Technicians APPLY, Technologists ADAPT, Engineers ORIGINATE

METAMORPHS JOURNAL
http://users.senet.com.au/~metamorf mailto: metamorf@senet.com.au

Vol: 2 No:

3 July 2004

PATIENCE DETERIORATING!
Steven CONRAD Harrison ,
B.Tech(Mfg & Mech.), MIIE, gradTIEAust

A side step into some quantitative and qualitative aspects of design. It appears to be a regular occurrence that every man, woman and their dog belief that they can dispense with the services of architects and builders and become owner/designer/builders. Unfortunately, once they get to council, they are then advised that they need engineering calculations. A task they assume they are not able to fulfil and therefore go in search of an engineer or someone that can do the calculations. They then arrive in front of me; with the same rubbish that they submitted to council and declare that council wants calculations. The first thought that passes through my mind is: calculations for what? It should be noted that calculations are not a requirement. The requirement is the provision of evidence that demonstrates the fitness-for-purpose and otherwise the suitability of the proposed development. Without building prototypes and physically testing the proposal in safety the most economical solution is to carry out calculations. The building research establishment (BRE) for example has a laboratory building large enough in which they can construct a full size 7 storey building, and simulate earthquake loading. For the average house this is going to extremes, and besides the BRE also carries out research on houses, their laboratory is large enough that it almost contains a small village, with buildings of all shapes and sizes. The results of such research provide the data necessary for engineering design. However, such data usually needs to be stretched and other wise manipulated, so that the results from one test house can be applied to an almost infinite variety of houses that are actually built outside the laboratory. Some times what the owner wants demands stretching the data just too far. This is where the problems start. Architects and Engineers know what the limitations of the data are, and each has their own limitations on just how far they are willing to stretch such data, before they require more testing. More to the point, most of the time they work well within the constraints of the data. For example most research on connections have involved 20mm diameter bolts, most engineers never use bolts smaller than 20mm. This is not because smaller bolts may not be strong enough structurally, but because from an operations viewpoint, most riggers will shear/twist a smaller bolt in half. Additionally from a risk perspective it is better to have two or more bolts, and therefore they never specify one bolt for a connection even if it maybe strong enough. Having decided on 20mm bolts, the size of everything else needs to be sized in relative proportion to the bolts, in consequence steel plates used are usually thicker then 5mm. Having chosen to do this much of the calculations for proof of fitness-for-purpose can be dismissed with. Then an owner builder comes along and wants to use 10mm diameter bolts and steel less than 1mm thick. Now a whole multitude of physical problems arises, and 5 times more calculations are required to prove fitness-for-purpose. Back to the calculations for what? The problem here is that most of the time the council is not really in need of the calculations, what they require are drawings of the proposed intentions of the owner/builders. These people however, think they can replace an architect, and do the job themselves. They cannot! And here I am not just talking about owner/builders, they also include builders, fabricators, and suppliers. Most especially suppliers of sheds, carports, verandahs, pergolas and other common manufacturer building products. Whether they be manufactured or constructed from steel, timber or aluminium. They just have no idea, nor interest in truthfully and fully making a declaration of there intent. Now if you have not fully disclosed your intentions how can anyone, let alone an engineer, identify and supply evidence of suitability. If a design engineer cannot find the evidence before construction, the coroner, and forensic engineers most definitely will find evidence that it is not and clearly was not suitable after failure and possible death and injury. Now understand this well. When you seek the services of an engineer you are: Requesting that they take responsibility for and declare that the pile of rubbish you intend on dumping on your property does not constitute any hazard or harm to human life, not just you, but also your neighbours, any visitors and any future owners you may con into buying your property. You want them to take responsibility based on the rubbish that you scribbled up on your kitchen table, and you want to pay peanuts for the privilege as well. Ah! Forget the niceties: you want them to take responsibility based on the crap you scribbled up on your kitchen table. Neither of which belongs in the kitchen. Hey! I dont want to employ a mechanic, so I think Ill take my car apart in the kitchen. And the kitchen table, well that will make a good workbench for building that new

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Technicians APPLY, Technologists ADAPT, Engineers ORIGINATE

METAMORPHS JOURNAL
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Vol: 2 No:

3 July 2004

timber coffee table I wanted. Ok! You live in England, and the washing machine is in the kitchen. No one in Australia, where everyone seems to have a separate laundry room would consider such a thing. In England compared to the population, land is scarce, and most dwellings are two storey, no space for a separate laundry. So potentially toxic chemicals in the kitchen. Much the same for the rest of the world, outside of Australia, for that matter. So yes, you make do with what resources you have. The last thing you want to do is waste time, with documentation and getting approval, when you could be busy building. Hold on a minute, a significant amount of the rubbish I have to check has already been built. Most of the time council as identified such illegal building works, because of disputes with neighbours. The disputes are not about the illegal construction, the neighbours just dont like each other in the first place. The illegal construction just provides away of getting at the neighbours. Whilst you may believe you produce good stuff and everyone else produces rubbish, you are wrong. If you really produce good stuff, and everyone else produces rubbish, where is your proof. Where is your evidence that what you produce is fit-for-purpose and what everyone else produces is unfit-for-purpose? Dont have any, so you cannot provide the proof to council yourself. So you trundle off to an engineer, hoping and expecting that they will declare your rubbish suitable. I am considering starting a new business. For an extortionate fee, I will immediately issue a certificate declaring that the owner/builders proposal in completely, totally, undoubtedly, without reservation, unfit-forpurpose, non-compliant with codes of practice, and that the community will be best served by putting a bulldozer through the construction, and demolishing and burying the whole thing. And Mr Bulldozer driver whilst you are at it, do the world a favour and throw the owners and developers in the hole as well. Hey! I am not a people person. In fact, I dont much like people, I generally find them irritating and annoying. So if you are going to disturb me, or distract me from what I am doing, to solve your problems, then do so in a courteous and respectful manner. So to start with, do not tell me that council is a pain in the neck. I am more likely to be on councils side. More to the point I am unlikely to be as friendly and tolerant as council. I wouldnt send you a letter about illegal construction, and provide you with an opportunity to get proper approval, I would just bulldoze it. I dont care if you get building approval, but I do care about using the services of architects, engineers and licensed builders. If you have done the job properly, then within a few seconds you can supply the necessary documents for approval. If not then onward with the bullzdozer. Ok ! May be not. I am an extremely patient, tolerant and a highly passive individual. So if I get annoyed, you really have pushed well and truly beyond the limits of normal individuals. Any body else would have hung you long before I start wanting to do so. So understand this: you need an Architect and a licensed builder. I just do not understand how people get the idea that they can build a more complex building than any builder is willing to do. Further more they believe they can do it for a lower price. It is plain nonsense. There is an old saying, that as had many forms and goes: An engineer can do for $1 what any fool can do for $2 after a fashion Now for some reason everyone thinks they can do the job for 50 cents, and dispense with the services of all professionals: architects, engineers and builders. Wrong! The 50 cent solution doesnt work, and is not acceptable for future sale. Acceptable to you maybe. Now the real problem is where the costs are distributed. The 50 cent solution doesnt work, falls down, another 50 cent solution is tried, and ultimately the $2 solution gets built, thus the total cost ends up being $3.00. Design is important, and good design saves money and lives. But good design costs money, and takes time and other resources. However many things can be designed once and manufactured multiple times. This allows the cost of design to be distributed over the sales of several items. For example it costs millions of dollars to design a car, but no individual pays any where near a million dollars for a car. More over, using traditional methods it takes twenty years for a car to get from the drawing board and rolling of the assembly line. The space age car that was on the drawing board twenty years ago, is the boring run of the mill, car on offer today. We have got use to its form and technology as it was slowly introduced into the car designs currently on the assembly line, and new tooling was designed and developed and the assembly line is changed over to building the new model. With computers, and flexible machining centres, this time as been reduced down to 5 years. One manufacturer even achieved 1 year, but that was for a concept car, changing the assembly line over takes longer. Now these reduced time frames are possible because some 100 years Metamorphs MorfJV02003A.doc, [(31/12/04) 15:35] 2

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Vol: 2 No:

3 July 2004

have been invested in designing and testing vehicles, and modern computer models have been developed that allow rapid assessment of new proposals against data collected over such time. Thus Joe Bloggs cannot suddenly decide that he is going to go in business building cars, and go to a local consulting engineer hand over a couple of dollars and get his new model car approved as suitable for on road use. It requires a huge investment of time and effort. Even modifying a car, or building a car with a few new components and the rest stock standard components requires a significant investment of time. It is not a one week job. Though if all the engineer is asked to do, is some simple calcs for nothing in particular, it could be done in a few hours. With such engineering input, over all the car will be a pile of junk. We wouldnt want a couple of hundred dollars investment in design for the car industry, but this is exactly how the building industry works. For the most part the building and construction industry relies on government funded research, such as by BRE. Car manufacturers and others conduct their own research, each wanting to get ahead of the competition. Thus whilst GMC is one of the worlds largest companies, and a manufacturer of cars, Toyota is benchmarked as the worlds most efficient manufacturer. The concept that Toyota could enter a market place largely dominated by the likes of GMC and Ford and be successful was unthinkable. But Toyota invested in engineering, especially industrial engineering, to make their production processes increasingly efficient. To put it simply without these companies investing in engineering design, you as an individual would not have standardised components available to repair, maintain or otherwise modify and improve your car. If these companies did not invest in providing a variety of cars then we would still be driving black model-T Fords. Or if you wanted something different you as an individual would have to invest millions of dollars in the design of your customised vehicle. Now this is not unique to cars. What if only a few dollars were invested in the design of aircraft? Or just a few dollars in a washing machine or electric iron? What if your iron electrocuted you or a loved one? You would be marching up and down demanding the heads of the manufacturer. Wanting legislation in place to control what goods are placed in the market place and made available for sale. Most new products take about 2 years to design and develop before they enter the market place. Most new products are without 100 years of historical development, they are unique and novel. Two years. Yet everyone expects their house to be designed in a week! Reasonable! No Way! Ok! So maybe there is a few thousand years of experience with building houses. But how many building businesses have a sign outside that says established 4000 BC. Projects include, stone henge, the pantheon, the colosseum, the pyramids, the great wall of China. None! You will be lucky if any building enterprise has more than twenty years of experience. The same goes with consultancies. Even if they do say established 1890, or any other distant date, the current staff probably only has 10 years or so experience. And thats a really annoying advertising concept, collectively we have over 100 years experience. Ok ! So there is 200 staff and you each have half a years experience. Wow ! Im rapped, youve got the job. Get Real! Youve got no experience, and it shows. As with cars and other products, the cost of design for buildings can be distributed over the sales of many items. Not only does the distribution of design over many items reduce the cost of design to the individual, but it also reduces the cost of labour and materials. Materials costs are reduced because waste or scrap material can be reduced. Something welded up from flat plate can be cast in one piece. Or steel can be replaced by engineering polymers, and an assembly can be replaced by a single injection moulded product. Such changes in design not only save materials but also reduce labour costs, and also decrease production times. Practice by labour building the same or similar things over and over again improves their skills, so that they can almost do the job blind folded. For one thing, they do not require drawings, specifications or instructions for every single detail. For the details are common from one job to the next, and they do not waste time looking at such details if they are provided. But you dont want the common garden variety offering, you want something unique and different. You want a custom design, and you want it at the same price as the common garden variety. You were truly born on a different planet. No! another world an entirely different universe. A universe that operates entirely different than that I live in. You live in a fantasy land. Youve been watching too much Disney World! When a builder has advised that, it is expensive to build and such expense is because of complexity. You really do have to be stupid to believe that you can build it, let alone at a lower cost than the builder can. If you do not want to pay for architecture or engineering or the fees of a builder, then you really should be purchasing a pre-designed and pre-fabricated solution. Otherwise if you want custom design, then you really do need an architect and an engineer, and if you do not want a builder, then the documentation obtained

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Technicians APPLY, Technologists ADAPT, Engineers ORIGINATE

METAMORPHS JOURNAL
http://users.senet.com.au/~metamorf mailto: metamorf@senet.com.au

Vol: 2 No:

3 July 2004

from these consultants will need to be far greater than if they were supplying to a builder, for you dont know what a builder knows. More to the point unlike the builder, you probably cannot read the documents nor understand them in any case. Look the building is either going to be your home, your pride and joy that you are going to invite guest round to, and show off. The last thing you want to be stuck with is the disaster that you have built, a huge mortgage on a pile of junk you cannot sell. Or the building is for business, and is critical to the operation of your business, it is something that you do not want hassles with. Your business needs a plan, and that should give reasonable allowance for the design and supply of premises. A few weeks is not reasonable. Planning should be in years, if you want to respond in seconds. Becoming an over night success takes years of planning. Now there is another thing of annoyance. Investing in bricks and mortar for retirement. Stupid! Plain Stupid! Lets consider. You have a block of land and dump $100,000 of bricks on that property. Thats all you do, there is no added value, just a pile of bricks. Now you dont have $100,00 to pay for the bricks so you get a bank loan, which you have to pay interest on. So for the sake of argument, and ignoring the complexities of mortgage interest repayments, I will assume that monthly repayments are about $400 over 30 years. Thus the total cost of the bricks to you is: 400x12x30 = $144,000. That is $44,000 more than the bricks were worth in the first instance. Thirty years hence you no longer have any use for the bricks and want to sell them and recover your costs, namely the $144,000. (Ok! You didnt have any use in the first place.) Who is going to be stupid enough to pay for the bricks? Well inflation as been operating, largely because of people taking out loans, so now the new bricks are potentially worth $144,000, unfortunately these bricks are not new they are weathered and experienced significant deterioration. So was it a worthwhile investment? No! The land on the other hand is subject to other factors. Population growth as created a shortage of land, raising prices of what little land is available for development. Thus, time alone, in the presence of population growth adds value to land. Actually, it is time in the presence of increasing consumption or usage of land, which adds value, and raises prices. Now if you perceive that it is the land that as the value, putting a bulldozer through someones dream home and building your own in its place is of no problem. Other than the average individual cannot afford to pay for the land and bulldoze the existing house. But then again why would anyone want to sell their dream home? Why would anyone belief that someone else would want to buy it in the future? It is a totally stupid idea to add value through interest payments. It doesnt add value. Good design can however add value. The more you invest in design, the more you can get for your dollar. A lack of engineering and $100,000 may only cover 10 square metres, double your engineering investment and you may cover 500 square metres for the same cost. Economics is wrong, Money is not proportional to value, it maybe but it doesnt have to be. There is no real price for anything. Yes, there is subjective value, and the more you value something the more you will be willing to pay for it. But in terms of functional value, and fitness-for-purpose that does not mean you will get value for money. It should be noted for example, that an architectural drafter is not an architect, nor a building designer, nor a building technologist. They are just drafters. So yes they will save you money in terms of architectural and engineering fees, and if all you need is someone to draw up your house plans or factory plans then their services represent value for money. Ordinarily however, such persons operate under the supervision of an architect, and thus they cannot design buildings or building systems. I all that you want is a variation in the floor plan of a simple brick veneer house or timber house, such drafters are a help. But under the guidance of an owner/designer/builder rather than an architect, they are likely to merely assist in getting you in big trouble. But maybe a drafter can help get your ideas down on paper, in a form that architects, engineers, and building surveyors and builders understand. Once your ideas are down on paper consult with consultants. Get the advise of architects and then get the drafter to modify accordingly. But do not rely on the drafter they are likely to draw things that are impossible to build. Produce drawings (plans & elevations) that are inconsistent, and therefore represent objects that cannot exist. But they will have drawn what you asked for.

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