Doom: Schools falling down

[courtg9000]

RAAC has been around since the 1950's. Yet they are only doing something about it now.
RAAC was probably very dodgy back then anyway.
The key thing here will be how much private residential/commercial stock is affected. I can see a lot of RTB Housing from the 60's to 70's having issues too.

[edison]

RAAC has been around since the 1950's. Yet they are only doing something about it now.
RAAC was probably very dodgy back then anyway.
The key thing here will be how much private residential/commercial stock is affected. I can see a lot of RTB Housing from the 60's to 70's having issues too.

How ironic it would be if large numbers of those council houses sold off by the Tory government in the 80s now ended up being fixed at government expense.

[edison]

The government has not published a list of affected schools but the BBC has compiled an unofficial one of 40 schools and almost half are in Essex. Wondering why so many are in just one county? Did a company have a large job lot of the concrete going in the 60s?

My own county council, Hertfordshire, has launched a survey of 120 schools but I assume it will take some time before any are identified as at risk.

[Paddy]

Roman concrete still withstanding heavy structures after 2000 years, British concrete failing after 20 years. Corruption in the building industry.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Roman concrete still withstanding heavy structures after 2000 years, British concrete failing after 20 years. Corruption in the building industry.

Watching all the WWII documentaries, one is struck by how well the German concrete stood up to bombardment when compared with the crap of the same age in this country.

The other thing about RAAC is the design life of 30 years? WTF?

[Halo Jones]

Roman concrete still withstanding heavy structures after 2000 years, British concrete failing after 20 years. Corruption in the building industry.

min this case the government wanted cheap, was given the specs, told the life span & decided to use it

[NotAllThere]

This, from the Times, concerning Truss's time in office.

The scale of the Treasury’s proposed reductions shocked even hardened Whitehall veterans. One proposal was to slash capital spending on schools. An aide recalls: “I remember sitting in a meeting with 86 different options to raise money. It was just insane; from the doable to the undoable. Like literal ceilings would have fallen on children.”

mmm.

[SueEllen]

Gets even better - I think the Tories don't want to win the next GE

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...nglish-schools

The crisis over crumbling aerated concrete in English schools could exacerbate the lingering problem of asbestos in public buildings, creating an even bigger headache for the government and causing the re-emergence of a long unresolved issue.
More than 150 schools have been found to contain buildings made from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), which has been assessed to be at risk of collapse after exceeding its 30-year lifespan, with many closing because of safety concerns.

The material was used extensively in construction from the 1950s to the 1990s, which was also the boom time for asbestos use until it was banned due to the health risks from inhalation.

This means it is possible asbestos will become exposed in buildings affected by crumbling concrete and could slow down remediation works, extending school building closures by months.

[SueEllen]

Oh dear - a Gordon Brown moment.

[edison]

Watching all the WWII documentaries, one is struck by how well the German concrete stood up to bombardment when compared with the crap of the same age in this country.

The other thing about RAAC is the design life of 30 years? WTF?

I guess if it was used in the 50s it wasn't so long after the war and money was very tight. Something was better than nothing but the planners probably thought that these buildings or at least the roofs perhaps, would be replaced within three to four decades.

When I was at school in the late 70s to mid-80s, there were lots of pre-fab 'huts' which had been built as temporary classrooms. My kids schools still had some of these recently. I'm sure lots of schools still have them.