I have a customer now that wants to put a small sliding barn door in front of her laundry room so that she will not see the open laundry door. I am wondering if she realizes what she wants. She could simply close the existing laundry door. And the existing laundry door is going to be much easier to open and close than a sliding barn door.
Some people just want the look rather than some thing that actually works well.
For some reason I started picturing the opening montage from "Get Smart." :-)
You just explained every set of shutters in suburbia!
99% of california is east of the fault, including SF and the bay area.
There is no safe side of any fault, and the largest earthquake in the continental US east of the Rockies was centered in New Madrid, Misery.
Note that the 1906 quake was felt over 6200 sq miles, while the New Madrid quake (1811) was felt over 1 million sq miles. New Madrid is within a hundred miles or so of Nashville (Memphis experienced level IX (Violent) shaking!)
Personally, I'll risk the earthquake over living in tornado alley.
Tornado's Earth Quakes, and Hurricanes. I'll take tornado's over the other two for one reason, life immediately after the event.
A tornado is very destructive as are earth quakes and hurricanes. I have been in 5 hurricanes, the third when I was 15. I thought I was going to die in that hurricane. Anyway it was a direct hit on the the Corpus Christi area. It took months to to even think about having repairs made to your home. And that was probably 20-30 thousand residences.
An earth quake is going to likely deliver the same life changing event for tens of thousands of families.
A tornado is very selective and does not typically do damage over thousands of square miles. Repairs can usually begin immediate.
And after a tornado you can usually guy groceries, gasoline and probably go to work the next day for the vast majority.
Major earth quakes and hurricanes typically deliver damage with a broad stroke, tornados, not so much.
FWIW Harris county/ Houston, Texas has more tornadoes than any where else in the U.S. We have had 7~8 this month. Not big ones but in their small paths they do some destruction. At least the city goes on with its business the next day, not so with a hurricane.
I was under the cone of silence!
Equally strange, new down sized home, the one I was describing above. This home is 4,100 sq ft. Old home was 5K+ sq ft. They have not even fully moved in yet and have had the floors, probably carpeting, replaced with a vinyl product that looks like wood planks. Ok looking but not IMHO in a house of this price range.
Land mass, but not people mass. SF, Berkeley etc would be destroyed.
Last I read they found a new interconnecting fault junction with one that runs through Long Beach IIRC. The resulting Tsunami on the coast here would be atrocious. It sure boosts the economy afterwards if you are in the trades. :)
Perhaps, but to them a 2.5 feels like the world is coming to an end. A Californian barely feels anything smaller than a 5.2.
I agree. But I prefer getting it over quick, like in an earthquake.
They are fugly. I haven't seen an installation that didn't look incredibly cheap.
"Getting it over quick"? The aftermath can take years. There is no comparison. I'll take tornado alley any time. As Leon pointed out, tornado damage is pretty isolated and there is almost always warning.
Once it is over then we assess, bid and repair, hiring more men than usual in order to expedite the jobs.
I am not trying to mitigate the suffering caused, nor the damage. Hurricanes can last quite a while, tornadoes are quick like earthquakes and I've seen their aftermath as well when I was living in Texas.
No, but they happen _every_ year, and in volume during the summer.
Earthquakes are quite infrequent.
I've experienced two major earthquakes (Wittier Narrows, Loma Prieta) and a few minors (Napa a few years ago). For the most part, the damage is localized (similar to a tornado, more localized than a hurricane). For Wittier narrows, I was living about 7 miles from the epicenter and it did no damage to my home, and very little at my office. With the Loma Prieta the total damage ($5billion) was less than katrina ($108 billion) even when adjusted for inflation.
I'll take the earthquake anyday. The risk of an 8+ is much lower than the risk of a F5 tornado or a cat IV hurricane.
Note that the portions of CA west of the fault on the SF peninsula are, for the most part, unpopulated (excepting half-moon-bay and pacifica). The fault crosses into the ocean at daly city, so all of SF is east of the fault.
Considering all the historic quakes on this fault, I find that statement to be implausible, if not completely false. Particularly given Loma Prieta, which was the San Andreas and didn't destroy either SF or Berkeley. No more than Northridge or Sylmar destroyed LA.
On 04/18/2017 12:04 PM, -MIKE- wrote: ..
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Nicely done...only comment/suggestion I'd make would be to have used one board for the top/bottom stiles so would have unbroken grain across both when closed...now it jars (my eye, anyway) where they meet...probably go away to a large extent when finished, but...
I hear what you are saying... ;~) BUT until you actually live with, and maybe you have, the reality of the aftermath of a large event it is hard to understand the complexity of the problems.
Insurance companies help with damage to your home but you rely on the local government to clear the debris, rebuild bridges, replace broken water lines, restore electricity so that repairs can actually begin.
I would venture to say that a, quick and it is done, earth quake might be one that does not do a lot of damage. My nephew and niece and their families live in Edmund, OK. They have earth quakes pretty often, not terrible ones but enough to crack the walls and such.
BUT in those areas that are on faults, like California, a big quake is typically followed with days of after shocks that would or can continue to do extensive damage.
I am sure your reasoning is quite valid and I would not want to steer you away from you your way of thinking. Have you lived through a major quake, like IIRC the one in the late 80's early 90's that hit California? The big events are what have changed my mind. For the first 14 years of my life I lived 3 miles from water, gulf coast. During that period of time I lived through 3 hurricanes. Oddly the first two were not direct hits but the rain and flooding lasted 2~3 days, both happened after the new school year began and we missed school. It was fun! LOL The third hurricane hit directly in early August and IIRC lasted 5 hours with little to no before or after rain. Wind gusts were often 160+ mph. Anyway I helped with cleanup for three weeks before starting school. We had no water for a week, and no electricity for several weeks. I n a majority of the city grocery stores were closed for weeks, we stood in food lines to get food and water off of trailers. THAT is what I fear about any large event.
Anyway I can appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
Well that sounds like sound reasoning. With news reports we "out siders" often see repeated broadcasts of the same areas and do not always realize the repeat scenes. We tend to think that California is hanging on by a thread. LOL
I was under the impression that big quakes were as devastating as a direct hit Cat 3 or larger hurricane.
Living with the threat vs. somewhere else probably gives you a better understanding of the risks. We have all read of the big one way back when when, it was mass destruction. BUT that was from fires and broken water lines. I would imagine in the hundred years since, the advancements in engineering would less the blow considerably.
It depends on a number of factors, including soil conditions, magnitude, location of epicenter, and age of buildings. Since 1906 cleared out a big part of SF, much of the construction there is newer. After 1934 long beach, construction standards were updated, and were changed significantly after
1971 sylmar[*]. The Loma Prieta quake, which was epicentered some 60 miles south of SF, did little-to-no damage to the peninsula/south bay which is much closer to the epicenter, but did significant damage to the marina district in SF which is built on land filled in in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also pretty much destroyed highway 17 (now I880) through oakland, which was a double decker freeway built before sylmar where the top deck collapsed on the lower deck. Known as the Cypress Structure, this was also built on soft soils near the bay.Note that after the Northridge quake (which mainly affected soft-structures like apartment buildings built over parking bays) when some overpasses on I10 collapsed, they were rebuilt within 12 months.
With modern building code standards, and common earthquake awareness by residents (secure tall items to the wall, hang heavy items using appropriate hardware, secure overhead cupboard doors with latches), the chances of damage from a moderate quake are fairly low outside of certain soil types (e.g. liquifaction).
A massive quake (e.g. 9+), all bets are off, but they're extremely rare, and given the recent history of the San Andreas, there is not enough energy accumulated for a really large one here. I'd be more worried about the faults in the strait of Juan de Fuca which is due for a big one likely including a large Tsunami clearing out many of the islands in the sound, plus parts of Seattle - predictions are of a 15% chance of a 9+ in the next 50 years. Plus/minus some large error bars.
[*] One of the Mission Impossible TV show episodes was filmed on the ruins of the VA hospital that collapsed in the Sylmar quake in 1971.
I was wondering when someone would comment on that, because I would have. :-) That was actually my plan when I was laying out and cutting the boards, but the client said it would look "too matched" and not barn door enough.
Oh, there's no doubt that San Franciscians took it to heart immediately.
The water infrastructure was improved, construction standards changed after every major California earthquake incorporating lessons learned. Because of that the damage to SF in 1989 wasn't particularly major outside of the Marina district. In the financial district where the 50+ story towers are, they all survived intact. They did end up tearing down the Embarcadero freeway (another double decker), but that's more due to folks disliking it esthetically rather than due to cost to repair. (The supervisors had voted to tear it down four years before the quake).
I must say that the boulevard that replaced it is esthetically much nicer, but traffic on the embarcadero can be slow, particularly on weekends with all the weekenders heading to the wharf, Fort Mason and Ghiradelli Square.
Around here they aren't just using these barn door installs as closet or ro om doors. The fad here is to use them as room dividers. My client screwed around too long with his plans and then way out of budget so I didn't get the job. Thankfully! But he did do a couple of things that he wanted.
They actually looked nice as they have a "country" kind of rustic look to t heir house. On one side they had the build made to look like a giant fence gate, stiles and a diagonal brace. Painted a kind of red primer color, ve ry rustic. It went well with their rustic kitchen. The other side (think
10' ceilings and barn doors to match) was simply the long boards cut to the same lengths. The wood was a weathered look with kind of a satin/black wa sh on it. So it looked good on the kitchen side as it had one distinct look , and it looked like a wood wall feature on the other side.I could see there was some care in making the project look the way the cust omer wanted. Rustic enough to look like a decorating statement, but the jo inery/fit/finish just tight enough to look good.
Robert
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