Inselaffen

When will they do something about the dangerous cladding in buildings here?

Fire hits Dubai building | GulfNews.com

Millhouse

My building has flammable cladding. It was completed in 2015.

I live on the first floor and have two main exit routes and I could climb out if needed. Wouldn't have it any other way.

scrubbedexpat141

Unfortunately one of the girls working with my Mrs lost everything in this fire.

I am genuinely thinking about looking at something more sensible (like Millhouse) on a low floor etc.

Bahtatboy

Advice from a very experienced security advisor: when staying in a hotel in a risk area, choose floors 3-5. High enough to be safe from a bomb blast in the lobby, low enough for fire engine ladders to reach you.

Millhouse

I was given the same advice.

Millhouse

A rice cooker and a blanket?

Bahtatboy

Ouch!

scrubbedexpat141

Probably, and everything else she owned. Pretty shit situation.

Irishbeekeeper

My building has a dodgy alarm system which used to go off without any reason at completely random times, so the poor security guys would be running to the console everytime to cancel it and then call the corresponding flat number shown on the console to find out if the people in that flat were alive or not. Only to find out that its either a. the chinese cooking with zero ***ks given about ventilation or b. the indians burning their stuff again with zero ***ks given about ventilation. I dont care if that sounds racist because it isnt. Its a fact of life! You dont get complains about smoke from ANY other nationality other than those 2 types.

It got so bad that in the past 3 years we stopped caring about it unless it went of for like more than 3 minutes then people would slowly start shuffling out wondering why the security cant turn the alarms off. The building is owned by one of the Sheikhs so the civil defense guys coming in for checkups really cant do diddly about the alarm system being faulty all the time and the building management is a bunch of money sucking commission eating bungholios who wouldnt get anything done unless they got paid under the table for it so yeah, the alarm system is not getting fixed. And to top all of that off, now they have just turned off the system completely, so NOW if there is a fire, people will die surely. I am just glad I am on the 2nd floor. Which reminds me, I had to buy a rope ladder!
ok rant over

scrubbedexpat141

Ours went off once but was kids smashing alarms.

Then went off again in the middle of the night. Most people evacuated, obviously using the lifts and it turned out there was an actual fire in an apartment. Some bloke fell asleep and left candles by curtains and they caught fire. He was taken out of the building by rozzers and firemen. The worrying thing was that nobody knew what was going on, the security blokes ended up being shouted at by people just telling them to turn it off so they could go back to bed.

Meow

Why would anyone who has seen Towering Inferno live in a tower block?

There seem to have been a few fires in the last couple of years and it's usually the lower paid/worse off that lose out as they won't have contents insurance or the means to replace items. Rather less local media coverage of this fire than the one in The Marina that affected Westerners too. Life isn't fair.

Millhouse

Price, I assume. Not all can all afford to live in ivory villas.

scrubbedexpat141

Basically this is why I don't live in a villa;

But, I'm starting to think maybe it's not a bad idea to consider it. We need another bedroom really and it would be nice to have somewhere to BBQ.

mikewot

There are townhouses. I have lived in one for 4 years, very comfortable and nothing like the termite mounds in JLT or Marina.

NorthernLad

Have one on your balcony, what could possibly go wrong?