Thursday, 15 June 2017

Grenfell tower and some stories

(this was actually from my Facebook post, but with addition)




There were so many incidents in Malaysia and the world.

Malaysian stories involves some artist and their infidelity and affairs, FGV, Harumanis mangoes that were said to be burnt by farmers, the world's on fire with Saudi-Qatar disputes,Trump and his surprising words, in all which I never commented because I don't want to be trendy, hipstery, political.

I knew nothing about farming mangoes except HayDay, and I don't want to be a smart-ass commenting on world politics, and Trump..ok no comment.

One thing though, the Grenfell Towers fire.

(and below is the translation of  posting, originally in Malay language) (Update 28 June 2017: my FB link has been deleteddue to privacy concerns)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2017/jun/14/grenfell-tower-major-fire-london-apartment-block-white-city-latimer-road

Since I was involved in fire fighting services installation, this news is something.

A 23-storey building on fire at midnight around 1am local time. The building was constructed and completed on 1974. As per the time of writing, 12 were confirmed killed.

A little background story on Grenfell Tower
Grenfell Tower is situated nearby Notting Hill, which is an exclusive place in Greater London.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notting_Hill


This area and the actual flat was seen in the popular movie Notting Hill starring Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts. There were few luxury flat nearby, hence the idea of installing building cladding which is speculated to be the reason why the fire spread quite fast.


Recently in Iran pun a similar incident happened, Plasco Building, 17 storey. Due to the fire, the building actually collapsed, killing 20 firemen working to stop the fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasco_Building


BS9251 Sprinkler Systems for residential and domestic occupancies.

http://www.fire-sprinkler.co.uk/…/2011/09/BS%209251-2005.pdf
http://www.bafsa.org.uk/pdfs/publications/1/00000121.pdf
http://www.ultrasafe.org.uk/bs9251-fire-sprinkler-british-standard/ 

However, I believe that this Standard came out around 2005, but I might be mistaken on this. 


BS5839 Part 6 : Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings - Code of practice for the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of fire detection and fire alarm systems in domestic premises
http://www.bafsa.org.uk/pdfs/publications/1/00000121.pdf
BS5389 came out around 1995.


Grenfell Towers were not built with sprinklers and fire alarms during its 1974 completion.

http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2017-06/40965739-grenfell-tower-tragedy-proves-need-for-fire-sprinklers-in-high-rise-buildings-008.htm


Before BS Standard came out, contractors refer to NFPA (National Fire Protection Association, US based), FM (Factory Mutual) and LPC (Loss Prevention Council) for standard of sprinkler installation in residential. 


USA, by its active body NFPA, released standard NFPA13 (Sprinkler on Residential) on 1975 by a report made in 1973 which stated that about 8000 people died annually in USA due to structural fire.


UK and Ireland, before the release of BS Standard 9251 and 5839, referred to Building Regulations (England and Wales) which were then lead to the formation of  Loss Prevention Council (LPC) which later went on to develop a certification body called the Loss Prevention Certification Board (LPCB) on 1984. 


The FOC technical documents became Loss Prevention Council rules and standards, and the approval schemes became Loss Prevention Standards (LPS).




 

Malaysia also have their own Building Standard in the form of Malaysian Uniform Building By Law. UBBL 1984 latest revision (the latest revision I have with me is 2013, but I believe there is later revision recently), which latest revision deals with scope of installation in service apartments, as current construction market favour mixed development type of building.

http://badrulhishamarchitect.blogspot.my/2011/03/overview-of-uniform-building-by-laws.html

Camille Pissarro : The Boulevard Montmartre at Night, 1897
Source : Wikipedia

A story

Reflecting back, somewhere on 2009, I proposed to do a Master by Research di UM about building services, but I was told by a lecturer at Engineering Faculty UM, that if I were to proceed with the topic, I would have to go to a different faculty, Fakulti Alam Bina.(Faculty of Built Environment)

Since I knew no one in Alam Bina and it had to take time then to get a supervisor, I just drop the whole idea. Anyhow there is a paper I found in Net about Malaysian Fire Safety on PHD level. (link below).
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0ahUKEwiZzaTbmL7UAhUEi5QKHaOlBGMQFgg2MAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ros.hw.ac.uk%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10399%2F2281%2FYatimYM_0609_sbe.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1%26isAllowed%3Dy&usg=AFQjCNGLpFtALu-10aO1KVELI-8jku1UYQ&sig2=lDRCSRg8yFzq17HzOeR8vQ&cad=rja


One of the suggestion the Engineering Faculty lecturer did was to change the Research topic, which I was asked to do a research about energy efficiency untuk refrigerators.


I was sceptical as Malaysia is not a refrigerator-maker country.I did not see the rational behind his suggestion and thought of it being silly.



 http://www.worldstopexports.com/refrigerators-exports-country/

Refrigerator Exports by CountryBelow are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of refrigerators during 2015:

  1. China: US$7.9 billion (19.8% of total refrigerator exports)
  2. Mexico: $4.7 billion (11.7%)
  3. Italy: $3 billion (7.5%)
  4. United States: $2.9 billion (7.3%)
  5. South Korea: $2.7 billion (6.7%)
  6. Germany: $2.2 billion (5.5%)
  7. Thailand: $1.8 billion (4.6%)
  8. Turkey: $1.7 billion (4.3%)
  9. France: $1.4 billion (3.6%)
  10. Poland: $1.2 billion (3.0%)
  11. Singapore: $743.9 million (1.9%)
  12. Austria: $724.2 million (1.8%)
  13. Sweden: $561.8 million (1.41%)
  14. Netherlands: $546.3 million (1.37%)
  15. Japan: $516.5 million (1.3%)
 Among the above countries, the fastest-growing refrigerator exporters were: Poland (up 44.7% since 2011), China (up 19.1%), Mexico (up 14.5%) as well as Thailand and the United States (each up 4.6%).

Thailand? Yeah Thailand produces lots of refrigerators.


However, on 2015, Malaysia by Suruhanjaya Tenaga released MS2574 : Minimum Energy Performance Standard for Refrigerators, and so I was wrong about it after all.

Somemore, the initial report on Grenfell Tower incident mentioned that the source of the fire might be from an exploding refrigerators.

Oh my.

Camille Pissarro : The Boulevard Montmartre at Morning, Cloudy Weather, 1897

Another story

http://badrulhishamarchitect.blogspot.my/2011/03/overview-of-uniform-building-by-laws.html
http://badrulhishamarchitect.blogspot.my/2011/03/overview-of-uniform-building-by-laws_04.html
http://badrulhishamarchitect.blogspot.my/2011/03/overview-of-uniform-building-by-laws_963.html
http://badrulhishamarchitect.blogspot.my/2011/03/overview-of-uniform-building-by-laws_5979.html

I ask you guys to read on the comments section of each entry.


Ar. Badrul Hisham is not only a practising Architect, but also a Lecturer, and so he has a tendency to explain things, and I think he is a person with good honest intent to share and explain things.


But look at the comments. Some asks for free consultations, which is actually highly charged in the market, some asked stupid questions that shows they are not really in construction industry.


Worse, some asked where they can get a copy of UBBL, which should not be asked at all.


Imagine you go to your lecture, and then asking your lecture, "which shop can I get those book from?"


The question does not give respect to the one questioned.


You have to understand that this person shared for FREE the knowledge which came from skill and practice that cost years of hardwork, and in real life, people would actually charge with a high price for a consultation.


But this guy did it free, and I guess he felt honest about sharing it, and by writing it in his blog, will somehow became notes for him to remind of so and so.


The problem is people don't appreciate free things.


I remembered one time when I was asked by someone on some technical issues. I just answer to my best knowledge, and guess what?


This guy used my answer to screw other guys, and if I didn't tell him, he wouldn't be the smart-ass he was, when he screwed the other guys.

Camille Pissarro : The Boulevard Montmartre, 1897

Don't become info-bit**

Sorry if my writing here is vulgar. But when thinking of this jerks, one couldn't help themselves from feeling vulgar and miserable.


I have some friends from the old days, whom turn out to be jokers in social media.


These people thought, one of the best ways to learn things is by asking and debating.


Their modus operandi is simple. They will heighten your emotions by psychological "soft-bullying" and in turn, your rage drive your passion to delve, learn and note on the "knowledge" so you can present it to shoot them back.


The problem is, somehow you end up became their info-bit**. It is because you give time and effort to scour for knowledge, but they just read on what you present to them.


It is easy on their part because they learn things effortlessly, only by playing on emotion.


That is why, I hate debates because one way or the other, someone will open books, sometimes holy books and end-up as info-bit**. Stupid game.


You see, knowledge takes years, efforts, experience of mistakes and good ones, and you gave it all away like giving flowers to monkeys just because of heightened emotions.


I did block some of my best friends from the old days due to this. No regret.




NEWS (notable events, weather, sports?)


My answer to all this is easy. If you have something good, and you felt like sharing it, treat it as if you are a newscaster on TV reading news.


You never allow the feedback, even though it is nice sometimes to have good warm comments, but from years of reading social media content, I feel much more content presenting whatever I write here like a newscaster on TV reading news.


If the content is good to them, they feel good about it, but I don't need to know, my concern is just that I just finished updating/writing to my best knowledge.


If the content bores them, they can just flip the channels.

Nirvana - Very Ape

I am buried up to my neck in
Contradictionary flies
I take pride as the king of illiterature
I'm very ape and very nice

If you ever need anything please don't
Hesitate to ask someone else first
I'm too busy acting like I'm not naive
I've seen it all, I was here first

Out of the ground
Into the sky
Out of the sky
Into the dirt

If you ever need anything please don't
Hesitate to ask someone else first
I'm too busy acting like I'm not naive
I've seen it all, I was here first


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