On Monday, 15 April 2019 21:51:00 UTC+1, Clive Page wrote:
On 15/04/2019 19:18, Andy Burns wrote:

Adam, has you apprentice been playing with a blowtorch again?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47941794

It is a tragedy. But it seems so many historic buildings catch fire while being renovated. For example in recent years, e.g. Windsor Castle, York Minster, Glasgow School of Art.

My recommendation: go to see the Palace of Westminster before it too burns down, as parliamentarians are determined to start a substantial renovation effort in just a year or two.

It does seem that building contractors can be awfully careless in these old buildings: all it takes is a blowlamp left too long near to something flammable, or a multi-way power adaptor just a bit overloaded. In all these cases it seems that the fire takes hold and spreads quite widely before anyone notices: after all there must have been *lots* of people around in the Notre Dame in early evening. Wouldn't it be feasible, while works are under way, to install dozens or even hundreds of small radio-linked battery-operated smoke detectors all over the structure?

I think the reality too often is people that truly don't give a toss. Add folk that have no clue what they're doing & people still drunk or stoned and no surprise things go wrong. I had to take a blowlamp off someone not too long ago. What he was doing with it was a disaster. It's hard to mandate care.


NT