Tuesday, December 01, 2020

Didn't give a damn or a fuck about Grenfell safety.

A senior executive at Kingspan, Philip Heath, a technical manager at the company, which made combustible insulation used on Grenfell Tower, said a builder who questioned its product’s fire safety should “go fuck themselves”, the public inquiry into the fire has heard. He also said of a contractor trying to check what turned out to be misleading claims about the safety of its foam boards: “If they are not careful, we’ll sue the arse off them.” He also told friends that builders asking questions were mistaking him for “someone who gives a damn ”.

Kingspan Kooltherm K15 was one of two types of insulation used that turned out to be combustible. The inquiry has already heard from a former executive that the firm was involved in a “deliberate and calculated deceit”, which involved marketing the product without solid test evidence. Kingspan sold its insulation on the basis of testing carried out on an older version of the product that caught fire more slowly and emitted less heat.

Kingspan’s sister company, Kingspan Off-Site, also asked Heath about the fire performance of K15, and he did not divulge that it had performed worse in more recent tests than previously. He shared with a colleague what he was saying to Kingspan Off-Site to try to justify its use of the material, commenting: “I’m spinning so much I’m dizzy.”

Kingspan manager belligerent over fire concerns in 2008, Grenfell inquiry hears | Grenfell Tower inquiry | The Guardian

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