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from the sounds-like-heavy-duty-plywood dept.
Officials in Oregon have approved construction permits for the first all-wood high-rise building in the nation.
Construction on the 12-story building, called Framework, will break ground this fall in Portland's trendy and rapidly growing Pearl District and is expected to be completed by the following winter.
The decision by state and local authorities to allow construction comes after months of painstaking testing of the emerging technologies that will be used to build it, including a product called cross-laminated timber, or CLT.
To make CLT, lumber manufacturers align 2-by-4 boards in perpendicular layers and then glue them together like a giant sandwich before sliding the resulting panels into a massive press for drying. The resulting panels are stronger than traditional wood because of the cross-hatched layers; CLT can withstand horizontal and vertical pressures similar to those from a significant earthquake with minimal damage.
They are also lighter and easier to work with than regular timber, resulting in lower cost and less waste.
For this project, scientists at Portland State University and Oregon State University subjected large panels of CLT to hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure and experimented with different methods for joining them together.
Could cross-laminated timber revive the timber industry?
Previously: Can You Build A Safe, Sustainable Skyscraper Out Of Wood?
The Case for Wooden Skyscrapers
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 07 2017, @10:53PM (13 children)
People have been talking about this tech for a bit so why not try it and see if it actually works? I'm in a timber area too so anything that moves product sounds like a good idea. Trees are just a crop that takes a few years to grow.
And if it doesn't work this building looks like it is destined to mostly just be government subsidized housing so it ain't like they can complain. :)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:22PM (5 children)
there's far more homeless than there are shelter beds. The mayor instructed the police to avoid enforcing the camping ban, so now there's tents all over the city.
I live in subsidized housing now. It enabled me to get quite a good job; I'm going to start paying my own rent in August.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:48PM (1 child)
How DARE you suggest that helping homeless people could lead to anything but a lifetime of wasting our taxes on their newfound entitlement?
Have you no shame, rising all the way from the gutter to crush his misinformed ideology?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:08AM
I didn't want to blow the three grand a MacBook Pro would have required, so I only got a Mac mini.
I lost a consulting client because I was unable to do his work on a Hackintosh.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:52AM (2 children)
Congrats MDC!! It's great to hear that things are looking up.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:21AM (1 child)
I couldn't have done it without my Soylentil friends. It was you who convinced me that I'd be far more likely to get a job if I accepted the housing.
It had been repeatedly offered to me, but I refused it because I have no problem surviving on the street. I wanted that housing to go to someone who really needed it.
Community Services Northwest [csnw.org] practices "Housing First". This is predicated on the notion that getting someone into stable housing gets them off drugs, out of jail, out of mental hospitals and back to work. Prior to this, most shelters wouldn't accept addicts unless they stayed clean - often enforced with drug tests.
I'm not real sure how many times I was in jail or the booby hatch while I was homeless. In just over a year in my American Taxpayer-Paid For apartment, I've stayed out of jail, I've stayed out of the nuthouse, and I've gotten really good work. I couldn't ask for better coworkers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:53AM
There was a study published a year or so ago that said that it costs $80k/year/homeless person, because of the ER costs. It's cheaper to give people some housing and basic medical care.
What really gets me is the heartless people who think that people would rather live a shitty life in shitty subsidized housing than do a job if they had a chance. Yes, there are certainly some people who would do that, and people who are incapable of holding down a job (because of mental illness), but the rest: for the most part, I expect they would prefer to have a nicer life, even if it means working.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:34PM (6 children)
Or translated: "Fuck you, I am just about to receive mine"?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:49PM (5 children)
the vast majority of commercial timber is grown on tree farms. If you object to tree farming you should object to vegetable farming as well.
It is one of our most important exports to Asia.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:01AM (1 child)
Ya no problem when it is done correctly. Well, less of a problem and they're still working out the ecological details.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:48AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:37AM (1 child)
> the vast majority of commercial timber is grown on tree farms
in your country, maybe.
not in every country!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:13AM
Who needs farms? Just cut down the old-growth forests. Profit!
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/understanding-our-forests/our-forests/old-growth-forest [forestrytas.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:16PM
"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants." -A. Whitney Brown
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NewNic on Wednesday June 07 2017, @10:57PM (14 children)
So, plywood?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:20PM (10 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:35PM (4 children)
Just because Home Depot mostly sells cheap plywood doesn't mean that this isn't plywood. Actually, you can get reasonable quality plywood at Home Depot.
If Plywood is strong enough to make one of the fastest planes that the UK had during WWII [historynet.com], I expect a building can be constructed using it. We have much better glues now, so it should be stronger than could be achieved ~75 years ago.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:45PM (1 child)
... with graphite on the leading surfaces.
I think they built just one prototype. I never heard about it until after the US Stealth fighter and bomber were well-known, so maybe the allies kept it classified.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:35AM
Not all wood.
It was conceived as a bomber but
Yeah, the prototype had a flameout and, after several attempts to restart the engine, it crashed with loss of the pilot.
They built 2 more. The war in Europe was over soon after that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229#firstHeading [wikipedia.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:53AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:56AM
Nah, that's particle board or MDF.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:31AM (4 children)
Actually, when I hear "laminate" on this scale I think "tinder". I would not want to live there when some asshat on the bottom floor goes to sleep in bed with a burning cigarette.
I understand it's "fire resistant", but I sure as hell don't want to be one of the guinea pigs verifying that.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:55AM (2 children)
Are you saying Laminate is another hook-up app?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:29AM
Yeah, for the latex fetishists and Roy Orbison fans :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday June 09 2017, @02:44AM
Yeah, cuz you are for sure gonna get burned.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:42AM
"Laminate" is the code word for guinea pigs that breathe "harmless chemicals we cooked up" ..
Those guinea pigs are supposed to pay rent for the service too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:24PM (1 child)
... what a CLT is?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:57AM
Just don't put your CLT in an erogenous zone... It could get wet, which makes it slippery.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:55AM
I believe the term is "panel board" or such.
Plywood is made of three to several layers laminated large perpendicular thin sheets of wood, each scraped from round timber in one spiral cut.
Panel boards are wooden beams laminated in sandwich of two such sheets.
I believe there is possibility nowadays to make lighter structures without sacrificing much strength by doing cookie-cutter cutouts in the inner sheets of plywood , or by using foam filler between thinner wooden internal structural elements of resulting panels - basically using hollow beams, or even I beams. Prior to WW II many technologies for wooden composite construction of airplane hulls were invented which could be useful in building construction today.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:07PM (12 children)
How flammable is it? How easily do people get out from the tenth floor in case of fire?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:24PM (1 child)
The article says the construction will meet fire codes (obviously) but doesn't really elaborate.
I suspect evacuation will work pretty much the same as other buildings of this size, using fire-isolated stairwells.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:02PM
In the article, there is a picture of a guy pointing at a PowerPoint slide. (please don't accuse me of peeking at the article. A friend told me this. Or something)
It says Framework.
I had to double take, for a second I thought it said Flamework.
But maybe we're being a bit overly pessimistic here. What are the odds of a fire actually happening? The Titanic was unsinkable.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:36PM
How easily do they get out? Well, they get out at ~9.8m/s^2. Because whatever is below them is a blaze right now, the only way out is the window.
(Score: 4, Informative) by nishi.b on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:04AM (8 children)
I remember watching a TV show about houses made of compressed hay and wood, and the fire testing by some firemen.
And they were really surprised by the results, because to burn fast, wood needs a lot of oxygen and a large contact surface between the wood (or hay in that case) and air. So the house took a really long time to burn (even though the surface was burning), enough at least for this to be the least of your worries in a fire (smoke from plastic been number 1, I've been there).
It will be probably coated in fire-resistant material, so it might even have better properties than steel (which starts to deform really fast with heat).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:14AM
If you don't make it with flammable glue, and compress wood fibers to the same density as logs, they will be hard to ignite, and burn slowly...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:44AM (5 children)
Stop talking science. The grumpy old men here know better than the people who made painstaking tests of the materials.
For their next trick, after having established that this structure will burn quickly and be a safety hazard because it's made of witches, they'll demonstrate to us that the Earth is banana-shaped.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:02AM
Witches? We burnt the last of them last Sunday over prayers. Also, the earth is not shaped like a banana, it's more Buddha's Hand [wikipedia.org]-ey from where I'm standing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:55AM (3 children)
OTOMH
Great Fire of London
Great Chicago Fire
San Francisco Fire of 1851
or just go have a look through this [wikipedia.org] for reasons why buildings of more than a couple of storeys in cities are made of bricks/stone/concrete.
The thing about a 'fire retardent' material is that, unlike bricks and mortar or concrete, it still bloody well burns, especially when surrounded by other fuel sources and fanned by strong winds..the bottom line here is that this decision to build looks as if it is being driven by an unholy combination, the 'interests' of a declining local timber industry and the bottom line of someone needing to get something done as cheaply as possible.
If you want to talk about the 'strength' of the material, CLT, well, I work with wood every day and yes, have used CLT (in Europe here). There's no problem with the material, it's strong enough and the only caveat I do have is the glue used to laminate the timber, I have experienced delamination due to failure there, not a common problem, admittedly (two incidents over 4 years), but still one to watch out for.
Now, I'm not in the US, but we're going down the same route and I see more and more rather flimsy timber framed housing being put up in areas where the traditional build has been bricks & mortar and stone. We've never had any historical fire locally which has devastated a large area (plenty of smaller ones, usual causes;Luftwaffe back in the day,accidents,arson,insurance jobs,local business 'clan' wars...), however, what we do have from the historical record is the occasional storm with winds in the 130 mph+ range, sort of the reason that we tend to build in bricks & stone locally and favour low buildings.
I'll be getting the popcorn out as they're about to start another of these developments quite close to me, having seen the proposals, I really wonder if the architects have taken into account in their wind loading calculations that these houses be sitting at the target end of a natural 'wind funnel' formed by a combination of a valley pointing to a 'bowl' created by an old quarry working...probably not, as they're a 'standard' design more suited to 'gentler, southern climes' and the scheme has been rushed through the planning system by the usual 'vested interests' (core samples taken on the day they get planning permission approved? talk about paying lip service to legalities...)
Please don't get me wrong, I've nothing against timber construction, I just question the wisdom of using it for buildings taller than a single storey in inappropriate locations.
Err, no, some of us (father was in the construction game for decades) sort of know why most town/cities stopped building wooden structures above two/three storeys, especially in 'crowded' areas like their centres, belief in allegedly omnipotent entities, beit witches, scientists, planners, etc. don't enter into it..
Well, Isn't it? (Looks at current political scene in the US, here [about to vote for an idiot I hate, as the alternatives are a lot worse], rest of the world...Looks at the general state of the planet..) it sure as hell ain't Peachy....
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:39AM (2 children)
Is your point that besides the obvious dangers of fire. These all wood houses can't deal with winds properly?
Oh and.. fire + wind = *duck*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:47PM (1 child)
No, just that building inappropriate wooden house designs in the wrong areas is not a good idea.
From my window, I can see wooden houses of a Scandinavian design built in the late '60s, intended as a stop-gap solution to a housing shortage then. They're still standing, and are now well beyond their designer's intended lifespan (27 years, ISTR my father saying), sure, they have problems (mainly due to asinine decisions made regarding the type of heating initially installed), but they are, on the whole, still structurally sound. These houses work as they were designed to cope with a harsher climate than the one we have locally, over-engineered if you will.
Now, the new development being put up less than 300ft from these houses, what they're intending to build there is a generic design intended for a milder climate, more or less a 'flat-pack' timber structured with brick cladding. Rather than individual houses they building terraced housing, each terrace presenting a large surface area to the wind, factor in that, as I said above, they're at the target end of a wind funnel and that we have a rather interesting historical record of storms every so often with winds of over 130mph...like I said, popcorn time.
And I've not even mentioned the issues regarding the local water table at the site of the development...there's another one nearby where the houses are already (after 4 years) slowly sliding down the hillside they're built on..but that, as they say, is another story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:09PM
apologies for typos above...wtf? I'm sure I read it over a couple of times before posting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:58AM
Wood is considered as gaseous fuel, it burns with a flame because when heated it emits combustible gases. However, if it is dried and baked prior to installment, to remove volatile compounds, it becomes much stronger mechanically and more resistant to fire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:09PM (3 children)
You have to compare it to steel and concrete.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:02AM (2 children)
Steel and concrete are both very energy intensive. Wood on the other hand will sequester carbon for a long time.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:36AM (1 child)
And rapidly unsequester it for anyone with a match.. :p
Or overheated electrical cabling..
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:58AM
I thought 'termites' before fire or water. De-lamination due to water damage was the second thought.
Wood is strong stuff, stronger than many people with no experience in building with it realize. It can be compromised, though, in ways that concrete and steel are not.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:19PM (3 children)
They built (or are building for completion this year) a 14-story one in Norway. Overall it's starting to be a eco-friendly-trend up here in the north of the world. Considering that Oregon and Canada and such places are more or less on the same Longitude this probably makes sense all over.
http://treetsameie.no/ [treetsameie.no]
http://www.timberdesignandtechnology.com/treet-the-tallest-timber-framed-building-in-the-world/ [timberdesignandtechnology.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:56PM (1 child)
Pretty sure you meant latitude, meaning they are all approximately the same level of northness with respect to the equator . . . ( though Oregon is a tad south of Canada )
Longitude is the measure of eastness or westness with respect to the prime meridian . . .
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:10AM
And I think you will find that Oregon is a long way south of Norway.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:33AM
The Gulf Stream makes a difference too. 30 ⁰C to be exact. So while it may be freezing in Canada, it might be quite okay on the Norwegian coast on the same north-south degree.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:20PM (8 children)
The Portland City Council had a meeting where they discussed whether they should permit relocating the Right2DreamToo homeless shelter to underneath an overpass in the Pearl District. Two or three hundred homeless people attended, many of us testifying in favor of the permit.
R2D2 is run by the homeless for the homeless, and is commonly called The Tent City. It doesn't look very nice but is far more cost effective than the shelters operated by non-homeless people. It's particularly forward thinking in that it permits one to sleep there during the day. That's important for those who lost out on the bed lottery the night before.
The Pearl District was once a railroad switchyard. The Pearl District developer testified that he put fifty million dollars into the project. He pointed out that R2D2 would diminish property values.
Homeless shelters save lives.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:53AM (3 children)
Most people don't want to save the lives of the homeless. They want the homeless to die in the gutter so they can be removed permanently. They want the homeless to live in a small jar... cremated.
Anybody with a criminal record or mental illness becomes an undesirable. This can only be countered by having reasonable intelligence and marketable skills (such as the ability to drive an 18-wheeler or do HVAC repair).
Some people are forced [wikipedia.org] to be [fox6now.com] homeless [newschannel10.com] not because of money necessarily but due to the scarlet letter of being labeled a sexual predator.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:02AM (2 children)
I was at the shelter in San Luis Obispo a while back. The staff asks everyone new if they are "a registered or unregistered sex offender".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:05AM
And have you stopped beating your wife?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 09 2017, @12:53AM
Sorry, guess that should have been "and have you stopped beating your wife?"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Turbidity on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:08AM (3 children)
I think there is a big constituency that favors some kind of free and humane housing situation for the houseless, but doesn't want it to produce the quality of life issues that are associated with large downtown tent camps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:00AM (2 children)
Then they'd support more comprehensive welfare, but they don't.
How much faith can one have in people who think solar panels on a house look ugly?
I think after I discorporate, I want to sit outside the Pearly Gates and just watch for Americans. I'd like to see their shock when they find out that the parable of the talents wasn't financial advice. That is, if they even were aware that the talent spoken of in that parable means a sum of money.
But I'm probably going to hell anyway, if I'm not already there and imagining all of this. Living around so many assholes has infected me. Mostly I want nothing more to do with this species.
Of course, I'm too much of a coward to kill myself on the contingency that I'm not already in hell but all suicide deaths go there. Might as well not give up all hope of the infinitesimally small chance the next life is any better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:01AM (1 child)
Only suiciders go to heaven.
Prove me wrong.
The afterlife is a human construct, just another filthy invention of the species you claim to hate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:15PM
Life is a human construct too, just another filthy invention of a species that would otherwise be called a virus based on its behavior.
(Score: 1) by Turbidity on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:48AM (1 child)
This takes place in Portland Oregon, not Oregon City, Oregon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_City,_Oregon).
Of course, Portland, Oregon is an Oregon city, but it is not Oregon City. If that makes sense...
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:11AM
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:16AM
It is my privilege to bring NAFTA up to date through renegotiation. I received calls from the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada asking to renegotiate NAFTA rather than terminate. I agreed, subject to the fact that if we do not reach a fair deal for all, we will then terminate NAFTA. We love Canada, wonderful people, wonderful country, but they have been very good about taking advantage of us through NAFTA. Relationships are good. A deal is very possible! I decided rather than terminating NAFTA, which would be a pretty big, you know, shock to the system, we will renegotiate. We're going to give renegotiation a good, strong shot. If we do not reach a fair deal for all, we will then terminate NAFTA. It's been very, very bad for our companies and for our workers, and we're going to make some very big changes, or we are going to get rid of NAFTA once and for all. Because Canada has been killing our economy. It's very unfair, what they're doing to our lumber industry. And maple syrup. Believe me, folks, they have a cartel up there. It's ruining, and I know Bernie is with me on this, it's ruining our industry in Vermont. Our Vermont maple syrup and maple sugar. They're killing our dairies too, folks. They put a 300% tariff on our dairy products. Worse than China. So I've put a tariff on their lumber, on their softwood lumber. 20%. Not a lot, but it's a start. Gives our industry a chance, a chance to compete. And you can see the result already, one of the results, is this great building going up in Portland. This building that they're building in Oregon. Great American wooden building. Not a Trump building, but in a way it is. I'm building it with the tariff. Building our lumber industry and all the great things that come from that. It's unfair what they're doing, the Canadians, very unfair. They've got huge, huge forests on their public lands, up there in Canada. And companies pay a fee to harvest the lumber, harvest it from those public lands. They just pay a fee and they can harvest. Unfair! Very different from what we do. Our lumber industry, they have to bid at an auction. When they want to harvest from the public lands, they bid. And it goes to the highest bidder. Not what they do in Canada. So I put on the tariff. And I'm going to renegotiate NAFTA. With Justin and Enrique. Great guys, but I want what's fair for the U.S.A. For my great American workers. Because I always, always put the American worker first. Not like them. Not like Crooked Hillary. Not like Rosie. Not like Kathy. I'm telling you, folks, we might have to go nuclear on this one. Use our nuclear option, to show them we mean business. Because the business of America is business. Have you heard that expression before? Because I haven't, I mean, I just came up with it right now. #MAGA
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by KritonK on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:09PM (11 children)
...and I'll blooow your house down!
I never cease to be amazed by US people's fascination with flimsy wooden houses that rot, leak, get eaten by insects, are a fire hazard, and can be obliterated by a good-sized storm. Haven't you guys read The Three Little Pigs or, at least, seen the Disney version? Straw and wood are not good building materials.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:41PM
What I took away from The Three Little Pigs was the value of penetration testing [wikipedia.org]. Think of the Big Bad Wolf as a trickster mentor [allthetropes.org] hired by Practical as a way to teach his slacker brothers a lesson.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:27PM (2 children)
I recently looked at lots of homes to buy. I'd say the houses are about 90% concrete block, 5% wood, and 5% solid poured concrete.
There are the odd ones that are hard to classify, most often a 2-story with the lower floor some kind of concrete and the upper floor not being poured.
The better houses have non-wooden non-asphalt roofs. (pure metal, tile over metal, concrete, foam over concrete...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:40PM
oh, and the floors are tile over concrete or cementboard
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday June 09 2017, @08:23AM
It does, indeed.
I remember watching an episode of This Old House [thisoldhouse.com] that was filmed in Florida, where one of the presenters, a building contractor from Boston, was surprised to learn that a house, which he was visiting, was all masonry.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:33PM (6 children)
Brick isn't a very good building material either, if you live in a place with seismic activity.
The Three Little Pigs never said anything about building with steel.
(Score: 2) by ragequit on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)
The Green Jello pigs used concrete.
The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:33PM
Concrete is a terrible building material if you have any seismic activity. Lots of 3rd-world cities have found this out the hard way.
Combine it with steel and things are totally different, however.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday June 09 2017, @08:35AM (3 children)
You mean in places like Greece? Apartment buildings over here used to be built on a frame made of reinforced concrete (including the floors) with walls made of hollow bricks. I live in such a building, built in 1963, which has withstood a couple of major earthquakes with nary a crack in the plaster. These days I believe that poured reinforced concrete is the norm, probably because it is quicker and, presumably, cheaper. The result is certainly not better, as hollow bricks are good heat and sound insulators, which concrete is not.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 09 2017, @01:37PM (2 children)
Yes, I mean any place where there's seismic activity. Bricks will fall, as will concrete. They can't withstand tensile stress at all.
Apartment buildings over here used to be built on a frame made of reinforced concrete
Oh, so you're talking about something completely different! So what exactly is your point anyway?
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Saturday June 10 2017, @07:12PM (1 child)
My point is that wood is not a very good building material.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday June 11 2017, @05:08AM
Until recently (when wood prices have gone up), it was better than most if you wanted a relatively small structure that was inexpensive and able to withstand seismic tremors. These days, it's gotten expensive so that it might not cost that much more to build a residential house out of steel, which has several big advantages, but several decades ago the cost difference was too great.