire, the Reynobond rainscreen panels and the Celotex RS5000 insulation. We have also examined closely the role of Kingspan K15 insulation. Although it was not used on the building in any quantity, the way in which it was tested and marketed created conditions that encouraged unethical practices in the supply of insulation for use on high-rise buildings.

¶15.4 Two aspects of the way in which products are typically presented to the market have attracted our particular attention. One is the distribution of marketing literature of the kind produced by most manufacturers, in which the product and the uses for which it is suitable are described. Marketing material of that kind was produced by the manufacturers of both insulation products and we pay particular attention to what it contained and the effect it is likely to have had on potential purchasers.

¶15.5 The other is the use of certificates of conformity certifying that the product complies with particular standards or the requirements of legislation or statutory guidance. Such certificates are issued by commercial bodies and are used by manufacturers to provide potential customers with a form of independent assurance that their products meet appropriate standards. As such, by the time of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment they had become a powerful marketing tool. We have examined certificates of compliance issued by the British Board of Agrément in respect of Reynobond 55 PE and Kingspan K15 and by Local Authority Building Control in respect of Celotex RS5000 and Kingspan K15.

¶15.6 For completeness we have included a short chapter in which we examine the testing and marketing of the cavity barriers used in the refurbishment and a further chapter in which we examine the part played by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service in monitoring the activities of the conformity assessment bodies with which we are concerned.

¶15.7 Finally, we express our conclusions on the extent to which these interlocking parts of the system designed to ensure the safety of buildings, in this case from fire, failed to achieve the outcome reasonably to be expected of them.