The news that so much disruption is being caused by the construction material RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) brings to mind a decision I had to make a couple of years ago as to whether to buy a more modern, so called ‘advanced technology’ epoxy surfboard, or to stick with my more traditional fibreglass ones.
Being typically sceptical I decided to look in depth as to how each type of board was constructed and what the relative pros and cons were. It turned out to be an easy choice but I seemed to be swimming against the tide and could well have been accused by some of being too sceptical.
The epoxy boards are sold as being much lighter, stronger and ‘progressive’. It is true that they have particular advantages for some and allow for more radical surfing – aerial manoeuvres in particular – for those skilful enough, but the major drawback for me was that if you damage your board with just a small ding and you don’t get out of the water immediately, the heavily aerated (98% air) lightweight eps foam can absorb huge amounts of water capable of spreading rapidly through the board and potentially making it economically unviable to repair. As an experienced surfer I know how often surfers can emerge from the sea only then to realise that their board (fibreglass or epoxy) has been cracked during their surf. I also have heard enough reports to know that the epoxy boards are nowhere near as strong or dense as the manufacturers claim and that the manufacturers and retailers don’t inform their customers adequately about the drawbacks of these expensive boards – only the advantages. I speak to surfers about their new purchases and it is clear many of them are unaware.
A similar material science lies behind the retrofitting of insulation (especially cavity wall insulation and external wall insulation) where devastating disruption to people’s lives and thousands of pounds may have been wasted on materials that eventually absorb excessive moisture, rendering them ineffective, and then possibly thousands more being spent to repair the resulting damage. The Grenfell disaster has similar echoes of a complete failure to recognise a very basic link between material science, structural engineering and health and safety. As soon as I looked Into RAAC it became clear that it should never have been used as a load bearing construction material in buildings that people occupy for any reason whatsoever.
And so it was confirmed this week in an interview with Dr. John Roberts, a past President of the Institute of Structural Engineers, on BBC Radio 4’s World at One.
What the mainstream media seem to be focusing on is a lack of funding as a root cause of the whole problem. This allows for a lot of political mudslinging that has diverted attention from the more salient issues that are brought up in the interview:
- RAAC was not properly assessed by those who should have been responsible as a potentially immediate problem rather than a medium to long term one;
- the material never resembled ordinary concrete in the slightest;
- RAAC was not truly designed by structural engineers but bought out of a catalogue by manufacturers;
- the ‘concrete’ wasn’t marketed as a short-life material, should never have been used for the purpose it ended up being used for and was inherently mis-sold.
Known as ‘aerobar’, ‘aircrete’ and RAAC, the cheap lightweight alternative to traditional concrete mixes was used in thousands of U.K. public buildings from the 1950s to 1990s. By the 1980s it had started to fail and buildings had to be demolished.
Through the decades that RAAC has been allowed to be installed, where is there any accountability? The manufacturers have long since gone bust or disappeared and those responsible for signing off the projects seem to be missing. Who can explain why there are no proper records of exactly which public (and private) buildings are involved and thus the true extent of the problem – or should we say scandal?
Schoolchildren and the public at large shouldn’t have to wait until all the affected buildings are demolished and reconstructed, or until the cost of living goes up yet again to pay for repeated mistakes, to realise that those responsible for all these gross failures in due diligence and poor evidence-based risk assessments really haven’t a clue. As with lockdowns and coercive experimental vaccinations, the ignorance and lack of accountability by so-called experts is so extensive and staggering that being a ‘daily sceptic’ should immediately be everybody’s priority for their health and safety in the 21st century.
Dr. Mark Shaw is a retired dentist.
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A wet relationship to inadequate structures! Earlier today I emailed (to the Daily Sceptics address) some other notes to do with concrete structures and other emerging structural problems – in this case it’s to do with multi story car parks, including a Gov publication of one of their consultants paperwork. Hope it’s useful. There are many problems on their way on account of modern requirements that did not exist years ago when certain buildings were constructed.
But of course the responsibility is entirely Sunak’s, according to HM opposition this lunch time. They seem less concerned with solutions and more interested in point scoring.
They’re interested in next year’s General Election.
Same with solar panels on campervans.
Complete waste of time.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/your-crumbling-concrete-needs-you/
John Ellwood’s blistering take-down of the aerated concrete con which he ha rightly christened Con23.
For the job of a Con 23 Marshall:
“Qualifications
The posts require no formal qualifications, but a familiarity with Apple Crumble or Aero bars will be an advantage, as will previous experience as a Covid Marshal or Just Stop Oil activist.
Salary
Reimbursement will reflect the importance of the roles. Successful applicants will be exempt from ULEZ charges in the course of their duties. Bonuses will be awarded based upon the disruption caused.
Prospects
Following advice from the Concrete Advisory Group for Emergencies (CAGE) and research by the Building Materials Department at Imperial College London, the Government has been made aware that certain types of brick may have a condition colloquially known as ‘Bubbly Brick’. It is likely that opportunities may shortly arrive for Brick Marshals who will be required to identify, isolate and condemn residential properties so affected.”
It is very funny.
But 73 years ago, all the best experts agreed it was safe and effective!
Another reason for the failure of this concrete is that EMF causes the air in the concrete to vibrate, this vibration then causes the concrete structure to fail.
Yet another nugget of information dropped by Mark Steele yesterday & confirmed by Anders Brunstad.
EMF doesn’t cause “air to vibrate”. Mark Steele is a thick left-wing plank
Read his report which explains it better than I do. If you still disagree, he’s more than happy to enter into scientific discussion with anyone.
https://forlifeonearth.weebly.com/mark-steele-expert-report-on-5g-emissions-in-context-of-nanometal-contaminated-vaccines.html
You can contact him at: https://www.saveusnow.org.uk/contact-us/
It’s a 5G conspiracy theory website – they are as credible as flat earthers.
In your opinion.
Your responses are very revealing.
My BEng and MSc are in Electronics Engineering, I spent most of the 1980’s working with RF in the 2-13GHz comms bands (where 5G sits)…. your qualifications are?
I posted what someone else had said. I’ve never claimed any expertise in this field. As you are so sure of your abilities, knowledge & qualifications & disagree with Mark Steele, why not do the honourable thing & discuss this with him.
Qualifications aren’t the be all & end all of excellence. The most notable scientist of his time was Faraday, who had no formal qualifications….
Can you please point out useful sites to read about 5G? I am very concerned about its supposed effects on wildlife, insects in particular. What are your thoughts?
This https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/429311/enhancing_the_whole_life_structural_performance_of_multi-storey_car_parks.pdf gives us some ideas about what goes wrong with concrete structures – in this case, multi story car parks. A lot of it is chemical wear and tear, but also possible poor design and construction. After all, the cheap and nasty often wins in a competitive bid.
Thank you.
I suspect that the issue with the concrete structures is a combination of multiple factors, all of which lead to failure of the building material.
As I posted, one possible mechanism which is different for different types of build.
The perfect storm might be a RAAC multi-story car-park gradually filling up with an increasing proportion of overweight electric cars.
Good point. Multi-factorial reasons for the failure of these structures…
Air is always vibrating. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be gaseous.
True. But at what frequency? Surely that is key?
What is this man a “doctor” of?
I could be wrong but I think dentists can use the title “Dr”.
So can Jill Biden who used to teach teachers – all that you require is a PhD, like the racist Shola ShagMyBimbo.
Making these failures into a party political mudsling is convenient for the political class, to which they all adher. It means the public will be confused, pay attention for the shortest possible time and no current or former Minister or civil (sic) servant will be held accountable.
Starmer can blame cowboy builders – a dangerous choice as builders generally are not happy with politicians after IR35, ULEZ and much else. The blame should be addressed at the professionals involved and the people who approved the design and materials choices. Just as with Grenfell, it looks as if the real culprits and the institutional cuses of failure will get away with it.
Yuk.
I’m sorry but this all sounds a bit mangled to me.
Was anyone forced to use this type of concrete? If not, then hey, shit happens. They used the wrong type of concrete and it was a screw up.
I for one don’t expect a world in which nothing goes wrong and I’m not going to jump up and down hysterically when things don’t work out and demand responsibilities and assurances that nothing ever goes wrong again.
That is PRECISELY how we end up in a world of tyrannical health and safety, through hysterical over reactions, demanding heads to roll and braying for safety and a perfect world.
Sorry but that’s a terrible, terrible way to go.
I for one don’t expect a world in which nothing goes wrong and I’m not going to jump up and down hysterically when things don’t work out and demand responsibilities and assurances that nothing ever goes wrong again.
Nothing went wrong. A lot of buildings were erected using some cheap (that was certainly the most important advantage) new material with a very limited (for buildings) lifetime and hence, we are now saddled with the problem of replacing a lot of dangerous building on the verge of collapse. And that’s while buildings built five years (or five hundred years, for that matter) earlier still happily stand. Many of these buildings were reportedly constructed with taxpayer money for various public purposes and they certainly weren’t cheaper than other buildings constructed from more durable materials. Only the builders profitted more. That’s (for the taxpayer) not getting value for money and it’s perfectly sensible to desire to prevent this from happening again.
That’s not a question of braying for safety and a perfect world but one of preventing outright fraud. Not unlike the Grenfell tower fiasco, BTW. People have a right to know that they’ll burn to death should some part of the building they’re living in ever catch fire because it was cladded in a flammable substance. In a market economy, there’d be competition and some companies would erect tower blocks less likely to turn into death traps. People could then vote with their feet and chose the crematoriums in waiting or the appartment buildings for their residences. But – of course – demanding that crematoriums in waiting are clearly labelled as such to enable people to make such a choice would be ever more of a profit killer than having actual competition in the market-place. Entrepreneurs absolutely hate that.
Surfboards and RAAC have analogues in other fields: organisational, social and therapeutic structures that are cheap, available out of the catalogue, become flavour of the month or even mandated by statute or industry standards, but in reality full of holes which will cause collapse after a few decades.
These structures are highly visible in the area of mental health.
Around the sixties it became popular to consider that there was no such thing as a mental disorder, nearly all eccentric behaviour (especially sexual) either being attributed to childhood trauma, an oppressive social climate, stigmatization or capitalism rather than mental “disorder” or genetic/developmental issues. This led to the view that attempts to “treat” or otherwise coerce patients into adopting a more conventional and socially acceptable behaviour pattern, rather than institutionalizing them or forcibly medicating them, was a violation of their human rights.
Around the 1980s in the UK (following a US lead) this led to a whole industry based on replacing the bricks and concrete of Victorian hospitals with “care in the community”, centred around new wonder virtual “materials” such as cognitive behavioural therapy, built on a foundation of the “new” heavily-marketed pharamaceutical products such as anti-depressants and anxiolytics. A spin-off of the therapist industry was the cultivation that some negative behaviour was the result either of historical child abuse, or ongoing Satanic Ritual Abuse, which led to the SRA witch-hunts of the 1990s and a big increase of therapeutic structures based on supposed cures for MPD, DID and PTSD.
However, these structures and the internal “mental structure” that the therapist believes they have created have more holes than RAAC. Does CBT really immunise us against anxiety, or just hold our psyche up for a couple of decades? After decades of therapy, the person can not even bear the weight of day-to-day living and collapses into a breakdown.
Truly, we are constantly being alarmed by surfboard-sellers, climate alarmists, vaccine-hawkers, medics and therapists keen to sell us their latest “cure” or their latest cheap product with a limited undeclared lifetime or fatal weakness.
Were lessons learnt from the Genoa Bridge collapse? Not lessons so much about concrete and bridge design, but more about determination of government bureaucrats to do nothing despite being warned for decades about construction faults and maintenance issues, hoping that it won’t fall down on their watch.
Look o the bright side – now that the affected schools will need temporary/demountable buildings, they can finally find a use for all those ‘Nightingale surge hubs’ they didn’t use during the plandemic…
An excellent point.
Not sure if this is correct, but I gather this type of concrete has a known lifespan of 30 years which it has well exceeded?