"Research conducted on behalf of the insurance industry in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire has exposed the utter inadequacy of the laboratory tests currently used to check the fire safety of building materials," the ABI report read.
According to the insurers, the fire safety simulations overlook a number of real-life conditions. While test fires are made up of wood, real-life blazes also involve a substantial amount of plastic, and cladding materials are tested as sealed units without consideration for gaps, vents, and ducts which also affect materials' performance in real blazes, ABI said.
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The report also alleges that manufacturers may manipulate combustibility performance during the simulations by using rivets to prevent burning panels from falling off as happened during the Grenfell disaster.
Following the Grenfell Tower fire, the government commissioned combustibility tests of high-rise residential buildings across the country, which revealed that 262 buildings use the same or similar cladding as the Grenfell.
In June last year, a fire in a 24-story residential high-rise Grenfell Tower in western London claimed lives of over 70 people, who were trapped in their flats, as the flammable materials used for the cladding and insulation quickened the spread of the fire.
