Talk:2023 United Kingdom reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete crisis

History of technology

Why was reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete mainly used in the UK? What is the history behind its development? Although the rest of the world uses autoclaved aerated concrete, what did the rest of the world suspect about using RAAC? Dajanes (talk) 08:41, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

RAAC roof panels are still availible in Germany, although afaik they are not very common and i have never heard of such large scale problems with them. There have been issues with non-reinforced AAC in some cases, but this was mostly due to poor quality materials or production errors. Postwar school buildings in Germany often used traditional concrete, but many of those have to be rebuild for other reasons such as concrete cancer, asbestos or other hazardous substances.

DIN EN 12602 covers RAAC

92.200.222.195 (talk) 17:45, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Split Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi, I've put a split proposal for this page on Wikipedia:Proposed article splits as it seems the purpose of this article is becoming a combination of content about the material itself and content about a UK political scandal around the usage and maintenance of said material.

Currently I've proposed article names for Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (material) and 2023 United Kingdom reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete scandal to avoid confusion. Please add any concerns or comments here.

Regards, Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:17, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

• Agree there should be two separate articles as the crisis looks like it may continue to develop. I created 2023 United Kingdom RAAC crisis as a redirect and with the potential for an eventual split in mind. The present article name for the article about the material is probably ok and we wouldn't need to move that. We could also briefly summarise the political crisis with a couple of paragraphs. This is Paul (talk) 20:34, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not wedded to it having (material) in there but thought it might be worth it simply as it very obviously delineates the article purpose and should also improve search result clarity. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:36, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@Rambling Rambler I support a split.

However, as has been suggested, splitting off to 2023 United Kingdom RAAC crisis: "crisis" per WP:POVNAMING—itself implying "crisis" is problematic where not the overwhelming WP:COMMONNAME; and "RAAC" for concision and since "readers somewhat familiar with the subject [of the crisis] are likely to only recognise the name by its acronym [so] the acronym should be used" per WP:ACROTITLE.

I also think the main article is fine staying at Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete as no one calls the crisis by the name of the material so the name is already unambiguous or WP:naturally disambiguated. Llew Mawr (talk) 23:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree to a split - this has now gone beyond schools and encompasses hospitals and theatres, with the potential fallout (socially and politically) growing. Definitely warrants its own article. OGBC1992 (talk) 09:43, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree with some sort of split. There's enough information on this article about the use in the UK that I believe it warrants its own article. However, as others have said, the article about the material should keep its current name. There's no reason for a disambiguator as "Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete" does the job, and the name doesn't itself refer to the use in the UK. The current title doesn't create any more confusion than a simple hatnote could solve, such as a For or an About. Also, I'm not entirely sure what the article about the use in the UK should be called, but it should be whatever is used most commonly in reliable sources, whether that's "RAAC crisis", "RAAC scandal", or otherwise. Strugglehouse (talk) 13:15, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Adding to this. I think "2023 United Kingdom RAAC deterioration concerns" is probably the best name for the split article. It matches the current title of the section, "Deterioration concerns in the United Kingdom", and avoids language such as "crisis" and "scandal". There are sources that refer to RAAC "concerns", so I think this is the name to go for. Strugglehouse (talk) 12:02, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

@Strugglehouse I second this too. Llew Mawr (talk) 12:58, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

The consensus seems to be to split. Could somebody with more technical know-how make the change please? OGBC1992 (talk) 11:26, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with splitting the article GRALISTAIR (talk) 20:55, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree with the split. I also don't think we need the "(material)". I also think using the abbreviation for the "scandal" article is a good idea. Wayne (talk) 09:02, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree with the split. I don't usually like the choice of the word "crisis", but the term "concrete crisis" is being used by a number of WP:RS; I've also seen "RAAC crisis" and "RAAC scandal". I suspect it may eventually be changed to "concrete scandal" or "RAAC scandal" over time. I suggest the names Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (for the material) and 2023 United Kingdom concrete crisis for the time being. — The Anome (talk) 13:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Agree with split but keep "Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete" as this article's name for reasons stated above and have the new article named 2023 United Kingdom RAAC controversy as this sounds more WP:Neutral than "scandal" or "crisis". Perhaps as time goes on we can use one of the other two terms as one of them become the most WP:COMMONNAME (feels too early to say atm). Also maybe it would be a good idea for someone to make a draft of the new article in the meantime? ThatRandomGuy1 (talk) 20:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Sounds a good suggestion to me.

But the most irritating thing about Wikipedia is the predominence of US English spelling, even in articles about other English speaking nations which know how to spell. 103.216.191.154 (talk) 20:31, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Seems to be that "concrete crisis" will be the final title of the split article, as that looks to be what the alliteration-loving media have gone with. A lot of them are in the headline ([1][2][3]) but others, including the BBC, have used it in the body of text.[4][5][6][7][8] Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:03, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

• Looking at the first non redirect version of the article I think it was created to document the UK situation in. And as there's already an article on Autoclaved aerated concrete, I think all we need to do is rename this article for its original purpose (Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete use in the United Kingdom, or similar) and move the technical details about the reinforced version of the concrete to the existing "Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete" section in that existing article about the concrete. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:45, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  @DeFacto I'd now support this over the split Llew Mawr (talk) 00:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  Noting that the two materials are quite different, despite the similar names - I would not support a merge with the Autoclaved aerated concrete article. Turini2 (talk) 18:40, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, looking at the diff provided it looks more like it was a general article about the material that just happened to be used more in the UK (and due to recentism that meant initial references to worries about end of life in the UK) so I still think having an article on RAAC as a material is still required and the political stuff is what needs to be split off. Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:50, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  Disagree with the original proposal to split, but Agree with this alternate proposal. This article with the UK-specific content removed is effectively a stub and isn't worth preserving. It makes more sense to have all discussion of the material itself in the AAC article (with a subsection for RAAC if anyone thinks it's warranted), and include in that article brief overview information about potential structural failures with a link to an article (substantially the content that is in this one) about the UK situation. Patch86UK (talk) 09:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Superfluous concrete

Hate to be picky but as the C in RAAC stands for concrete, can we remove the duplicate use of "concrete" in the article title? OGBC1992 (talk) 14:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I know it's superfluous but the problem here is the common name is "concrete crisis" and people don't necessarily understand that in RAAC that the C means "concrete".

So for practicability I believe it's easier to leave it as a "GPS system" situation rather than have "RAAC Crisis" (which isn't the common name) or have a very long title of "reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete crisis". Rambling Rambler (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

What about 2023 United Kingdom concrete crisis, or is that too vague? OGBC1992 (talk) 15:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

That was my thinking, a little too vague and implies at first glance a wider issue than RAAC.

"RAAC Concrete Crisis" may be a bit of a bodge in some regards but it's the best fit of limited options in my view. Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:05, 12 November 2023 (UTC)