The Construction Thread

Got the new issue of the International magazine. There's a depressing report on Fiber-Reinforced Polymer beams and a picture of some mug from Local 396 holding one over his head, would weigh about 300 lbs if steel.

The only thing that makes me feel better when I think about the little engineers at work busy as beavers making me obsolete is the idea that some other engineer is designing an Artificial Intelligence or Expert System to make THEM obsolete too.

No matter what the structure, there will be labor required to build it. Your trade will evolve as it always has.
 
No matter what the structure, there will be labor required to build it. Your trade will evolve as it always has.

About the only new thing in my trade since the 50s is TC bolts, fall-arrest harnesses and computer sensors in cranes.
 
*Looks at you askance.

Reminding me of the late lamented Legenda there....


Seriously, my trade is only fun because you get to fuck with cranes. Once the battle against gravity is over, fuck it.

Don't hang a lip.

You guys can always wear those funny boots, gravity or not.
 
About the only new thing in my trade since the 50s is TC bolts, fall-arrest harnesses and computer sensors in cranes.

Think what George Eiffel might have designed had he had those tools?

Hand rails will always be steel!

We just installed some nice aluminum and plastic ones, here in the building.

Don't hang a lip.

You guys can always wear those funny boots, gravity or not.

I want a pair of the magnetic boots.
 
How much do you want to spend? There is little reason to use metal studs unless you're protecting yourself from a hurricane or something. It's a terrible cost for little gain.

Basement finishing without a fabricated wall system. ACQ is expensive compared to metal studs, mold has a hard time growing on metal.
 
Basement finishing without a fabricated wall system. ACQ is expensive compared to metal studs, mold has a hard time growing on metal.

You should be able to use some pretty thin metal studs.....I'm not partial to them, but I don't have your conditions......
 
You should be able to use some pretty thin metal studs.....I'm not partial to them, but I don't have your conditions......

Yeah, me neither. There are no regulations for interior basement walls. Most builders use 32" centers on wood or metal. Just awful.
 
Most builders..........

*gack*

We call those guys "Save A Penny Bennies"
They often have a ladder strapped to a minivan with rope.

People forget the age old construction rule:
There is Quality, Service, and Price; You can only have two of the three.
 
From NSPE Daily Designs:

Engineers Blame Poor Construction Practices In Haiti Quake Devastation.


"The New York Times (1/13, Fountain) reported, "Engineers and architects who have worked in or visited Haiti say that substandard design, inadequate materials," and poor "construction practices likely contributed to the collapse of many buildings in the earthquake that struck Tuesday." The article quotes "Cameron Sinclair, executive director of Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit design group based in San Francisco," as saying "he was 'horrified' when he visited [Haiti] last October to assess the quality of construction there," noting that quality was "far worse than in other developing countries. ... 'In Haiti, most if not all of the buildings have major engineering flaws,' he said." Another expert, "Alan Dooley, a Nashville architect who designed a medical clinic, built of reinforced concrete," in a Haitian village, said that "most houses and other structures are built of poured concrete or block, there being very little lumber available due to mass deforestation."
Canwest News (1/14, Harris) reports it "was a 'catastrophe waiting to happen,'" said the Haitian ambassador to the US, referring to "the nation's poor housing and infrastructure." According to a Canadian expert on geotechnical earthquake engineering, Hesham El Naggar, "poor building regulations, the size of the quake itself, and the fact it struck near a densely populated area created a perfect storm for enormous loss - both human and economic." The AP (1/14) reports, "When it comes to natural disasters, Haiti seems to have a bull's-eye on it. That's because of a killer combination of geography, poverty, social problems, slipshod building standards and bad luck, experts say."
Similarly, Sky News Australia (1/14) reports, "US engineers have blamed lax building standards for the devastation in Haiti." Farzad Naeim, president of the board of directors of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), said, "The quality of construction...even in buildings that are supposedly engineered construction, is not good at all." From photographs Naeim has seen, he "said many of the larger buildings were built using nonductile concrete" seen as "arguably... the greatest seismic life safety hazard in many urban centers worldwide." Under today's US construction codes, it is required "that buildings have ductility -- 'a property that allows them to distort like a coat hanger without breaking,'" according to EERI.
Quake Predictability Discussed. Time (1/14, Kluger) says, "If any earthquake ought to have been predictable, it was the one that just struck. Haiti sits over two clashing tectonic plates, the North American and the Caribbean, which form what's known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault, which is well known by geologists. "Monitoring zones like this around the world to get a general sense of where the next such pops may happen is not that difficult, mostly because tectonic activity is hard to conceal completely," and "seismometers can detect the years of stirrings that lead up to that moment, providing some help to geologists." The problem, notes the Time, is that "long-term forecasting does not do much to keep people from putting themselves in harm's way. ... What's needed is short-term forecasting on the order of weeks, days or hours."
LiveScience (1/14) reports, "The high magnitude of this quake took scientists by surprise, as this system of faults hasn't triggered a major temblor in recent decades." USA Today (1/14, Weise) quotes Tim Dixon, a geophysicist with the University of Miami, as saying that Tuesday's earthquake "was not unexpected." But, according to Raymond Russo, a geophysics professor at the University of Florida, "while the scientific community was aware there was a potential problem, little was done by Haiti to prepare.""
 
I see that the fitter's union training center parking lot is full and scuttlebutt is that a bunch of welders are needed up north.
 
I see that the fitter's union training center parking lot is full and scuttlebutt is that a bunch of welders are needed up north.

In this economy, they are going have every 6G welder between here and Tierra Del Fuego.
 
Hand rails will always be steel!

I know that I'm joining this coversation kind of late in the game, but... We just built a cooling tower for a local powerplant last summer and it was made completely out of fiberglass. That includes all of the beams, decking,hand rails and etc. It was the first time that I had ever seen or installed fiberglass conduit. The only building components that were metal, to my knowledge, were the stainless steel bolts and hardware.
 
I know that I'm joining this coversation kind of late in the game, but... We just built a cooling tower for a local powerplant last summer and it was made completely out of fiberglass. That includes all of the beams, decking,hand rails and etc. It was the first time that I had ever seen or installed fiberglass conduit. The only building components that were metal, to my knowledge, were the stainless steel bolts and hardware.
Not a material worthy of a man. When it all goes fiberglass, I'm out.
 
Not a material worthy of a man. When it all goes fiberglass, I'm out.

You will be passed over by the young bucks in the hall. You can tell them stories about how things were back in your day. Some will listen, some will smile and nod, some won't believe you.
 
You will be passed over by the young bucks in the hall. You can tell them stories about how things were back in your day. Some will listen, some will smile and nod, some won't believe you.

Just as I listened wide eyed to tales of driving a hot rivet one handed with a Monday and a punk with a water-pail of Guinness making the rounds.
 
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