Spend any time here and you’ll read a couple thousand responses to questions about structural integrity with the phrase “consult an engineer”. We all can understand why. Homes are a big investment. We are a litigious people. People tend to freak out beyond all rationality when it comes to safety.
Thing is, this also sucks all the fun out of life. It encourages the disuse of logic and common sense.
There was a little story in FHB a couple years ago along these lines where the author pined for those older homes where the floor had a little crown and bounce to it instead of being rock hard dead-on flat.
Character, is what it’s sometimes called.
So what I’m wondering is, how many of you folks have seen or heard of an instance of total structural failure in wood frame construction due to loads (and not some idiot plumber cutting a 6″ notch in a 2×10). I’m sure it happens, but really, how often?
So the next time some DIY’er asks if the floor joists are undersized in the house he just bought, maybe someone could say “Why, do you plan to park your car in there?”.
Let’s here some horror stories….
Replies
[Now I have a little confession to make; the reason I thought to start this thread at this particular moment was that my wife who is just a few days from delivering our third child, just went out in sub zero temperature at 9:00 at night to go to the drug store to pick up her refill perscription for pre-natal vitamins. I actually had the gall to suggest that at this point, she may not really need them. She does still eat, after all and I think that's where most people get their vitamins. But she's the type that won't change a battery without consulting the instructions, and if the instructions said "turn around twice before inserting battery" she would do it without question. Hey, she's pregnant, and I didn't make a big thing out of it - at least to her. But the thing is, if she had called her doctor and asked if she needed to bother getting the prescription refilled, I think there's a better than 50/50 chance the doctor would have said yes, just to avoid getting blamed for some completely unrelated future problem. The lack of common sense can be frightening]
Nanny,
Sometimes I baffle people with some of the most diverse issues possible and how I find some way to interrelate them. I gotta say, these two posts of yours seems to have me beat.
No horror story, but a women's body goes through some significant changes post partum. Those vitamins may very well be quite necessary. If he prescribed them, he prescribed them for a certain time period for a reason. However, it's too bad that they're so expensive.
Sometimes you would be surprised what would seem like "common sense" is really not. Following up as a tangent on your topic, it would seem like common sense that a doctor would never order, or a lab would be crooked to perform a pregancy test on a male.
Turns out to be a very cost-effective means of diagnosing some forms of testicular cancer.
No horror story, but it did remind me of something.
Friend of mine bought a small farm in SE Utah. Scenery to die for. Slick rock, a creek and a house that needed to see a doctor from Case. Make no mistake, I'd a bought it. This is Moab/US Park Service/Navajo Nation primo stuff......but the house? Doze it, I said.
A third friend, an architect, said "doze it or paint the interior all white and don't spend $$ on it." Months later the architect and I are watching the San Juan River flow past as the sun sets and talking about this house. "You know", he says, "houses, once erected, don't really want to fall down. They really want to stay together". That's always in my mind when I look at a wreck.
ShelleyinNM
Ya, ever watch someone trying to tear down a barn.
Watched a guy with a tractor and chain trying to tug down a barn. Chainsawed a bunch of the beams. Tractor tug,chainsaw some more, tug, finally a beam lets loose and that's about it. Barn still standing. saw tug saw tug. another section comes down. barn still standing. On and on. Those old barns don't want to die.Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
The other...proper application of risk.
Stone,
Don't want to get off on a pregnancy tangent here, but the vitamin prescription was for PRE-natal, not post. You only take them as a dietary precaution BEFORE delivery and she's due any second now. We have a $15 copay on prescriptions. She could have just rolled up three 5's and lit them on fire - at least it would have added a little heat to the house.
to get back to the subject...kinda... i have seen many that i wondered how/why they were still standing... it's like they were try'n to defy every known law
NannyGee,
Are you saying you let your wife go out in the cold instead of you going for her?
What's up with that?Vince Carbone
YOU SENT HER OUT IN THIS WEATHER!!!!!
A WOMAN IN HER CONDITION!!!
Pal you are one brave man! Or Just stupid!
You know that this will be something that will be brought up in every "marital discussion" for the rest of your miserable life?
Mr T
Do not try this at home!
I am a trained professional!
1. Prenatal vitamins seem worth the money. Mine's due soon... the folic acid helps prevent a certain birth defect and the stats were really along the lines of, it's worth it not needle in a haystack possibility (over 35). Also the iron supplement is high and my wife's bordered on anemia the whole time.
2. I would not judge a man sending his very pregnant wife out on a bitter cold night to pick the vitamins up. I would ask: did he make sure her car was in good operating condition? Did he make sure she's covered if something happens, i.e. blanket, chocolate, cell phone. One thing I don't understand is the couple we're best friends with, he won't drop her off at the door when we go out and she's due in 1 month. Anyway I've gotten sick of giving back rubs, don't want to do it anymore, but how would someone look at that from the outside?
3. As to houses falling down, we have frequent need of demo. We also own a Cat D8 dozer, prox 200,000 lbs gvw and a 16' wide front blade. That barn wouldn't have resisted. I had a house that had all of the floor joists rotted out from termite damage, bought it cheap and did the wall jack thing. And the subfloor.
remodeler
Folic acid is most critical at the stage BEFORE you know you are pregnant; by the time you know you are pregnant, the folic acid doesn't help as much. But it's cheap insurance, anyway.
Oh God! How I wish I had pictures! Maybe I do somewhere in the back files...
I rebuilt a house that was a total failure and hadn't even been finished yet. The previous owner/builder had given up on it and so had the bank. It was still standing but there were sags of more than tree inches in structural members and it was only three years standing. I was afraid to walk on the roof. The chimney 'flashing' directed more water into the house than away. The stairs, as framed, had an inch of deflection in them when a normal sized human being walked up them. Abnormal sized humans were smart enough to stay off them. In one location where the floor joist span was more excessive than most, a beam had been placed under them but the way it was installed, the joists were holding the beam up, rather than the beam holding the joists up. The roof rafters...what roof rafters? For twelve foot spans they had eight foot long 2xeights scarf jointed together with about three 8d nails. A 38 foot 'structural ridge' was several 1x8s butted together. Headers? What're they? There was one beam in a room correctly placed at one end and the other end sat between two studs on top of an interior wall with a single top plate. The studs didn't line up with the floor framing so the plywood under one of them was deformed downward by 3/4" in addition to the half inch sag in the top plate. One gable end wall leaned out three inches. The foundation was off square by four inches so that wall got suspended in air. A stream was flowing through the crawl space due to lack of foundation waterproofing and perimeter drains.
The sale had already been consumated with the new owners thinking they had found a 'deal'. Their home inspection report read only that there were serious structural and framing errors and that a framing contractor should be contacted to offer advice. He saved himself a lot of typing with that choice of words. can't blame him!
I told the owners that I would only discuss working for them if we planned to tear down the existing to the top plate of the first floor and go forward from there. The floor framing under that was adequate - we added two beams under to be sure and get all the necessary point loads and stiffen it. I told them that I would gaurantee that the house would fall in on itself in three years if they kept it as is. I'm sure the chimney had something to do with it lasting as long as it did.
You want to know what's funny about this thread? I just finished saying in the permits thread that there are few structural deficiencies hereabouts in spite of the fact that we have no building code. This very job was in the back of my mind as I wrote that. Then I come here!
prenatal vitamins don't hurt a thing. You should eat a handfull. They are high in B vitamins which are good for the nerves!
but I question the 'need' for them when it means going out alone in weather like this to get them
Excellence is its own reward!
I'd question what kind of man would let his "About to give birth" wife out in freezing weather at night to go to the store alone?
Joe H
Now, I'm not married, but I was wondering the same thing....especially as I hear about to burst wives aren't too keen on letting their husbands kick back and take the easy route when their doing all the "labor"!
But then again, I'm not married, and there must be a reson!Jake Gulick
[email protected]
CarriageHouse Design
Black Rock, CT
Joe, et al,
My wife TOLD me she was going out to pick the stuff up (6 blocks away). She didn't ask because she is self-reliant and also, I suspect, because she knows I would question the need for these PRE-natal vitamins considering she will give birth in the next few days, and she deplores questioning anything.
Do you still have those big tags on manufactured items that say "do not remove under penalty of law"?
There is no possible way that flooding your kidneys with 300% of the RDA of vitamins will do anything for the development of the baby currently searching for the "exit" sign (or for the mother, who will not take them POST-birth). As I said, she does eat (well balanced meals which I cook every day) and people have been know to survive quite well on the natural vitamins in food.
I know better than to try to argue this point with an expectant mother, but come on folks, if you don't get it then there is no hope for common sense in this world...
...and you will suggest that somebody spend a grand on some engineering advice if their floor joists spans exceed span chart recommendations by 6".
N.G.,
I love the thread! You've started two biggies here it seems. While I can't relate any structural failures I've seen I can tell you that pre-natal vitamins are not just that. Your wife SHOULD take them POST-natal for a couple of months at least. It will take, in some cases, 6 months for your wife's iron levels to re-bound, as well as some other goodies. I'm sure you could get some other OBs out there to give you some different numbers, but they should all suggest at least a couple of months of vitamins. By the way, I'll bet that half-hour she was out there getting them was one of the best half-hours you've had in a while (my son popped out 6 months ago and man, my wife was a basket case at the end - I deserved that half hour, I'll bet you did too!). Congrats on the little one and I'll come back later to read the rest of the posts!
Erich
Here's one:
http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106%257E4994%257E1105131,00.html
Granted, it's not a house.
Here's another: (3 versions of the same story)
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=377&ArticleID=69668
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=377&ArticleID=71920
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=377&ArticleID=69445
Honestly, I don't worry about complete failure too much - It's pretty rare. What I worry about is more along the lines of the guy who recently posted about sistering I-joists. The guy had just spent a fortune on a house (I think) and now was finding out it had serious structural problems. And he gets to fix them at his own expense.
I think the bit about sagging floors "adding character" is a copout, and a bunch of crap. If that's true, why aren't people building homes that way? Wouldn't take much to build a house with some 2X floor joists crowned down, so your floor could sag from the day you moved in. People pay big bucks for "distressed" furniture that's supposed to look old.
Keep in mind that houses are getting bigger and bigger, too. The 800 sq.' house of 80 years ago has given way to the 1.5 story, 3,000 sq.' McMansion. The loads and spans involved are much greater.
Do you really want to drop $200,000 on a house with structural problems, then try to tell your friends and family that the sagging floors and cracked drywall are just "character"?
A penny saved is a Congressional oversight.
Sagging floors and cracked drywall are not total structual failure. I think people have to try pretty hard to build an average home that may collapse or have some sort of a life threatining structural deficiency. Can stupid things be done during framing? Absolutely but too often people freak out over the situation like the world may come to an end. In all reality nothing substantial will ever come of it. Many of the do it yourself shows will point out floor joists that were cut by the plumber in a 100 year old home when it was built. How has it managed to stand up all this time without a problem? Yet they need an engineer and a thousand dollars worth of microlams to correct this terrible problem. Chances are it would hold up just fine for another 100 years.
"Sagging floors and cracked drywall are not total structual failure."
Of course they aren't. But do you want that in your home? How many structural defects are you willing to accept?
Somne of the problems which are brought up on this forum simply can't be diagnosed without someone looking at the structure. It would be ridiculous to tell people "Just don't worry about it" when we have no idea what's wrong.
Absolutely but too often people freak out over the situation like the world may come to an end.
I don't see that anyone has done anything remotely like that. How about an example?How does Avon find so many women willing to take orders?
Absolutely but too often people freak out over the situation like the world may come to an end.
I don't see that anyone has done anything remotely like that. How about an example?
I ain't say'in nuttin!
"I ain't say'in nuttin!"
That's O.K. - I can hear what you're thinkin'....................(-:Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
Good morning Boss, How did you know I'm ugly?
The house I live in is 100+ years old. If you go in the basement and look at the floor joists/timbers it will scare you. You think to yourself, I should replace those. Then you notice that the sill plate is gone and the rock basement walls are bowed. Hmm, Is there a footing under there. Hmmmmm, Then you think should I excavate The herb garden and lawn, jack up the house, pour a new foundation and add some sill plates so I can fix those floor joists? Na, betchacan last another 100+ years without it.
maybe .... maybe not .
Do nothing to a house & eventually it will fall down, although it may take a lot of time. Problems you mentioned could all be a result of poor or no upkeep, poor drainage, etc.
I would never suggest anyone neglect a house.
how about another snow story? i know, it's not a house. There was this church roof that collapsed under snow up in mont. cty. maryland a few years ago. About a year after that, I get myself put on a project up there and, this building inspector, I see him checking every nail... .........
later on, as the project went on, I asked him about this church, since it was in his territory, yeah, it turned out he was the inpector on the project, he said he testified in court, (I guess someone sued someone), he said he was asked if he checked every nail. I could imagine what the scene was like...."Well I nspector ______" the lawyer says, holding up in the air consrtuction documents......" DID YOU CHECK EVERY NAIL IN THAT BUILDING ?
Then he goes on to complain about this thing was built by some hillbillies from my state, driving across the border ,to do hillbilliy work.
Edited 1/24/2003 7:54:49 PM ET by panama red
I reno'd an old falling down house. My dad would come along and tell me in response to me beefing up everything that the house had been there for so many years that way. I had to ask him if he ever heard of the straw that broke the camel's back?Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
The other...proper application of risk.
I agree with you and your dad. When it comes to your own house, If you don`t have a huge bankroll and/or a family to spend time with, then pick your battles.
My house is 100+ years old and the basement scares lots of people. My wife called in for bids to replace the basement slab. One guy went on a housewife scare rant about all the "real" structural work the house required. She asked for examples and he basically replied with a list of Dr, Seusian BS. Good day sir. Two structural PE's make for an odd couple, but it also makes a nice old house, with squeaks and bounces, and a lot of structural details that just don't fly anymore. We don't need to jack up that 1" deflection and we have no problems with those posts in the basement.
Major collapses don't happen often in residential, commercial, or civil construction because of structurally redundant systems and the codes. Most of the original codes were written with blood. Remember the deck collapses in the 80's next time you attach a ledger (or better yet, build a free-standing deck). Designing for a 100-year wind speed seems like overkill, until you look at the houses after Hurricane Andrew. Total structural collapse? Well, the roof blew off and all of the windows and doors were blown out but the main structure was standing. Unfortunately, the houses were just as unliveable as any home flattened by a tornado (and I still say they are worse than an earthquake).
Until the late 1800's it was common place for long span bridges to fail suddenly and unexpectedly. Then came John Roebling. There has only been about one major bridge collapse every 20 years since then. Each collapse is an example of new technology taken beyond the limits of contemporary experience. Everyone has seen the Galloping Gerdie video. In Japan they learned the hard way what the military has known for centuries. Break stride on bridges. Japanese people walk in very orderly lines. Tight orderly lines falling into step and, in one instance, imposing a high frequency into a brand new cable-stay foot bridge. The bridge gave way sending the workers to the railroad tracks below. The odd solution was tupperware containers filled with water placed within the box beams to act as mass dampers on the bridges (and little signs asking people to break stride)....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
oh, boy, I can see it now, new inspection item ...... let's see section 2705:paragaph three: subsection d : item # 10: line 29...............h2o containers shall be installed between joists spaces at 10" intervals when the joist depth is 1/1oo of the gross sq. ft. area of the floor above and will conform to the chart in appendix "X".
John,
Thank you!
I was beginning to think no one actually read my posts with the intent to actually UNDERSTAND the points behind them.
I meant people in general not just the few people who routinely comment on this board.
I owned an 80 year old cabin 24x24 with a 3/12 pitch roof constructed with 2x4 rafters 24" on center and no ridge board and the ceiling joists running perpendicular to the rafters. Over time the center of the roof sagged 7", this was very obvious from ground level. I'm sure that in 80 years time this roof has had snow up to 6 feet deep on it. While it has sagged over time it's not going to totally fail any time soon.
In my current cabin it was necessary to substantially notch 1 floor joist in order to change the plumbing system. Every weekend when I show up the place is still standing. That joist will never crack and the floor will not sag regardless of how many people I invite into the bathroom.
"Keep in mind that houses are getting bigger and bigger, too. The 800 sq.' house of 80 years ago has given way to the 1.5 story, 3,000 sq.' McMansion. The loads and spans involved are much greater."
Funny you should mention that. We sold our 7yo 2200 sq ft house in the 'burbs two years ago to buy an 80yo house in the city. About 900 sq. before we finished off attic and basement. The main floor has 2x8 (really 7 1/4") joists spanning 13' no problem.
"Do you really want to drop $200,000 on a house with structural problems, then try to tell your friends and family that the sagging floors and cracked drywall are just "character"?"
Actually, while we "only" paid 147k on it before renovation, it's easily worth 240K now. The floors sqeak beautifully in several places and the hairline cracks in the plaster were filled before we repainted. No problem at all.
Of course, if I let the TOH guys in here they would probably tear everything up to "reinforce" it.
Have you noticed that despite the years of experience of all the posters here no one yet has given much of an example of the thread title?
"Have you noticed that despite the years of experience of all the posters here no one yet has given much of an example of the thread title?"
Did you notice the examples *I* gave ?
You'll also notice that I said total structural failure isn't common, and I don't worry about it much. But I DO worry about people spending their life savings on a home with structural problems that they have no clue about.
Since your old house floors squeak, do you take it to mean that NEW houses should also squeak, so they have "character"? I don't think you'll sell many people on that.The trouble with political jokes is that they get elected.
"Did you notice the examples *I* gave ?"
You mean the barn roof and the Jr. HS roof, which I'm guessing wasn't made of wood?
I was pretty much focusing on homes, which I think you know.
"You mean the barn roof and the Jr. HS roof, which I'm guessing wasn't made of wood?"
Actually, both of them had wood trusses.
I also know of a stick framed roof on a house near me that partially collapsed from snow loads. And my gagage roof had collapsed (because it was poorly built) before I bought the house. And I've mentioned a roof that collapsed last year in Springfield, Illinois when they were re-shingling it. So there ARE examples out there.
The ones I posted links for are just a couple I knew about from a truss-related message board. I suspect that house collapses just don't make headlines like large buildings or schools do.Never trust a stockbroker who's married to a travel agent.
Of course you do have a point that things fall down. But we have to look at the reasons why. Despite everyone's best efforts, s##t happens. Freakish snowfalls, earthquakes, 100-year rains, etc. Then there is the effect of rot and simple ageing. Then there is the inevitable idiot factor - someone not properly attaching something, etc.
But doesn't it strike you as amazing that things still work when not done "by the book"? Or when 100-year old homes that would have about 500 code violations not only still stand, but are highly sought after?
How did the human race make it to, say, 1930 without code books, span charts, and graphing calculators? Shakespere's house is still standing with the original beams (4-6") bows and all.
"But doesn't it strike you as amazing that things still work when not done "by the book"?"
Yup - I'll give ya that. But that's no reason to allow or ignore shoddy workmanship. Or tell people "don't worry about it" when there's something wrong with their house. (Or when you can't actually see the house, when someone asks about structural issues on this forum)
"How did the human race make it to, say, 1930 without code books, span charts, and graphing calculators? "
Structures were a lot simpler back then, and they weren't in such a rush to build them. And I think standards were much lower - People weren't worried so much about a bouncy floor if they were moving into a balloon framed house from a log cabin with a dirt floor.
And - As someone has already pointed out - Most of the poorly built ones from back then have been replaced.In the last couple of weeks I have seen the ads for the Wonder Bra. Is that really a problem in this country? Men not paying enough attention to women's breasts? - Jay Leno
How did the human race make it to, say, 1930 without code books, span charts, and graphing calculators? " <<
while we didnt have calculators then we did have an understanding of beam and column equations (which led to span tables) and sliderules, trust me, the empire state building was not built by gut feelings but by hard numbers
You're tellin' the wrong guy - I'm not the one who said that.We have women in the military, but they don't put us in the front lines. They don't know if we can fight, if we can kill. I think we can. All the general has to do is walk over to the women and say, "You see the enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms." - Elayne Boosle
"the empire state building was not built by gut feelings but by hard numbers"
True. But why are you folks always resorting to commercial construction to make your point when you know that's not really what's being discussed here?
True. But why are you folks always resorting to commercial construction to make your point when you know that's not really what's being discussed here?<<
three reasons and one suggestion:
the kansas city hotel is a commercial structure and that is being discussed in this thread
because the same formulas are used to design residential beams and columns, my post could have been applied to a house designed in that same time period but i chose a famous building
because you can learn from commercial failures and can apply to residential construction and vice a versa
open up your mind and just breathe!
Edited 1/25/2003 12:52:06 PM ET by Haole27
Edited 1/25/2003 12:58:07 PM ET by Haole27
"People weren't worried so much about a bouncy floor"
I've always wondered, why are they now? I mean, really. If it's not causing any other problems, what's the big deal? We don't play phonographs much anymore and CD's don't skip much. So who cares?
I can tell you *I* dang well don't like bouncy floors. Can't imagine anything more annoying. And I think I'm in the majority with regards to that. Think about how many posts have been made hear about bouncy and sagging floors.
BTW - You jumped on Haloe27 for mentioning total failures on commercial buildings. If all you want to discuss is residential, you need to make that point up front.My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance. - Tim Allen
"If all you want to discuss is residential, you need to make that point up front."
I refered specifically and exclusively to either "homes" and/or "wood frame" in posts number 28 and 32 and most importantly, post number...
ONE
Be careful. As far as posting goes, you're dealing with a pro here.
Boss is now scouring the internet search engines for anything that'll make his point. Look out. Your computer is smokin'.
:-)
OK, here's the closest I remember, a 77 year old 24 unit wood frame two story apartment building. I remember seeing this one on TV news It looked like the cripple walls of the crawl space racked over and the whole thing dropped down. All the stucco sheared off of the studs and came down in big sheets. The stairs and balconies at one end fell all the way down, killing one man. Most of the rest of it stayed together well enough that the tenants were able to walk out. The whole thing was investigated and demoed within a week or two, but there was no news coverage of what the cause was.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/collapse001208.html
-- J.S.
"I refered specifically and exclusively to either "homes" and/or "wood frame" in posts number 28 and 32 and most importantly, post number...ONE "
Waiting until post #28 + 32 is kinda late. All the ones I've mentioned were, in fact wood frame.
"Boss is now scouring the internet search engines for anything that'll make his point."
Actually, I'm not. The links I posted were posted by someone on Trussnet.com - A forum which I also frequent. Since you asked about structural failures, I thought you'd be interested in seeing them. What's your beef with that?
"Be careful. As far as posting goes, you're dealing with a pro here. "
No idea what you mean by that.......
If it wasn't for muscle spasms, I wouldn't get any exercise at all.
We had the cafeteria roof of the local high school collapse about 10-12 years ago. Heavy, but not unusually heavy snow load. But, some melt/freeze cycles and ended up with really thick ice in that area. Caved in about noon on a Sunday. A day later at that time it'd have made national, possibly international news.
Forget the details, but my engineering teacher explained in great detail why the structure failed. How it was improperly designed. Then how the replacement roof was designed at least 20 times stronger then necessary. And way way stronger then the original.
If I remember right it wasn't a truss roof, but a flat roof. Don't know the type of structure.
>'...given much of an example of the thread title?'
Maybe because the original poster jumped topic in his add-on post #2. Roar!
Agree with you tho'. I think some of the posters at breaktime have a leaning towards building new as opposed to saving what remains. But that's Finehomebuilding and not Old House Journal so it is what it is.
Personally I love old houses and find most of the newer homes, if not priced in the exorbitant vein, to have a sterile feel to them. But if that's what some people want more power to them. Unfortunately some of that builder's attitude creeps over into old house repair and if evenly given a choice they would opt to tear down a pre-existing structure no matter how secure and build new.
Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
The other...proper application of risk.
Thanks for the reply.
Although it can go that way, I don't think this is really an issue of old vs new.
I'd just like to see some people exersize some common sense.
I'd like to see a disclaimer on this board that says something like "Always consult a preofessional. Get an engineer sign off on every aspect of a design. Always use union labor. Buy a code book and memorize it. Don't ever think outside the box. All posters here are immune to legal action or guily consciences"
Everybody signs off on it and then agrees to never reference those points in any future post. Just give an honest, best guess answer given the information provided.
Question everything.
No, TOTAL STRUCTURAL FAILURE, is extermenly rare, baring an earthquake or mud slide.
Now we have had several homes in this area that did colapse due to being built on in proper fill. Now those where structural failurers, but not the type that would are caused by the framing.
But most structural failures are not sudden. Instead tens of thousands of dollars are spent repairing a structure that might have only costed an extra $500 to 1000 to do right in the first place.
The big problem with your question is TOTAL. For example we had too major structural failures in Kansas City. One the roof on an arena. The other some suspended walkways in a hotel colapsed killing a large number of persons. But the hotel stayed standing so it was not a TOTAL structural failure.
You can find lots of report of decks colapsing from poor design and injurying and even killing people. But again that is not TOTAL, the house still stands.
...some suspended walkways in a hotel colapsed killing a large number of persons. But the hotel stayed standing so it was not a TOTAL structural failure.
Again, the thread is about wood frame construction, presumably homes. I actually read an in depth analysis of that walkway collapse in KC. Two interesting points about that; 1) this was a project in which every minute aspect was singed off on by engineers and 2) the faulty coupling design which caused the collapse was so obviously flawed to anyone who's head wasn't buried in a calculator, that any ordinary joe with a pickup could have designed a better one based on nothing more than just gut feeling common sense.
Local code up here requires house frames to withstand 20-40 FOOT snow loads. There are several houses around that were built in the 1950s that are not engineered to that standard and the old timers crow about how cheap and easy it was to build back then, but they seem to crow less when they are out in sub-zero weather shoveling their roofs. The older houses that are still standing all have had shear problems that have been corrected by bracing and more siding. When we talk about the integrity of old houses, let's remember there is a Darwin effect here: the old crappy ones have already fallen down and what we are seeing are the best built and maintained houses. (Then there's decks: at least one in the neighborhood fails every year after a big snow dump that avalanches off of someone's roof and on to their deck. I thought our deck was over-engineered until I was ski touring in early spring the Sangre de Christo mountains and came across a brand new house, still unfinished. It looked like it was going to be a great house except that its deck had already collapsed, taking part of an exterior wall with it. THAT builder has some fast work ahead of him if he wants to repair the damage before the owner comes up to inspect).
Mentioning decks and snow load made me think of a story that I think illustrates part of the phenomena I’m trying to address here;
Bob works 12-hour days to earn enough money to throw at problems. He lives near the slopes in Colorado and wants a nice big deck added to his house.
Mike the builder says “No problem. I can do ‘er for ya. ‘Course you got an issue here with snow loads dropping onto the deck from the roof. I’ve seen it happen a hunnert times. I’m gonna need to get some engineering done. That’s gonna cost ya. Then there’s extra materials involved. Extra time, etc. That’ll do ya for all but the most freakish snowfalls. I’m gonna warn ya, the total will be 3-4 times the cost of a standard deck.”
Bob shrugs and says “Well, it’s only money.”
A month later the job is done. Turns out it cost 5 times the cost of a simple deck but it looks good - nice and beefy.
Then his gardener, John (who lives in a much less chic part of town) comes by and notices the deck and Bob goes through the whole story with just a little touch of pride in his voice at how hard work and ingenuity can solve all problems. Then he finishes by saying “I just hope we don’t get one of those once in a 100 years kind of snowfalls. After all, even this deck can only take so much.”
Then John nods and says, “Yep, I agree. ‘Course, you could have avoided the whole problem and just put the deck around the corner of the house, on the gable end. It’s got pretty much the same view, and you could have had it for 1/5th the cost. I would have been happy to help you do it yourself, too, if you were ever home. I’ve done a half dozen for folks in my neighborhood. Good thing you got money.
John loses a client :-)
nice fable!
"nice fable!"
Thank you. I was kind of proud of it :-) (post #48)
I wonder if any one else "got" it?
I remember my Strengths Of Materials teacher going into great detail on this. He told us that the collapse was eventually traced to washer failure. The bolts holding up the walkways pulled through the washers. He said something to the effect that a little thicker hardened washer and it could probably have been averted. If true. Again a minute percent of additional overall cost in better materials could have stopped a tragedy. Seems the structural engineers overlooked the washer specification and standard washers were used.
I'd be interested in reading a more in depth analysis of this. Still, even w/ proper washers it was underdesigned. They would have withstood the load that caused failure, but wouldn't have provided a proper safety factor. Possibly leading to a similar failure in the future.
Check out the book "Why Buildings Fall Down" which is the sequel to "Why Buildings Stand Up". Those are absolute essentials for folks interested in building and not so interested in pages full of calculus formulas. The KC hotel is a chapter in the book.
While the washer may have played a role, the principal problem was conceptual; the two level walkway was hung by steel rods from the ceiling. Originally, one piece of rod was to be used at each connecting point for both walkways. The rod needed to be sized to carry the combined weight, but each eye&pin connection needed to be rated for only the weight of one walkway. Somewhere along the line, they decided to use two pieces of rod, one strung after the other at the pin of the upper walkway but forgot to change the specs. Now the eye&pin connection from the upper rod to the upper deck was carrying BOTH loads.
Oops.
It was not the washer(s) that failed, but rather the box beam that supported the walkway. The box beams split along the longitudinal welds and basically slid down the rods all the way to the floor below.
How did it happen? The contractors proposed a change to the engineers' original design to facilitate building it. The engineers didn't adequately review the change, were found to be negligent, and lost their licenses.
So, NannyGee, back to your earlier message, I don't think it's fair to characterize it quite the way you did. Yes, the engineers missed it (and shouldn't have) but I don't think it was because their heads were buried in calculators, and apparently it wasn't obvious to the contractors building it, let alone to "any ordinary Joe with a pickup."
I've enclosed some graphics showing the original design and the contractor's change. It doesn't really look like a big change, but it makes a huge difference.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~ajenney/webpage.htm
good article explaining what happened
Thanks to both of you. I was going on my shaky memory. I was much more involved in trying to do the mental gymnastics to keep up with the Calculus calculations required to pass this class, then the stories he told of why structures failed.
Actually, I'm much more interested in that aspect then knowing how to do the math. No offense to engineers, but sitting around all day running calculus load calculations is my idea of he!!. Never want to do that again, but hey I pulled a B and it isn't necessary in my work.
Interesting to see your diagrams. Guess my memory isn't that great. But, I knew that. I don't remember how to run a single structural equation. I'd have to pull out the textbook and spend hours to do even a simple one. And after all that I wouldn't trust my answer.
practice makes perfect!
You're right. I was going by memory and I visualized the details wrong. Nice drawing. The overall concept, I had correct, however. The original connection only had to bear the weight of one level, the altered one, two levels. Anyone could have seen the huge differences in stresses involved between the two, had they looked.
What we all now refer to as the Perfect Storm (‘91) is what I still think of and refer to as the Halloween Noreaster because that’s what it was around here. I guess the storm that hit us here was just one of three storm systems that eventually collided and joined up to be known as that legendary storm.
For me what I remember was it was the only storm that ever ripped shingles off of my own home. Tropical storm Floyd in 99 didn’t even do that although it caused a lot of other flooding damage to the town in which I live. With Floyd there was this historic 200 year old house down in town (Katonah NY) that was knocked completely off it’s foundation by a landslide caused by the rain and while that wasn’t really related to structural failure so to speak it looked a lot like what had happened to another house in another neighboring community that I saw after the Halloween Noreaster.
That structural failure was a house that had large sections of block foundation walls cave in or get moved relatively intact by the hydrostatic pressure in the ground around the house that had built up from all the rain. I guess they were able to shore up and rescue that house because it’s still there today although the landscape around it looks different than it did back then.
I also recall from when I first started working in this business an owner-built home that was being erected sort of next door and slightly behind a house the company I was working for was framing. One day when that owner builder had left for the day our foreman grabbed us all to take us over there to show us just how bad it was.
It was an amazing thing to see. There were shims and blocks of wood underneath the bird’s mouths or up at the ridge wherever rafters didn’t meet up the plates or ridges. The sheathing was nailed on in various grain orientations depending I guess on whatever he happened to have available or left over as scrap. Just standing in this structure you could feel the wind shifting it that late fall day. It was a long time ago so while I don’t really remember I am sure not a single wall or floor was plumb or level. While it never collapsed that guy had to tear it down because it failed inspection and couldn’t be corrected or repaired as it was.
I also have seen the collapse of two owner-built decks one of which fell partially on a car.
Luckily no one was ever hurt or killed in any of the structural failures or natural disasters that I have personally seen.
View Image
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thanks for the stories!
That perfect storm in 1991 in the east meant a different sort of perfect storm here in Minnesota at the same time. Huge snowfall of 28" give-or-take on Halloween. The storm couldn't move east like usual because of the action there. So it just hovered here for about 36 hours strait.
I gotta say, I loved it. There is something very soothing about being homebound after an immense snowfall.
So far this year: 6" total and no more than 1" at any given time. Yuk.
My favorite analogy for this one is that the original design was like two guys hanging onto a rope, and the as-built was like having the bottom guy hanging onto the top guy's ankles.
-- J.S.
Not total failure, but two interesting examples.
We moved our office into the second floor of a two story brick/steel building; the office area was all wood framed, first floor was basically open, second floor partitioned into offices. After we moved in our desks, filing cabinets, etc, I noticed that the baseboard now was 1.5 to 2" above the floor; enough so that we could watch the mice running the length of the building, from office to office. The walls were well supported at the ceiling, but with all the furniture, the floor sagged. A lot. Obviously, whoever framed the place never thought the offices would have desks and filing cabinets in them. Which makes me wonder what they thought would be in them....
At my sister's place, she hired a contractor to replace the deck. L shaped deck, starting at the front edge of the house, wrapping around the back. Sloping lot, so the deck was 3 or 4 steps above grade at the front edge of the house, and a full story above grade around back. When the contractor cut the railing on the front edge of the deck, the deck promptly fell off the house. //
Mario Salvadori has a great series of books, "Why Buildings Stand Up" and "Why Buildings Fall Down" among them. In "Why Buildings Fall Down" describes the hows and whys of that failure in great detail- great reading.
Edited 1/24/2003 2:18:09 PM ET by jc
I think it was FHB some years ago (in an article on common structural errors, or something) that had a picture of a house that collapsed sideways because there was nothing structural to resist racking.
How about close to total failure? About 10 years ago, I was putting up firewalls in a row of townhomes. . . board was stocked on the top floor of the house, while we worked below. . .I noticed a curious "dimpling" of the floor adjacent the wall, surrounding a post of built up 2x4's. I went to the basement, and saw why- the post was on top of plywood, not a joist, with no post underneath it. I told my boss, who I think told the framers, who just laughed at the new guy (me).
Next day, the post was in the basement, and the top floor was bowed a foot or two down, with a few crews of carpenters trying to get things right. The floors were web joists - if they had been simple 2x, I imagine they might have just snapped, and the whole house would have failed.
Without that load of "luckily" placed drywall, the same thing could have happened 10 years down the road. . .
Thanks for the post. A few thoughts on your story;
1) "if they had been simple 2x, I imagine they might have just snapped" Actually, my guess is that if they had been properly sized 2x they would have simply deflected (a lot?) and sprung back into place once the rock was removed, rather than having to rescue damaged webs.
2) If your recollection is correct, then a lot of pros on the job showed incredibly poor judgement. So much for the relative value of only consulting pros.
3) I mentioned a while back that issues like this would only be a problem if you were going to park a car on the floor. Your pile of rock likely weighed more than a car. Maybe a lot more. was this standard practice? I would never pile a couple tons of rock on an ordinary floor, even with properly placed posts, but then I'm not a pro.
4) everyone knows all townhomes are crap :-)
<<<<2) If your recollection is correct, then a lot of pros on the job showed incredibly poor judgement. So much for the relative value of only consulting pros. 3) I mentioned a while back that issues like this would only be a problem if you were going to park a car on the floor. Your pile of rock likely weighed more than a car. Maybe a lot more. was this standard practice? I would never pile a couple tons of rock on an ordinary floor, even with properly placed posts, but then I'm not a pro. >>>>
Was and is standard practice. Wouldn't have been a problem had it not been for the unsupported beam, IMHO. Usually, try to put them across joists, and it is not a problem.
Pros? This was in the D.C. area. I can count on one hand the number of pros I have met in various construction trades. To be honest, the only people I have seen who know what they are doing are a few plumbers and hvac guys. Drywall maybe, but often that is more art than knowledge. Otherwise, untrained (or "trained on the job" - wrongly) labor predominates. That guy in another thread who had bad de-laminating joists seems about norm for his area, Northern Va. . .
"I can count on one hand the number of pros I have met in various construction trades. "
Why is this? Isn't building booming? Isn't money flowing into construction? Can't be that hard to find help. It beats McDonalds for pay. It takes some experience and intelligence to get good at any job, including construction, but it's not exactly rocket science.
Seems to me if you picked a bunch of people at random, at least half would have been able to identify the problem you refered to before.
Maybe I'm too optimistic.
Here's another "horror story" for ya:
http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/local2003/0124_dog_hero_2002.shtml
I poured Spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.
And another thing,
We're all here because we love Fine HomeBuilding, not Fine SchoolBuilding or Fine ChickenCoopBuilding or Fine SkyScraperBuilding. I think it was kind of implied, too.
And I haven't "jumped" on anyone.
I've even use the phrase "you're right" and "I missed that" a couple times.
No one can be mean when they end their posts with little smiley faces...
:-)
And another thing,
We're all here because we love Fine HomeBuilding, not Fine SchoolBuilding or Fine ChickenCoopBuilding or Fine SkyScraperBuilding. I think it was kind of implied, too.
And I haven't "jumped" on anyone.
I've even use the phrase "you're right" and "I missed that" a couple times. <<
you jumped on me too nannygee, noone can control a threads wanderings, to try is foolhardy and pointless..
"you jumped on me too nannygee, noone can control a threads wanderings, to try is foolhardy and pointless.."
Which I can only assume has to refer to my...
"But why are you folks always resorting to commercial construction to make your point when you know that's not really what's being discussed here?"
If that's jumping, then I guess I'm guilty, but also more than a little puzzled.
Anyone who's ever been interested in buildings knows they fall down. Warehouses, bridges, factories, supermarkets, the list goes on and on. The cause is usually freakish weather (which you can dismiss as unavoidable without rediculous overbuilding) and/or designs which stretch the limits (too far) of the materials' ability to hold together.
I, personally, had never heard of a single example of a HOUSE falling in on itself, or less spectacularly, even the floor of a ROOM collapsing due to simple loading (the waterbed example).
Now, I never had any doubt there WERE examples, which is why I was asking for examples. I hoped that we all would have to admit that they were so rare and so dependent upon the confluence of multiple extenuating circumstances that maybe we could just relax a little and think twice about always qualifying every response to other structural questions with the phrase "consult and engineer".
There can be and endless repitition of commercial construction examples if that's where you want to go, but by doing so, the posters' demonstrate that they either don't understand the distinction or don't care.
I have never seen any poster start a thread on this board with the question: "What kind of truss should I use on this retractable roof stadium I've been thinking about bulding..."
There's a house near here I'm amazed hasn't collapsed yet. Floor is 2x8's spanning 16' or so and then cantilevered 4'-5' out for the front deck. Two of the joists were replaced with steel. The wood sags about 2", so as you walk across the LR from wood joist to steel back to wood, you can get sea sick! When the washer is running, the whole house shakes like a vibrating bed. Still, by the grace of God it hasn't fallen, and owner didn't seem to want help stiffening the floor, so...
In or around 94 I got called out to a house about 3:00 am. It seems the upstairs master bed room fell in to the down stairs dining room.
The people had remodel the master bedroom moved two bathrooms over into a third bedroom. After the remodel was done the owners decided on a new bedroom sweet and part of that was a king size water bed.
The problem seem to have been under sized 2x6 (which measured 2 1/2 x 6 3/4) for the weight load. Besides that there were a number of floor joist that had notches put in the under side for pluming runs. To get the proper drainage.
You could ague if they would not have remodel or not have put in the water bed there would not have had that kind of structural damage done. That was the only one that I have seen but have heard of a few others that had some structural damage because of water beds.
Seems to me that, in quest of proving his theory that wooden residences don't fail, Nanny Gee has tilted the table in his favor by disallowing testimony that is not strictly in accord with his concept of residential construction and that has not "TOTALLY" failed.
In my understanding, Wood fails in ways different from steel or concrete which have a greater tendency to give way all at once, in the manner that brought down the Kansaas walkway or the NYC Twin Towers. Wood is a flexible medium so it fails by degrees. This makes it far safer in many ways because one becomes aware that it is in a state of failure long before it kills anyone or becomes unuseable. In the course of time, owners take steps to modify or correct the failure and tradgedy is averted.
That does not change the fact that failure has occoured or is occouring when the wood is sagging, leaning and splitting. Many homes are still standing wherein all or most systems are in a state of failure when you define failure as the inability to perform the task of supporting the intended loads without deviation from original shape and condition.
But I suggest we can forgive him his irrational premise, given the conditions under which he has formed it - that of a nervous expectant father who has been deprived of his prenatal vitmins as evidencd by his woman's pressing need to get out of the house alone on a frigid night.
;)
I'm sure that he'll mellow out once the little one has grown up!
.
Excellence is its own reward!
Ya, that's what I said. There is a straw that will break the camel's back.Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
The other...proper application of risk.
I have worked on many commercial buildings with wooden roof truss systems and most homes with basements have steel i-beams and lally columns, so there is a lot of cross learning possible between commercial and residential, that is to those open minded enough to do so!
I rarely see steel in residential.
Did you just happen to have that word 'most' laying around on your keyboard and felt the compulsion to use it someplace or did you mean most of what you have worked on?.
Excellence is its own reward!
most homes with basements have steel i-beams and lally columns<<
piffin, did you just happen to have your picky/crusty/nothing better to do but pick apart module plugged in?
read my post again, very narrowly worded, "most homes with basements have steel i-beams and lally columns"
i did not say most residences ...
and if i wanted to pick, some of your "engineering" explanations are pretty darn funny!
Edited 1/25/2003 6:32:18 PM ET by Haole27
Well, since you are being picky, most homes with basements that I have seen do not use steel. How about realizing that your experioence is limited to what you are aware of and mine is limited to what I am aware of. Neither one is qualified to make that statement that most use or do not use steel beams without some research. I just wanted to clarify whether you had any facts to back up your statement but do it in a friendly, humorus way. Apparantly, you have neither humor nor facts, just opinions.
"some of your "engineering" explanations are pretty darn funny!"
Such as?
I can be taught. Let's hear it, big brain..
Excellence is its own reward!
Haole27, Most homes have steel in the basements? No, there are some, but I can only remember two out of 100 homes I have seen in the last 3 years....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
If it will make you feel any better, in the last 22 years I think I've built maybe 12 (single family homes) with built up wood beams.
I usually do about 25 custom and semi-custom a year the last 10 years and worked on tract projects that did 3 per week before that, none of which had wood beams in the basement.
I dont even want to mention the few multi-family dwellings.
Sounds like piffin was right ,it comes from what you are used to seeing in your area.
say again, do you use more steel or wood for your main carrying beams?
it sounds like you built 12 houses with wood and 250 with steel???
typical house i see now a days is 3000-5000 sqft two stories, of these 100% use steel beams and lally columns
my original point was to show that wood is used in some commerical apps (trusses) as a structural member and steel residential, even the homes with builtup wood beams probably use steel lallys, this was to answer someone who questioned what there was to learn from commercial steel usage for residential construction, hell even wood trusses use steel connecting plates pressed in
it amazes me how these threads take these huge detours as some of us here are totally hung up on minutae and love to pick
its late and im tired...
Edited 1/25/2003 11:12:02 PM ET by Haole27
I understood the reason you brought in steel and I agree with that point. Lessons learned from one style of construction can apply to another. What I wanted to know was whether your statement about most homes with basements and steel beams was based only on your experience or some national statistic. I seem to remember a report indicating that the use of steel as a major structural component in residential construction was growing but the figures mentioned were in the neighborhood of 18% which is a far cry from 'most'. I know that would have included studding and floor framing in some measure too.
I'm still asking because I want to know. Not to make you get so defensive. Maybe you've got some ionformation and maybe not. Just say so if it's only your own experience.
Me? My experience over hundreds of homes with basements in two states is that nearly every one used wooden beams of some configuration or other with many of them supported by steel jack posts and others on support walls.
Maybe it's one of those regional things..
Excellence is its own reward!
sometimes, i think you get caught up in minutae piff, you jumped me on the use of "most", i mean give me a break, i am sorry that i jumped back though, sorry
obviously, i dont know the exact percentage nationwide but here in se mich, homes 2500 sqft and up for the last 30 years and so, "it appears to be in the majority", lets not jump on this trivia or we will all be forced to weasel word our posts forever! then we will be jumped for mispelling and then we are all f*&^ed! haha
OK
in the future, I promise to avoid any attempt at humour with you to avoid these little misunderstandings.
thanks for the clarification..
Excellence is its own reward!
yep, more with steel than wood.
though I think that would be 250 the last 10 years and somewhere around 1700 the 12 years previous to that. That figure (1700) of course is the total on the various sites where I was the lead of one of several crews.
Edited 1/26/2003 9:16:07 AM ET by benny
Edited 1/26/2003 9:17:13 AM ET by benny
this is the same thing i see too here in the midwest and se, more steel than wood main beams
I rarely see steel beams, except for garage spans, and even then the beancounters find it is cheaper to wood them with a post. Maybe it is a northeast thing.
Funny thing is, I prefer to work with steel when it makes sense.
Oh well, continue all of the fights and battles.
Oh ya, I have yet to see a house fall down, lol. As a matter of fact, I often say " I haven't seen one fall down yet". I'm sure that instills confidence in clients.
It strikes me that there is another nuance to the overall thread;
Things have gotten complicated in life, and building is no exception. While I would never suggest ignoring advances, there is a certain psychology that goes on in people that makes them impressed with advances that don't really advance life.
Take new luxury cars for example. Absolutely stuffed with electronics that don't really have anything to do with getting you from point A to point B. people have a right to waste their money on them, but when they are put out of commission when the owner spills a cappachino on a control module, I take great pleasure in letting them know that my basic transportation has never broken down.
Take the new houses (and commercial buildings) being condemned or gutted because of mold problems because they built them so damn tight that they couln't breath. That $2.75 they saved each month on the gas bill sure looks impressive next to the $100,000 repair bill.
Maybe a few decades ago construction guys walked on their first floor with I-joists or web joists and it was rock hard and dead-on level and they thought "wow, that's impressive". And now "old style" 2x framing that has any give at all is considered absolutely inferior even though there is no practical reason whatsoever that it should be. Joe Schmoe can have a 24' span in his great room now. Congratulations. How did so many generations survive without 24' spans in their houses? It's all psychology, no substance.
People used to be able to rent a movie or get groceries without using a cell phone. Now they develop a nervous tic if they forget it at home.
Ah, what a brave new world...
To many words Guy, all I saw was blah blah blah.
I build, I don't read ####.
Condensed version of this thread-
Nanny says us builders are afraid to try anything new and think outside the box. Then he wraps up by pointing out how new stuff in automobiles doesn't always work so good.
Maybe he talked himself into agreeing that engineering systems is good.
But you've got to agree that female hormones are playing a part in his thinking right now...with the baby on the horizon. So you can't expect pure male logic at this time..
Excellence is its own reward!
I just read the first post, again, and I guess the point is "Do whatever you want, and call it charactor"
8 words Pif, and I could reduce it to two, "F it".
Edited 1/26/2003 6:43:54 PM ET by Qtrmeg
"F it".
That's where the baby and hormone problems came from..
Excellence is its own reward!
lol, yeps
Pif & Q
Apparently this thread has gone on too long. I'm willing to let it go if you will.
Now I'll go look for a beer thread, or a crotch scratching thread, or better yet, a "why GWBush is really the second coming of Christ" thread.
See ya around
What we have here is a total failure to structure this thread!
Did you expect everyone to agree with you in every way and stroke you?
That's what lover's are for.
When Qtr mentioned the short version of building in errors and calling it character, I remembered a job where I was asked to do some work on a bathroom. The door leading from the bedroom into it was one of the worst examples of door hanging work I had ever seen and this was on a high end house. It was really sad. I asked the owner, "Say, while I'm here, I could spend two or three hours on this door and make it right. Somebody really messed up when they put this thing in here- like they didn't know what they were doing...."
His answer - "No, that's OK. It's just one of those things that gives this old house 'character'! Just leave it this way."
I found out later that he had installed that door himself. I never could figure out why he wanted to leave something so ghastly for people to have to look at and use.
So maybe I just don't understand exactly where you are coming from or going to. It all rings like a woman on hormones - without logic- and that I can understand because your life is being dominated by that right now.
We've all been there..
Excellence is its own reward!
You don't understand. If he had let you fix the door he'd have had to admit to his wife that he did it wrong to begin with. He probably told her he hung it that way on purpose because he wanted to add some character to their house.
Some people would never let someone else fix something they did wrong. It would force them to admit they did something wrong. You probably really hurt his pride just by asking. So insensitive.<g>
Billy
Guess what? His wife knows better. She had his tools hidden.
I could say more but 'twouldn't be wise..
Excellence is its own reward!
Gee, I wish my wife would hide my drywall tools. Instead she keeps making me use them. Hate that stuff. But, at least I'm no longer awful at it.
I' now just sorta bad at it.
Hey, don't cry in my beer, go on as long as you want.
If you bother me I will put this on ignore, lol
"...theory that wooden residences don't fail..."
Never said that. If you assumed I did, you inferred something that wasn't there. That's not my problem. Read my previous post please.
"...disallowing testimony that is not strictly in accord with his concept of residential construction..."
I can't disallow anything. I can't even stop someone from playfully misrepresenting everything I've tried to convey. However, I'll concede, I do not consider the Empire State Building my concept of residential construction.
Your description of wood vs. other materials was insightful. Thank you.
"...But I suggest we can forgive him his irrational premise..."
What would that be?
irrational...that wooden houses don't fail
That's the way I read what you wrote. But you've already clarified it by now. Looks like you be playing devils advocate a little to stimulate discussion on the point that maybe we too often blinly just refer to an engineer. I think you are too far off in that direction while Haole is too far gone in the other direction.
It's a little like skiing, I think. Most people die or have serious accidents when they exceed their own limits. I managed to learn that lesson the hard way.
Now most people who exceed their limits don't die and most don't have serious accidents every time they overdo it. But most of the ones who do die, have done it by exceeding their abilities.
When builders engage in engineering - and yes we all do so - it is important for us to stay within the bounds of what we do know. Errors can happen. As for applying our engineering knowledge in open forum for others to make use of, there is far too much room for multiplying those errors. In matters of life and death, it is better and far more professional to err on the side of caution than to give advice to someone who might misinterpret it or mis-apply it. Most questions here do not provide sufficient information for even a superbly qualified engineer to render assistance. Then that engineer would have to presume that the poster was qualified to report the correct information and honest enough with his presentation of conditions to be trusted.
Now suppose that another person were to be reading a thread who had a situation similar to that of the one requesting advice but diferent in some crucial aspect. He might very well assume that the same advice given could be applied to his project. He would doso in full confidence that since the advice came from Fine Homebuilding he was safe to employ it.
He would be wrong. He could be dead wrong! You wouldn't want a midwife who learned her skills over the internet to be tending to this upcoming birth, would you?
That's why we are not as loose with our advice as we are with our jabs and jokes.
BTW, Congratulations on the new generation in your household. I trust you'll be here late at night occasionally soon.
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Excellence is its own reward!
"...He might very well assume that the same advice given could be applied to his project...."
Based on one post?!?....On the internet?!?
"...He would doso in full confidence that since the advice came from Fine Homebuilding he was safe to employ it...."
Didn't come from Fine HomeBuilding. It came from someone with a computer.
"...He would be wrong..."
He would be an idiot. Nature catches up with people like that. Nothing you or I can do about it.
I've learned a great deal on these boards over the last few years, but never after a single post or thread and never without comparing it to personal experience, the experiences of others I know, and the bulls##t filter.
I could have learned a lot more, I think - certainly a lot faster - if experienced folks would more often just answer the questions asked to the best of their ability, with the information given, comforted in the knowledge that no one will ever be able to sue you and if the worst happens, the average IQ of the area just went up a bit.
There is another nuance involved here that I mentioned early on, and that's the stifling of creativity. For example, I've been planning for some time now to build a home on some wooded vacation property we own. The area does not enforce structural codes (only electric and septic, I think). This has made the planning process a lot more fun for me. Nothing is finalized yet, But I know there will be a number of features that will land outside of conventional code requirements. But I also know it won't fall down. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to exercise my creativity this way.
Of course he's be an idiot, or something quite close to it, but it takes two to steer a fool in the wrong direction, and I don't want or need to be the one sending him to his fate.
I'm less concerned about any lawsuit than plain old misunderstanding (read this thread again if you doubt how quickly it can happen) leading to someone's injury or death. They can sue all they want and if I've done what's right, it won't bother me morally. But even if I'm protected from lawsuit, it would bother me greatly inmy spirit to know that I participated in sending someone astray.
I do participate in creative lines with those I know and trust. I don't feel stifled in the least. Do you feel stifled when you hold your speed on the highway down to something under eighty? Or do you CHOOSE to keep it at a safe speed because of thinking about the loved ones beside you, and enjoy their company for the ride.
I'm also in an area where no structural codes are enforced and I see some of the finest building here I have seen anywhere in the country.
But I have no qualms about consulting an engineer when I'm up against something unique and beyond my level of knowledge. If you arre thinking of doing some different things and thinking outside the box, you have greater need for an engineer. Take for instance, Cloud Hidden here who designs and buiolds concrete dome homes. They're pretty unique for most of us. Want to bet he doesn't apply some sound engineering for things in these homes? I don't really picture him flying that concrete in by the seat of his pants...
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Excellence is its own reward!
Part of the reason I used to justify my tearing down my old house and building a new one is because of the really poor building techniques used. I used to joke that the prior owner added more to the house every time they got a good tax return. The best built part of the house was 2x8's 2 foot on center spanning 10 feet.. the worst was 2x8's 2 foot on center spanning 18 feet nailed to an intersecting 2x8! well over 8 inches of sag.. (oh and did I mention the stairs going to the second story were on that same 18 foot span?)
however as bad as that was I still stacked thousands of bd.ft. of wood on them! My guest bedroom was filled floor to ceiling wall to wall with wood! (green at first) on the one wall There was an upright grand piano and that single beam also carried the outside load wall for two stories..
Finally one day there was a sharp crack and investigation showed that it broke.. (not fully) I went and got a 6x6 white oak beam and slid it under the floor shimming it up to take the load..
Holding fine years later!
"...upright grand piano..."
Isn't that a contradiction?
Kinda like a two-wheeled tricycle?
Maybe it's a marketing term and not part of the official ANSI piano manufacturers' lexicon, but I have also seen the term "upright grand." I believe it denotes a piano that's tall enough to have the same length strings as a grand piano, as opposed to a spinet style upright, which has shorter strings.
guys, lets not beat the upright piano thing or whatever to death too! haha
Edited 1/26/2003 1:10:12 PM ET by Haole27
It was an attempt in the twenties and thirties to put the sound of a grand piano into the compact space of an upright.. they did it by essentially turning a grand piano up on edge. while it did improve the sound, it wasn't what the market was prepared to accept. (bunch of tradialists those ivy tinklers). most fell victum to use by honky tonk players who loved the loud sound they produced and to get a more "honky-tonk" tone from them put thumb tacks in the strikers..
The one I own was used (or actually not used very much) in a church and wound up in the demolition pile at the local piano dealer.
Ahhh trivia don't ja just love it?