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Re: What The...?

kalberts18-Jan-17 4:39

kalberts

18-Jan-17 4:39

OK, so I live in a country where any building must be safe against the attack of a 1500 pound polar bear... At least we try to make tourists believe that it so (I think the last time a polar bear visited Norway was during the last ice age).

But we do build houses to be warm and cosy even when it is fourty below (F or C - doesn't matter). When I went to the US to live with a family in Minnesota for a year, my first shock was leaning towards the living room wall, and the wall gave in! Not completely, of course, but maybe half an inch at the most. Just thin (like quarter-inch) cardboard-like stuff. No wood panel, no plasterboards. Then the Minnesota winter attacked us, and sofas and chairs were moved away from the outer walls: The frost was really radiating from the walls. Didn't the walls have any insulation at all? I never found out.

My house is old, so it "only" has 3/4 inch wooden panel at the outside, then 8 inches of insulation, then a plastic sheet to stop the wind and hunmitidity, and an inner wall of at least half inch wooden panel, or half inch plasterboards. The current Norwegian insulation standard for new buildings is 12in, preferably as two 6in layers, one vertical, one horisontal. Stands are typically 4" by 6" vertical stands for one insulation layer, horizontal for the other insulation layer, making a mesh of two by two foot squares of 4" by 6" wooden beams. Inner walls also have 3" or 4" stands every two foot with half inch booden panel or plasterboards on each side. For sound insulation, walls may be filled with 6 in of heavy rockwool - my house only has a thin (like 1/16") cardboard underneath the wood panel.

Seeing 'trailer homes' for the first time (they are quite unknown in Norway) made me ask myself: Do they really live inside a tin can? We do have tin can caravans in Norway as well, but that is for two week camping trips in the middle of the summer - not for permanent living!

Sure, my stay in the US is a long time ago. But houses lasts for a long time. Noone that I talked to seemed to worry about it - the oil furnace in the basement was large enough to keep the house "warm" (at least up a foot or two from the outer walls) even with the lack of insulation.

In brief: The building standard of US housing relly shocked me. It would be fair enough in the south state climate, but in Minnesota... Whenever I see newsreport photos of crushed homes in the US (like this one I saved: An arerial of a huge, fully loaded truck driving through three trailer homes, stopped by the fourth one), I sigh: Well, that is the building standard, over there.

Maybe new wooden houses in the US are of a much higher standard today than what I saw in the late 1970s. But houses are build to last for a long time, and I wouldn't be surprised if lots of the houses I saw during my first stay are still there today. Crushing through those walls wouldn't require that much energy.

Brick/concrete houses are of course a different thing, and the one in this story is certanly not a wood building. Besides, the car seems to have gone through this huge window, which didn't reduce its speed by very much. So I find the story perfectly believable. I even would think it believable if the car had hit the wall, not the window, of a wooden building (or a tin can on wheels) as I saw them in the US in the late 1970. But not if the house was built by modern Norwegian standards.

Re: What The...?

Brisingr Aerowing19-Jan-17 4:02

Brisingr Aerowing

19-Jan-17 4:02

Building Standards have really changed since then. Houses have a lot more insulation and are built with stronger materials.

What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?

The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.

Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???

Netflix on Non-Smart TV

Michael Martin17-Jan-17 13:51

Michael Martin

17-Jan-17 13:51

I have a customer who is a retired lady approaching 70 who has heard about and now wants Netflix. She has ADSL, a desktop computer and a TV with no smarts or apps in it.

I have a couple of Google Nexus TV/Player (made by ASUS) in use at home, but these are no longer made. Reading up on Chromecast she would need a device (iPhone/iPad/Android whatever) to have the Chromecast App installed, said device would stream the Netflix and push it out to the Chromecast.

What a load of shite that is. What can I buy, that can connect to the internet, login to Netflix and play it through HDMI for her?

Help?

Michael Martin
Australia

"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004

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