Arconic, the US company that produced the cladding panels fitted to London’s Grenfell Tower when it was gutted in a fire earlier this month, will no longer sell the non-fire resistant version for use in high-rise buildings.
The company said in a statement that it had made the decision “because of the inconsistency of building codes across the world and issues that have arisen in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy regarding code compliance of cladding systems”.
At least 79 people were killed in the fire, and police said on Friday they were considering manslaughter charges in connection with it.
The announcement came after Reuters reported on Saturday about six emails sent between Arconic’s UK sales manager and executives at the contractors working on Grenfell Tower. The emails made clear that Arconic employees knew that the flammable version of the cladding was being fitted to a high-rise tower, even though some of the company’s own literature said such panels were not suitable for buildings more than 40 feet high.
Shares in Arconic had fallen more than 7 per cent by noon in New York.
Arconic, the specialised metals company formed in the break-up of Alcoa last year, makes three types of the Reynobond panels used to clad the tower block: one with a flammable polyethylene (PE) core, a second with a fire-retardant core and a third with a non-combustible core. The first type was fitted to Grenfell Tower when it was refurbished in 2015-6.
The Reynobond PE panels that will no longer be sold for use in buildings more than 40 feet high. Grenfell Tower is about 220 feet (61m) tall.
Arconic said in a statement that it had sold Reynobond PE panels to the contractors “for use as one component of the overall cladding system” for Grenfell Tower. It did not supply other parts of the system.
It added: “While we publish general usage guidelines, regulations and codes vary by country and need to be determined by the local building-code experts.”
While Germany and the US require the core of cladding panels to be fire resistant, the UK does not, according to Christopher Miers, a forensic architect at Probyn Miers who specialises in assessing the causes of fires.
According to Mr Miers, specific fire-safety regulations in the UK do not have to be followed to the letter “as long as you meet the overall requirements”.
In 2000, a UK parliamentary report into another tower block fire in Scotland included a recommendation that external cladding “should be required either to be entirely non-combustible, or to be proven through full-scale testing not to pose an unacceptable level of risk in terms of fire spread”.
Arconic said it would “continue to fully support the authorities as they investigate this tragedy.”