Nigel Rumble with his detective equipment

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TENANTS led their own investigation to reveal hundreds of window panes have been fitted the wrong way round on one of Camden’s biggest housing estates.

The massive bungle has led to the council sending its contractors back into homes in Bray and Dorney tower blocks as part of a new programme of works.

Bizarrely, the high tech window panes – some spanning two metres and valued at £10,000 a pop – have been correctly installed in two other blocks on the estate in Adelaide Road, Belsize Park.

The fiasco is the latest blow for the 717-home estate which was evacuated for several weeks of fire safety works following the 2017 Grenfell disaster.

For almost eight years, residents have put up with a series of disruptive work programmes – including the latest botched window replacement programme.

Scaffolding has almost been removed from two of the towers and residents were looking forward to celebrating the long ordeal finally coming to an end.

Chalcots rep Nigel Rumble discovered the mix-up after his scientific measurements of the windows’ relationship with sunlight led to his very own “Eureka moment”.

He told the New Journal: “People were expecting to have a kind of celebration party when the contractors finally stopped.

“But now basically there is another phase of works coming, which for many tenants may well be compulsory. It’s traumatic. It’s a shock.”

A typical two-bedroom flat on the estate has 18 windows, with one of measuring around two metres and weighing around 100 kilos – the same as a fully grown pig.

“You need four tough guys to lift one piece of glass. It is going to be a complete nightmare,” said Mr Rumble, who had started his investigation after noticing the glass was unusually warm to touch.

Scaffolding up at the Chalcots

He set about testing the panels “solar coating” with a “laser recording device” that showed the two panes of glass were reflecting solar rays in an unusual way due to being the wrong way round.

“I just had this nagging doubt about them,” he said. “But I thought ‘no – they are spending so much money on all of this, it must be right’. Then I started taking infrared measurements of the glass, from the inside and outside. That was as you might say the Eureka moment.”

Window whistleblower Mr Rumble, the deputy chair of Bray TRA, discussed the matter with the chair, Stephen Lawson, before raising it with the council, who confirmed the botched job after an inspection.

The installation of inward-opening windows caused a huge row on the estate when they were proposed in 2019 ­– two years after the blocks had to be urgently evacuated of more than 3,000 people following London Fire Brigade concerns.

Tenants were moved into “home away from homes” while their works were done while others were given noise-cancelling headphones to cope with the constant drilling.

Chalcots estate residents are still suffering with mental and physical traumas of the saga that has cost the council tens of millions of pounds.

Anthony Royle, who also lives in Bray, had his complaint about the council’s management of the Chalcots project upheld by the housing ombudsman last year. This week, he said: “The council have treated us abominably over the years. Our contributions have been derided by them.

“This is a reflection of what I think about government generally – that there are a lot of things that go wrong but it’s usually the press working with people who point out and show these things.”

Most of the scaffolding remains on Dorney meaning contractors can do some of the window reversal works from the outside with “very little noise”, the council said.

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “The council’s project team have found that some window glazing panels in Dorney and Bray have been incorrectly fitted by the contractor. This is not a safety concern but will affect the reduction of overheating in the summer – so we will be putting this right straight away.
“Each re-installation takes about 40 minutes and this will not be noisy work. This corrective work does not extend the overall programme as it can be done simultaneously to the remaining work which needs to be done and will be of no extra cost to the council or the taxpayer.”

“We apologise to the affected residents for this additional work.”

Contractors MacLaren were contacted for comment yesterday (Wednesday).

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