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donoteat posted:(now ask me about engineered lumber and oriented strand board) What are your thoughts on engineered lumber and OSB?
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Aug 15, 2018 02:29
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 18:25 |
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donoteat posted:thanks for asking! Most of the small to midsize residential construction we've done lately (15 to 30 unit buildings) is pushing pretty hard to go all steel and wood truss to get away from TJIs and laminated LVLs all together. At least the wood trusses are all dimensional wood so it takes the water a bit better than particle board. They have their own issues, but for the most part seem to work ok. My big pet peeve is loving massive useless peaked roofs that are just giant dead spaces waiting to catch fire.
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Aug 15, 2018 21:20
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Its really not that building materials are inherently more prone to premature aging nowadays. Its the complete lack of care from developers who just want it built as quick and cheap as possible. My team was hanging fire protection pipe in the attic of a 4 story “luxury condo” building over the last few weeks, and the number of half- nailed or not-loving-nailed-at-all truss braces was staggering. If that roof doesn’t blow over in the next hurricane it will be cause our pipe hangers kept it together more than the braces did.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:26
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In my case, we work in small to midsize residential developments where developers might have project managers to oversee construction, but don’t utilize separate general contractors to oversee construction like we have on our commercial/business projects. We complained about to subpar construction to the project manager and so did the electricians, but no one has seen a carpenter in weeks and now that we’ve moved out of the attic I’m sure it will be forgotten. There is also a pretty big difference between a building aging gracefully over 60-80 years, and one that is in complete shambles in less than 30. For example we just started work on a 30 unit building built in the mid 90s that was again luxury condos when it was sold out. Now the homeowners are stuck with massive repair bills because the whole roof structure is rotting, the siding is falling off, and well their fire protection piping wasn’t installed properly and has completely rotted away as well.
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Jul 8, 2019 03:59
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To add on to all that which is great. The big issue we often come across is that since the developer just needs to get the property over the goal line for a sale, they can happily use materials or design concepts that look great up front but go to poo poo super quick. Homeowners rarely get much legal support to clawback from shoddy developers when poo poo gets bad 5+ years later (though laws to this effect are slowly gaining steam). As much as landlordism is a four letter word around here, when we work on apartment projects built by the landlord directly we are more likely to see some consideration to decent build quality.
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Jul 8, 2019 04:18
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I'd love to get some information, or discussion about how to balance building more affordable housing with building housing that is highly energy efficient/green (ie not affordable). Specifically my area has a law that allows developers to supersede local zoning restrictions if a portion of their development is affordable. However this means that those portions are just the cheapest, shoddiest, draftiest buildings you could imagine. I get that affordable housing is pretty important, but how do you square that with these structures that are going to stand for 40ish years being huge energy sinks. Also why doesn't affordable housing rules consider yearly energy costs as part of their affordability.
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Nov 14, 2019 22:46
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Bubbacub posted:I think the easiest solution is to require the affordable units to be built as part of mixed-income structures. The market-rate tenants will have more leverage over insulation and build quality, and it's better from a social perspective as well. Im actually working on a fire protection install on this kind of building as we speak. 30 condo units in a single structure, below grade parking included. 10 units are rated as affordable, but yea like you said they are all getting the same quality insulation and hvac gear. My little town is having a roundtable which from the sounds of the memorandum is going to be developers vs nimbyers so I think ill go just to watch the fireworks.
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Nov 15, 2019 00:14
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So whats the deal with this “strong towns” group? Someone posted a ted talk thing in another thread and what they were saying seemed to both make sense in parts, and then completely not in others.
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Jan 3, 2021 23:45
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Cicero posted:https://twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1488977555520589824?s=20&t=R3VICxbZSixonKiqP8oKzQ LOL, really hoping this has some nice unintended consequences. Like oops sorry we can no longer dispatch sewer workers to the area due to EPA restrictions against transporting hazardous materials through wildlife preserves.
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Feb 3, 2022 13:14
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On the building dept side of things, my area has been transitioning to online portals for permit review and inspections. It’s taken a good bit for the various depts to get the hang of the process, but recently permits that im attached to are suddenly moving a lot faster, and getting notes/feedback from bld/fire marshal/public utility/and health depts simultaneously all on the same interface is pretty nice to see.
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Mar 20, 2022 20:53
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 18:25 |
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Not really sure where 10 years old being a writeoff is coming from. Mechanical components live pumps and motors might be pretty aged by 20 years, but the overall systems including piping ducting and wiring can be easily reused or refurbished going on 40 years. Occupancy loads between traditional urban office space and modern residential space is actually relatively similar, so your overall building requirements for electricity, air, and water/sewer tend to be within capacity for the conversion without major new civil upgrades. Im working pre-construction on a project to convert a large 80s office building into 400 apts and while it has some complications it will certainly be doable.
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Jun 18, 2022 17:16
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