It’s a wonder they manage to build anything. They have pocket calculators dedicated to the building industry. It’s surreal.
Comment on 2x2 lumber at Home Depot is now 1.28x1.28. Nominal size is supposed to be 1.5
Magnetar@feddit.de 4 months agoAs if american measurements have ever made sense. Look up how they measure screws or wires and despair.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 months ago
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
Not everyone
Some people are gods when it comes to metal math
GiveOver@feddit.uk 4 months ago
🤘🏻
Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 months ago
every house I’ve lived in has had something fucked up in it. Even if you have one guy doing everything correct, you have 20 other contractors coming in that can’t do basic addition and subtraction, let alone fractions.
glimse@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I don’t think you’re implying this is exclusively an American issue or anything but that’s just the nature of construction unless you’re paying top dollar for accuracy when it matters.
I’ve been on a hundred or more construction sites and I’d confidently wager that most houses don’t match the plans perfectly because of unforseen reasons…equipment changing due to lead times, electricians running their conduit in the wrong stud bays, etc. I’ve had to do a lot of creative problem solving and design modifications are inevitable. That’s the only thing I really miss from my old career
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
Part of that is that you need to work hard to find good people who do good work.
The other issue is that all the skilled works are either old or dead. The young guys aren’t the same type.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 4 months ago
My parents just had a house built last year and there is so much shit wrong. The biggest thing I found is one of the alcoves on the side of their fireplace is a full 1.5" wider in the front than the back. You don’t have to measure to see it. How the fuck the guy who did the framing, or the guy who did the drywall, or anyone else walking past that fucking thing didn’t notice I have no idea. They sold their nice old house for that pile of shit and it’s not even better even if you ignore all the problems. It pisses me off so much because I told them this was going to happen.
kibiz0r@midwest.social 4 months ago
How do they measure despair?
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The European wire gauge system makes no sense. There I said it. I don’t need to know the O.D. of the wire, I need to know the amp rating. The O.D. only becomes an issue for bending radius and there is a chart for that as well. Nothing is stopping some a**hole from making a wire almost completely out of plastic that has the O.D. of a typical 14AWG but can’t carry any serious amount of current under the European system. Under the AWG you always know what the current capacity is.
And while we are at it, you might as well standardize your wire sizes based on copper. You are never going to use anything except copper. So your units should reflect the material. I am building a chemical skid, that has nothing to do with the distance between the equator to the north pole.
Also when is the last time you were running wires that you needed a mm of precision? Meanwhile a fraction of an amp really does matter. So should not the thing that does matter be reflected in the product?
t0bd1@lemmy.world 4 months ago
European wire gauge is not the O.D. It is the cross section of the conductor inside the wire in mm^2. It is the same system AWG uses (they are directly correlated) with the added benefit that the numbers make sense (10mm^2/AWG8 wire has 4x the cross section of 2.5mm^2/AWG14 wire, so a quarter of the resistance of the thicker wire and thus roughly double the current capacity).
Magnetar@feddit.de 4 months ago
I honestly can’t tell if you’re doing a bit or are actually serious.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Sounds like a you problem.
oyo@lemm.ee 4 months ago
How does 16, 14, or 12 AWG tell you anything about ampacity?
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You use the chart. How does mm of a wire, including insulation, tell you ampacity? As I said it is easy to imagine a thick wire that can carry almost no current. You can’t pull that crap with AWG system. It tells you the single most important fact, how much current a wire can carry. There is no incentive for wire manufacturers to cheat the system since a thicker insulation wire just means more cost for them.
Which ties in nicely with the other charts. Tell me how much power you need a motor to deliver and what I have to deal with and I can tell you exactly what wires to use, it’s bending radius how thick it is etc. None of which I can do in the CE system.
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Ironically outer insulation does impact conductor ampacity, because the rated continuous vs peak loads depend on the heat resistance rating of the insulation.
shalafi@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Or shotgun shell sizes and loads.
“It all started in 1840 when the dram was a common unit of measurement…”
Asafum@feddit.nl 4 months ago
And they all had onions on their belts as was the style at the time.
jaybone@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Five bees for a nickel.
Throw_away_migrator@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Expect for the .410 gauge. That one is a caliber, because reasons