The Construction Thread

[daylightwarrior]

i was wearing a welding helmet. which explains why i hung it upside down.

I heard that you taped two of them together and used them to protect your bewbages.

 

[kotori]

Registered Architect. Previous experience mostly structural steel; recently, concrete. I prefer structural steel; concrete is too wishy-washy.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Registered Architect. Previous experience mostly structural steel; recently, concrete. I prefer structural steel; concrete is too wishy-washy.

Thank you. COncrete sucks.

Biggest building?

 

[Saint Peter]

So you got your machine? Did you fabricate your milking stand yet?

TIG Welding Mama!

 

[SkAoUt]

Thank you. COncrete sucks.

Biggest building?

Parting shot before I jet. Concrete's Rocks!!

 

[Saint Peter]

Registered Architect. Previous experience mostly structural steel; recently, concrete. I prefer structural steel; concrete is too wishy-washy.

[sling]

Wear you hard had in the trailer.

[/sling]

 

[Saint Peter]

Parting shot before I jet. Concrete's Rocks!!

Put some water in that wet saw!

I have a good friend that is dying from lung cancer related to silica.

Wear the mask and keep it wet.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Parting shot before I jet. Concrete's Rocks!!

No disrespect to the concrete guys. They have all the work they can handle, here, anyway.

But when I see a big building swarming with carpenters and guys with those knee-high boots and a line of ready mix trucks, my heart sinks.

 

[rosco rathbone]

TIG Welding Mama!

Oh yes, that's just want you want for rough farm use. Welding on days with zero wind only.

 

[Saint Peter]

Oh yes, that's just want you want for rough farm use. Welding on days with zero wind only.

That is what you want for every weld, sonny.

 

[kotori]

Thank you. Concrete sucks.
Biggest building?

Tallest is the current project, 25 stories, in Chelsea. Still on the boards, I'm not sure it's actually going to get built. Budget around $70m; current estimate, $90+ mil. Most of my experience has been in health care, and mainly a lot of smaller renovations; hospitals never sit still.

Parting shot before I jet. Concrete's Rocks!!

On the ground, I agree. Can't beat it.

[sling]
Wear you hard hat in the trailer.
[/sling]

I don't think a hard hat would have helped that fellah.

 

[daylightwarrior]

Put some water in that wet saw!

I have a good friend that is dying from lung cancer related to silica.

Wear the mask and keep it wet.

No fooling. The newbies today think they are going to last forever. Silica is worse than horrible. I read that account about that mine where the life expectancy was two weeks with no benefits to the widows or family.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Tallest is the current project, 25 stories, in Chelsea. Still on the boards, I'm not sure it's actually going to get built. Budget around $70m; current estimate, $90+ mil. Most of my experience has been in health care, and mainly a lot of smaller renovations; hospitals never sit still.

On the ground, I agree. Can't beat it.

I don't think a hard hat would have helped that fellah.

25 stories of iron in Chelsea? Sweet!

 

[kotori]

25 stories of iron in Chelsea? Sweet!

Nooo, sorry. Concrete. Which is where I've come to dislike it, alas.

But you had a nice couple of projects there right in your neighborhood at Court Square...those were steel if I recall.

 

[Saint Peter]

Nooo, sorry. Concrete. Which is where I've come to dislike it, alas.

buzzkill!

 

[rosco rathbone]

Nooo, sorry. Concrete. Which is where I've come to dislike it, alas.

But you had a nice couple of projects there right in your neighborhood at Court Square...those were steel if I recall.

Lose a lot of floor space to those columns eh.

An ugly, lumpy building material, with no flexibility.

And the erection is boring, dirty and unglamourous.

 

[MisterEdMe]

Maybe it's because I'm in one of the last bastions of Northeast/immigrant/Democrat/union/working-class power, but I've noticed a lot of tension between the natural social conservatism of the working class and the desire to vote against Big Business. It has gotten weirder and more tense in the last 8 years.

I'm somewhere in the middle there these days. And I come from the 'last bastion' mindset in family tradition. As time marches on, and my ambitions expand, I find myself doing and being part of some of the exact same things Big Business (Corporations) are doing. It's increasingly irritating.

 

[daylightwarrior]

Lose a lot of floor space to those columns eh.

An ugly, lumpy building material, with no flexibility.

And the erection is boring, dirty and unglamourous.

I hope you're just talking about construction!

 

[Hester]

Lose a lot of floor space to those columns eh.

An ugly, lumpy building material, with no flexibility.

And the erection is boring, dirty and unglamourous.

no erection is boring.

 

[rosco rathbone]

I'm somewhere in the middle there these days. And I come from the 'last bastion' mindset in family tradition. As time marches on, and my ambitions expand, I find myself doing and being part of some of the exact same things Big Business (Corporations) are doing. It's increasingly irritating.

The construction unions are going to have to start thinking like "the man" if they want to survive. The men seem to be slowly waking up to this fact. There's a lot of stress between the old-school "us against them" guys, who still have a total gang mentality, and the new "company man" types.

I'm a company man type, I always work as if I stood to lose my shirt. However, I run screaming when they try to give me three cell phones and white truck.

"Just a guy in the gang thanks".

 

[KRCummings]

Lose a lot of floor space to those columns eh.

An ugly, lumpy building material, with no flexibility.

And the erection is boring, dirty and unglamourous.

Concrete has a lot of flexibility in terms of design. It obviously doesn't for rennovation but in the design stage it's great for some outside thinking.

Only a construction worker cares about how pretty the job is.

 

[kotori]

Lose a lot of floor space to those columns eh.

An ugly, lumpy building material, with no flexibility.

And the erection is boring, dirty and unglamourous.

Well not really that much more, but they're so filled with rebar, it's like 'why not cut to the chase and just use steel'? And part of my reservations is that it's too flexible: the interiors people are all, 'Can't we move that column?' and the engineers say, 'Ok...we'll just need to add more rebar here, here and here..." I like the discipline a structural grid imposes, philosophically.

That's true. All the wasted formwork. "Let's build the building in wood first, then throw it all away." Ugh.

 

[Hester]

So you got your machine? Did you fabricate your milking stand yet?

nope and nope. i borrow a lot of equipment these days. friends and neighbors have all kinds of equipment and implements and get upset if i buy something for occasional use that they have to lend, and i have to say they're right. i've probably saved tens of thousands this year because of local generosity.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Well not really that much more, but they're so filled with rebar, it's like 'why not cut to the chase and just use steel'? And part of my reservations is that it's too flexible: the interiors people are all, 'Can't we move that column?' and the engineers say, 'Ok...we'll just need to add more rebar here, here and here..." I like the discipline a structural grid imposes, philosophically.

That's true. All the wasted formwork. "Let's build the building in wood first, then throw it all away." Ugh.

So you don't lose signficant floor space, eh? I did not know this.

I meant, unflexible after the fact without a lot of reinforcing.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Concrete has a lot of flexibility in terms of design. It obviously doesn't for rennovation but in the design stage it's great for some outside thinking.

Only a construction worker cares about how pretty the job is.

Concrete has all kinds of things going for it, obviously. That's why it's taking over. It just makes me sad. Setting iron=fun. Dragging a big concrete pump hose around=not fun.

Setting precast is ok.