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Not even close. Remember he said, and I'm paraphrasing, "You can't build it now." It has nothing to with outsourcing. It's due to more restrictive requirements and the potential for lawsuits.

As an example, today I called an HVAC shop to look at my mother's fifty year old central air unit. It worked fine last year. The guy on the other end of the phone starts talking about not being able to repair it if it has lost freon again. The unit uses R500 gas which I lucked out and found a full tank at much less than the going price of $1,000 per a few years ago. So gas is not a problem. THE EPA IS.

The guy was going on and on about a leak. Hey, find the leak and fix it. The unit doesn't have the crappy aluminum thinwall stuff. The coils in the beast are heavy copper. The compressor is a standalone design run by a separate electric motor via a belt. No "unit" design where the compressor and motor are packaged together so the death of a motor means you get to buy the whole thing.

Turns out the 220V motor that forces the air across the coils outside had died. No biggie, other than a 1/3 hp 220V motor isn't exactly a stock item around here. While the tech was there, I asked him about the life expectancy of new units. The response, If you're really, really lucky, 25 years. Normally it's 15 years or less. The beast at my mother's will probably do another fifty years.

But I digress, the engineer was talking about what was required to get a bridge design accepted today as compared to decade ago.

Mr Meatloaf,

One stands in awe of your kindness to your mother in regard to the malfunctioning Air Conditioner.

Me thinks that you should consider a career in air conditioning repair.

At the very least, I have not the foggiest notion as to what the post was about otherwise.

I am afraid that when it comes to mechanics of things, I am up a tree without a parachute or is it up a river without benefit of a boat.

Ah, never mind. I am just too befuddled about motors, coils and crappy aluminum SIDEWALLS(?)

Oh, my... and getting ones hands actually dirty.

*/ 8 ^ {