Posted on 11/21/2021 8:27:57 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
Over the summer, the Los Angeles City Council Public Safety Committee approved a proposal to expand Fire District 1, an anachronistic planning overlay that would effectively ban wood-frame construction in much of the city. Superficially premised as a measure to improve fire safety, the motion has been heavily promoted by special interests in the concrete industry, who would heavily benefit from the prohibition. Yet as less partial observers have pointed out, the motion would significantly increase the cost of constructing housing in Los Angeles, to no clear fire safety benefit.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, expanding Fire District 1 would raise building materials costs by anywhere from 10.6 to 47.1 percent.
Few would doubt the need for robust fire safety or strict building standards. But the reality is that expanding Fire District 1 improves upon neither.
(Excerpt) Read more at pacificresearch.org ...
most of Europe is concrete and stone-they haven’t the forests
wood framing is kindling for the type of fires California has-intense heat alone can ignite
I’ve lived in a few homes in L.A. built with wood frames. One of them still stands it is 140+ years old. The other was built in the 1930s, recently demolished by the new owner to build a steel and cement monstrosity that covers nearly the entire lot. The third newer was newer, 1970s construction.
In any case, all of them survived all the earthquakes. The 1930’s craftsman shook like the dickens during the 1994 earthquake. Freeway overpasses miles farther from the epicenter collapsed in that quake. Nothing broke in the craftsman except a ceramic plate that rattled off a table. Dishes in the wood cabinet stayed put. Windows rattled but never broke. Not even a guitar propped against the wall so much as fell over.
We call that Mexican barbed wire.
Libtards won’t stop until they’re all living in biodegradable tents 🤪
We were at Disneyland when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake hit during the World Series. Based on the news reporting from Candlestick and the Marina District in San Francisco, I figured the entire Bay Area was flattened. I told her that we should develop plans to stay somewhere else for a year while we were rebuilding.
So my wife picked up the phone and said she was going to call the neighbors to see what was going on. I said “Don’t bother, all the communications lines will be down.” She got our neighbor in a moment who had already been over to check out our house. Nothing happened to our single-story wood-frame rancher built on short concrete foundation walls (no “cripple walls”). Wood frame houses and nailed connections are so flexible that not much happens to them in earthquakes (especially if you don’t have cripple walls or a heavy tile roof).
Later on we found out that our chimney had cracked at the shoulders and we had to rebuild that.
excellent quote!
What are you talking about? How many American concrete buildings could flop over like a European soccer player and still be this intact? :-)
You forgot the guard dogs on the roof
“And yet it’s people from your state and others who come to California and ruin this place. 90% of all leftists in California were not born in California”
And probably 90% of leftists in neighboring states are from California...
I state this in keeping with the “90% of all statistics are made up on the fly” statistic.
Does concrete “roll” in an earthquake?
"I don't know if you know who runs the concrete business but I can assure you it's not the Boy Scouts".
Yeah because all those majority California Republicans in the 90’s just magically decided to switch to democrat for absolutely no reason at all...
15 foot pilings stuck in mud to hold up 13 story buildings?
Great construction!
Born in California myself, left only 16.5 years ago, now in AZ. Lived in No. Hollywood from 1990 to 2005. We lived in our church’s house and through our backyard gate was the church parking lot. Our church was our polling place, where I was the first voter every election. During primaries, the ballots where 10:1 Democrat to Republican!
Well as 2020 showed democrats love to cheat at elections and it’s not like they just started last year
Was that in Professor Terguson’s class?
Good teacher. He really seems to care.
True words
Not to worry though. It’ll just add more people to the homeless camps
That should work about as well in earfquakes as it does or did in places like Chile or Mexico City or Tehran or ...... the list of brittle places just goes on and on and on.
And by the way, everyone knows that steel ships don’t burn either. And what about all those fire gutted castles of stone?
personally I like the idea since it takes that much out of the lumber market.
The cost of building a single family home with CHB, (concrete hollow blocks), will be quadrupled at least. Living in the Philippines almost all structures are built with CHB’s because of the tropical environment and the fact that this climate breeds termites.
I have built 2 houses using CHB’s and can tell you that it takes a lot longer to build than using wood framing. First you need to dig a three foot, or deeper, trench for the building walls. That trench needs rebar placed in the bottom of the trench with rebar protruding upward for the tie in for the CHB’s that will later be added. Cement is poured in the trench around 4 inches thick and allowed to dry. Then CHB’s are layered on top for 3 layers. Then a tie beam is poured and then the CHB’s are laid up to the height of the walls. All corners are made with poured concrete post and additional post are place around 10-12 feet apart on the outer walls for support of the beams that will frame the top of the walls.
The walls will need to be finished outside and inside with a concrete “plastering” finish. Electrical wiring and plumbing will be run in conduits inside the walls. This is mostly done by chipping the CHB’s to create a channel deep enough to place the pipes or conduits in and then plaster/finish over it.
A wood framed house can be stood up in a matter of days, (for the frame), whereas it will take a month or more to get the CHB house framed and more than 2-3 months to get the window/doors framed, interior walls framed, electrical/plumbing installed and all the plastering done.
6-8 months is the norm for constructing a CHB house. The cost of sand/gravel, CHB’s, rebar, tie wire, (used to tie the rebar at the points that they need to connect), cement, water and labor required in the states will be very expensive, especially the labor because you need brick layers to do the walls.
My current 112 sq meter house took more than 500 bags of cement, 1,500 CHB, 150 bars of rebar, 8 workers working 6 days a week for 4 months and then another crew of 5 finishers 2 months to plaster all exterior and interior walls, install all the doors and windows, install all the electrical wires/outlets/switches and the water pipes/faucets.
Because wages are low here and the cost of material are also low cost my house cost around $25,000 to build, but the cost in the state would be at least 4-8 times that amount.
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