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Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 20: ‘We were outed by a consultant who we then had to fabricate a story to’

Insight27.11.204.00 PM by Dominic Brady

This week the inquiry investigated the actions of Kingspan – the manufacturer of one of the insulation products used in the tower’s cladding system. Dominic Brady reports

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This week the inquiry investigated the actions of Kingspan – the manufacturer of one of the insulation products used in the tower’s cladding system #UKhousing

Secret tests

Three weeks ago, the inquiry heard a major revelation about Kingspan Kooltherm K15 – a phenolic foam insulation that is one of the most popular plastic insulation materials for high rises. A test pass that has been cited to support its use on high-rise buildings since 2005 was withdrawn.

The reason was that Kingspan fundamentally changed the chemical composition of the product in 2006. It was essentially a different product, marketed under the same brand.

The new version of the product would be tested in a different system in December 2007, to dire results. On Monday the inquiry was shown details of the 2007 test.

In his report Ivor Meredith, technical project manager at the firm, noted: “The phenolic was burning on its own steam and the Building Research Establishment (BRE) had to extinguish the test early because it was endangering setting fire to the laboratory.

“The new phenolic is very different in a fire situation to the previous technology which has passed several similar tests.”

He added: “The phenolic burnt very ferociously and gave the top cavity barrier a serious hammering.”

Mr Meredith told the inquiry of his shock at the results but noted that this was not mirrored by his superiors Philip Heath and Malcolm Rochefort, and decided not to highlight his concerns more robustly, having previously been criticised by them for being “very negative” about Kingspan products.

Despite the clear failure of the system comprising the new K15, Kingspan kept selling it using fire test information for the old version of the product in the belief that eventually it would pass a test.

Firm in its commitment to ensuring K15 passed a BS8414 test and could therefore be used in the over 18m market, Kingspan conducted more tests in April and June 2008 in partnership with a subsidiary company Kingspan Offsite. Both failed.

The inquiry saw an email from Mr Meredith to his bosses dated 9 June 2008, which read: “The question of K15’s bad fire performance is no longer an internal one. It would seem Offsite had a very dramatic test failure.”

The test showed K15 burning under its own steam 10 minutes after being extinguished. The result would be kept quiet.

‘Let the file gather dust guys’

Kingspan and Mr Meredith in particular strived to keep K15’s defects hidden.

After being questioned about the latest test by Offsite’s technical manager Mark Stevens, Mr Meredith emailed his boss saying: “Help – I’m getting seriously grilled now.

“We need to ensure continuity of our answers otherwise we will destroy our relationship and never be taken seriously again – also I may get accused of being a liar if we change our story. Are we saying that the product supplied which failed their test is the same product that we got to pass the test?”

Kingspan responded saying it was investigating reasons for the failure, to buy some time.

The British Board of Agrément (BBA) also got in touch in December 2008 seeking changes to the certificate it had given K15 after discovering inaccuracies in it. The certifying body wanted to be specific that the BS8414 test linked to K15 had been done on a “specific construction on masonry walls”, which would narrow its application.

Mr Meredith’s manager Phil Heath intervened telling the BBA it would have no choice but to pass on costs associated with a rewrite to the BBA. Shortly afterwards he urged Mr Meredith and his colleague Gareth Mills to ignore the email, saying “let the file gather dust guys”.

Kate Grange, counsel to the inquiry, asked: “Why was Kingspan not prepared for the BBA to make it clear to the public that there were restrictions on the use of K15 over 18m?”

“Because it could limit sales,” Mr Meredith responded.

‘We were basing our story on some very flimsy LABC certificates’

Eventually, in May 2009, Kingspan got certification for its K15 product that it desperately wanted, with the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) issuing a certificate with the dubious wording “can be considered a material of limited combustibility” – wording that Kingspan celebrated.

Except this was not the case. Limited combustibility is a tough standard that essentially covers non-combustible materials only. No plastic can ever meet it. K15 certainly could not. It is, however, the minimum required standard for the use of insulation in general systems on high rises.

Ms Grange said: “Kingspan knew, didn’t it, all along that K15 was not a material of limited combustibility; on the contrary, it was a combustible insulation, wasn’t it?”

Mr Meredith replied: “Yeah, definitely,” adding that the document was “very misleading”.

Mr Heath saw the certificate as a panacea for entry into the 18m market and immediately stopped testing on K15.

“I remember at the time I wasn’t over the moon about this because as far as I was aware we still needed more testing. We were basing our story on some very flimsy LABC certificates,” said Mr Meredith.

A few years later, in December 2013, the National House Building Council (NHBC) – the country's largest private building inspector – began raising questions about K15’s suitability for use on buildings taller than 18m.

An NHBC employee wrote in an email to Kingspan: “We feel we need to start to advise our customers that K15 doesn’t comply with the building regulations requirements or the BBA certificate when used on a building in excess of 18m high.”

Cue internal panic at Kingspan. Mr Meredith offered to meet with the NHBC and go through evidence of its compliance, and urged it to “hold off” on contacting customers.

Further escalations followed, with Kingspan calling in lawyers with a threat to issue an injunction against the NHBC from saying anything as it would result in “serious financial loss”.

Mr Meredith said: “This is a very heavy-handed approach, isn’t it? Kingspan had a story about the product’s ability to perform. But you know, this is… this is pushing back in some order, isn’t it?”

‘We were outed by a consultant who we then had to fabricate a story to’

Mr Meredith (pictured above) was sacked by Kingspan in August 2015 for falling asleep on the job and driving a company car against management instruction. The inquiry also heard that Mr Meredith had a “serious drug habit” and was struggling from mental health issues and stress.

Notes from Mr Meredith’s disciplinary meeting revealed the toll that the saga had taken on him.

They said: “Business put me in a very difficult position last year, it was doing my technical integrity no good + say that our product was ok, my mission was to derail the whole process + not much fun. Pretend you are stupid.

“We were outed by a consultant who we then had to fabricate a story to that the product still said what it did [on] the tin… we were stretching the truth here and what we are going into [was] an area… where we cannot support the performance of the product.”

The consultant referred to was a member of Wintech, a body that initially raised questions of the insulation with the NHBC.

“We produced documentation and we inferred to the industry that our product could do something that potentially it couldn’t,” said Mr Meredith.

The inquiry continues with further Kingspan witnesses next week.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry phase two: weekly diaries

Module one: the refurbishment

Week one: A vivid picture of a broken industry

After a week of damning revelations at the opening of phase two of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, Peter Apps recaps the key points