Construction - Blog Posts
I like when people say things like “respect blue collar workers!” and then the same people turn around and completely dismiss the years of training it takes to be able to do that type of work safely and effectively.
“Telling people not to do their own electrical work because it’s dangerous is classist bc not everyone can afford an electrician” “I can’t believe that plumber charged me so much money for less than an hour of work, what a scam!” “In the post-capitalist utopia everyone will just take turns doing all types of blue-collar work, instead of years-long apprenticeships we’ll just give them a course in high school or something” “Building and safety codes are just pointless bureaucracy meant to stop the average citizen from being able to build their own structures” “I would love to be a farmer and just hang out tending to plants all day”
These are all things I have seen on this website by self-proclaimed worker’s rights advocates and I hope I don’t have to explain how incredibly insulting and dismissive it is when it’s not outright dangerous. There’s a LOT that needs to be fixed about our current labor system but “pretending like training and safety protocols aren’t important” and “pretending that those jobs are actually really easy and any layperson can do them” are uh. Not good solutions.
Bunch of dumb doodles I’ve been making when I’m bored
Brick Pavers Front Yard (Nice)
Beach Style Bedroom - Bedroom Bedroom - large coastal master light wood floor, brown floor and shiplap ceiling bedroom idea with white walls
Retaining Walls - Landscape
Summertime photograph of a sizable, traditional brick retaining wall hillside landscape.
Fire Pit Landscape in Toronto
Photo of a large contemporary partial sun backyard stone landscaping with a fire pit in summer.
Just found out about this game, a MMO pvp with cars you can customize and built yourself. Totally gonna try it.
architizer:
House in Leiria by ARX Arquitectos, night and day
San Francisco Front Yard Natural Stone Pavers
Ideas for a mid-sized, modern front yard stone garden path that receives some summer sun.
How Flood-Resistant Buildings Work
How Flood-Resistant Buildings Work
Picture this: you’ve just moved to a nice little cottage by the sea. You’ve got some beautiful views, and you’re literally steps away from the beach. It’s almost like a dream. And then a hurricane hits, and suddenly you’ve woken up from your dream as your little cottage is destroyed by a devastating cocktail of wind, rain, and flood. Instead of moving somewhere a bit further away from the coast,…
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The Ins and Outs of Coastal Engineering
Coastal engineering is a field of civil engineering that covers exactly what the name implies: coastlines and the protection of surrounding areas. As something that may commonly be overlooked, rising levels of water can directly affect our society in a number of harmful ways. Erosion, pollution of agricultural soil, and flooding can all be caused by ill-managed coastlines, thus amplifying the importance of coastal engineering.
This field covers a surprisingly broad spectrum, with areas including the maintenance and improvement of harbors, channels, and seawalls. The goal of this is to protect nearby structures or communities from possible floods, tsunamis, and even prevent oceanic pollution. All of these are extremely important considerations seeing as 39% of the United States’ population lives lives along a coastline of some sort. Though these homes may provide stunning scenery, they are prone to the hazardous effects of coastal weather, which can cause erosion of the ground around and underneath these structures. This is where coastal engineers step in to save the day. Seawalls and groynes are just two of many structures that can effectively prevent erosion, which form slopes that can block waves or bodies of water from reaching homes or impressionable parts of land.
A common natural disaster that has prompted civil engineers all over the world to rethink their approaches in prevention is flooding. As many remember, Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst examples of flooding in U.S. history. Levee walls designed to prevent rising waters from overspilling failed, leading to thousands of homes being pushed away from their foundations. The storm’s damage was catastrophic, easily breeching every levee the city had in place, forcing local coastal engineers to revamp their methods of flood prevention. Billions of dollars have been spent since to attempt to better protect the city, with stronger barriers and seawalls put in place all around.
Visit my site SahbaNaderi.com for the whole blog and more on civil engineering!
What We Can Learn from the Grenfell Tower Fire
A week ago, the 24-story apartment building Grenfell Tower in North Kensington of London caught fire after responders were called to deal with a small fridge fire, at which point it had already escalated and spread to the exterior of the building. After many hours of attempting to settle the blaze, which had spread extremely quickly, nearly every floor from the 4th up had suffered immense damage, and an estimated 79 lives were lost, with many still having not been found.
In the wake of this tragedy came controversy, as residents had reported safety concerns long before the fire took place. Aside from numerous maintenance failures, those living within the building only had one escape route in the event of fire, which was a single staircase down the center of the complex. Though it had been recently renovated, several residents still felt unsafe within the walls of Grenfell Tower, of which their voices went unheard. Moving forward, there are a number of factors we can take into consideration in order to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.
What has been surprising to many is the fact that Grenfell Tower was a high rise building. These are specifically designed to withstand fires, and properly contain them within the area in which started, should something spark. However, firefighters and professionals have stated that the materials used to refurbish the building were to blame. Developers used aluminum back in the 1970’s, which is highly combustible, and could be the main reason why the fire was able to spread so quickly.
As mentioned before, residents only had one escape route. This should have been an obvious concern for developers from the start. Being a high rise, in the event of a fire, elevators no longer become a safe option, so several escape routes should be added. These can include staircases throughout the building, and exterior fire escapes in the form of stairs or ladders.
Many residents who called local authorities were advised to stay in their homes, as they felt that was the safest option. However, Grenfell Tower was not divided up into many sections and areas, so being that it was essentially a tall, single-sectioned building, those who followed that advice may have perished. This stresses the importance of having buildings compartmentalized, and divided in order to allow residents to move to a different area, should leaving the building not be an option.
Some of the most crucial components that were missing from Grenfell Tower was a sprinkler system, and a central fire alarm. Many people within the building didn’t even know a fire had started on the fourth floor until the flames reached their windows. Once they did, there was no system within the tower to douse the flames. Being a 24-story building, fire hoses from the ground were only able to do so much, and only to the exterior.
The faulty design of Grenfell Tower has led to outrage all over England, especially among the families of the victims. Basic design necessities were ignored, and lives were lost because of it. The United Kingdom is currently looking into more detail as to why the tower failed as terrible as it did, and engineers and developers should use this as an example of what can happen when buildings are not constructed properly.
Walkway - Traditional Landscape Photo of a small traditional drought-tolerant and full sun backyard concrete paver and wood fence walkway in summer.
Work, or hang out with me? Any ideas of what we could do?
Looking forward to the weekend!
Happy Friday, y’all! Can’t wait for 5 o’clock!
Should I wear a bandanna under my hard hat today? Follow, like, reblog, comment or message me!
One more post before I hit the road…like, repost, comment, message me, I’ll respond!
Traded out my cowboy hat for a hard hat. Thank you everyone for all the likes, reblogs, follows, comments and messages, please be patient if I have not responded to you! And if you haven’t yet, follow, comment or message me!
Porch in Minneapolis
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