20 years from now...
this is a thought experiment. I am going to try to assume hard environmental conditions, worst case scenarios and hard wear for 20 years on Plan B, and try to imagine what problems would be present in 20 years. In short, a tour through the house 20 years from now, after several owners, spotty maintenance, rains, sun, soil movement, wind, etc... Maybe this will help me identify weak spots.
Lets begin this tour of horrors shall we.
I drive down the drive way. It is crushed rock. Over the years of grading it has developed a sage in the middle, and water pools there. Not a terrible problem. I park in the garage. The concrete footpad is cracked, but still there. The roof over it though has not faired so well. It was shaped roughly like an airfoil, and a high wind lifted it up, and ripped it off. The car, therefore is not shaded when I park. I walk to the walkway to the Gallery. It would be better to walk to my bedroom, but I like this walk. The gallery that horizontally bisects the house is weather worn. It has not been well oiled or water treated, and now it is dry and cracked. [Is that true? What do I need to do to maintain the gallery in its original shape? is concrete a better material than wood? California decks need to be replaced, dont they? I mean, eventually, that wood will get rotted, or dried out, and be cracked. Or maybe not. Maybe this wood is sealed, with a verithane. Maybe this hardwood does not face the ravages of pine. Ok, not to self: Ask Guillermo about this or do research.] The wood no longer matches with the wood that has been shaded, which is still in great shape, and looks like an indoor hardwood floor.
I slide the gate back. It opens part way as the runners have come untrue over the years and the heavy gate has jumped the track. [ I have NO IDEA what the gate will be like and how hearty the runners etc. This is complete conjecture]. ok. Inside...the gallery inside looks pretty good. The roof here is fine. The windows over the sides are ok. There is water damage at the deal between the kitchen and the gallery, where water from the tower has collected and broken through. [This is a part of the plans I cannot discern. How is the water to escape this area. It is probably provided for, I just do not know how.].
The kitchen: I turn left and enter the kitchen. The appliances are a bit rusty toward the bottom from the salt and sea air and humidity. Could this have been prevented by making sure air circulated around them. Ants, of course. there are ants. This is probably impossible to prevent. The hardwood floor near the window to the west is sun damaged. This is because of the late afternoon sun that is not excluded by the roof line. [Note: this is not going to be as big a problem in this part of the house as others. The roof line here will extend between 2.5 and about 4.5 feet when shading the kitchen. Depending on the height of the ceilings, and the angle of the slope of the roof, this is going to provide sun, at worst, until roughly 4 ish in the afternoon]. The rest of the kitchen I will have to return to at a later date as it is still largely undersigned, and I cannot accurately analyze it.
Crossing over into the living room, there is tremendous damage to the floors in front of the picture windows. These windows swing up, and their attachments with the roof line create a sloping backward into the home. On days where the windows were accidentally left open and a rain storm passed, the windows served as a funnels dumping water into the living room.
The trusses/beams are in pretty good shape. I am going to admit I know nothing about roofs, or roof construction and tell you that I don't think anything is going awry with the roof. I hope not.
The windows themselves are shut. The pulley system that was supposed to help them raise and lower is broken. {I have no idea hwy it really would, or would not break. I don't even know what this pulley system looks like}.
Looking at the roof line on the slope facing side of then house, we can anticipate the sun entry to a greater accuracy. Looking at the drawings, I am going to estimate that the roof line will hang over the house 3 feet. I will assume the top of the exterior wall is going to be 9 feet. This is where the math gets worse. I don't know the roof angle, so I will estimate it being 90 degrees. It doesn't really matter, we can still solve for the angle at which the sun will enter the house without it, but if the roof angle is less that 90, which is is, the roof line will hang down a bit. Still, if we take 3 and 9 as the legs of the right triangle, creating a ratio of .33, and take the tangent of that angle, we find that the sun will first strike the floor when it is 18.26 degrees from straight over head. I do not know what time of the day, 18.25 comes out to be, but I am going to guess that you will have light in the house from, oh, 9:30-11. That's because the hill blocks the sun for the morning, and then the sun passes overhead. Bad math, sure, but let me tell you, it sure was fun to dust of the scientific calculator again.
Ok, back to the roof. Some of the beams extend beyond the roof. These, we will imagine in this nightmare, have not been varnished every year, and now are greying, dry, and need replacement. This is showing me that I need to learn about wood care in the tropics, and the degree of exposure to sun and heat and rain that they can endure and maintain their composure.
The gutters may have broken at some point, and the water now courses over the side. gutter maintenance is going to be a regular effort I will suppose. Not that big a deal. this is probably an issue with every house.
Ok, this might be overly horrific, but lets imagine that the slope has moved just slightly. The footers on which the entire structure stands have shifted. Yikes. That happened to a house in which I lived once in CA. My parents yelled and cursed a great deal. It broke the house in a way, and you could see cracks going down the walls. Maybe the steel frame will prevent this. Maybe the fact the footers rest on the soil, and do not necessarily drive into it, will prevent them from being moved with the slope.
The bedrooms face the same problem as the kitchen, sun damage where the sun comes in the window for a great portion of the day. There are trees...perhaps there is enough shade? How much longer must the roof be to prevent this exposure? Do I have any idea what I am talking about?
The tower.
The greatest fear I have is that the stair case to the terrace has become unstable. Oh, maybe not in year 1, or 5, or 10, but 20 years down the line...has the terrace become a wonder place to be, but a nightmare to approach? Those stairs are, currently cantilevered, which I like, but I have no idea about the long term structural integrity. What happens when wet leaves land on them, and the rains soak them. Over time, we have metal fatigue. Metal fatigue is very real, and requires only a very small variation past the flex point.
Which also leads me to consider the metal skin of the tower. Metal expands at a greater rate than concrete. What happens when the skin, day after day, grows further than the concrete to which it is anchored? Do the fasteners break? Is it possible that the wind will cause the skin to vibrate when it blows by? I don't know, but harmonics, while kind on the ears, are hard on building materials.
That's about all I have. No doubt few of these will come to pass, but it is always smart to kick the tires. Let me know if you can think of anything else, and, as always, thanks for your readership.
this is a thought experiment. I am going to try to assume hard environmental conditions, worst case scenarios and hard wear for 20 years on Plan B, and try to imagine what problems would be present in 20 years. In short, a tour through the house 20 years from now, after several owners, spotty maintenance, rains, sun, soil movement, wind, etc... Maybe this will help me identify weak spots.
Lets begin this tour of horrors shall we.
I drive down the drive way. It is crushed rock. Over the years of grading it has developed a sage in the middle, and water pools there. Not a terrible problem. I park in the garage. The concrete footpad is cracked, but still there. The roof over it though has not faired so well. It was shaped roughly like an airfoil, and a high wind lifted it up, and ripped it off. The car, therefore is not shaded when I park. I walk to the walkway to the Gallery. It would be better to walk to my bedroom, but I like this walk. The gallery that horizontally bisects the house is weather worn. It has not been well oiled or water treated, and now it is dry and cracked. [Is that true? What do I need to do to maintain the gallery in its original shape? is concrete a better material than wood? California decks need to be replaced, dont they? I mean, eventually, that wood will get rotted, or dried out, and be cracked. Or maybe not. Maybe this wood is sealed, with a verithane. Maybe this hardwood does not face the ravages of pine. Ok, not to self: Ask Guillermo about this or do research.] The wood no longer matches with the wood that has been shaded, which is still in great shape, and looks like an indoor hardwood floor.
I slide the gate back. It opens part way as the runners have come untrue over the years and the heavy gate has jumped the track. [ I have NO IDEA what the gate will be like and how hearty the runners etc. This is complete conjecture]. ok. Inside...the gallery inside looks pretty good. The roof here is fine. The windows over the sides are ok. There is water damage at the deal between the kitchen and the gallery, where water from the tower has collected and broken through. [This is a part of the plans I cannot discern. How is the water to escape this area. It is probably provided for, I just do not know how.].
The kitchen: I turn left and enter the kitchen. The appliances are a bit rusty toward the bottom from the salt and sea air and humidity. Could this have been prevented by making sure air circulated around them. Ants, of course. there are ants. This is probably impossible to prevent. The hardwood floor near the window to the west is sun damaged. This is because of the late afternoon sun that is not excluded by the roof line. [Note: this is not going to be as big a problem in this part of the house as others. The roof line here will extend between 2.5 and about 4.5 feet when shading the kitchen. Depending on the height of the ceilings, and the angle of the slope of the roof, this is going to provide sun, at worst, until roughly 4 ish in the afternoon]. The rest of the kitchen I will have to return to at a later date as it is still largely undersigned, and I cannot accurately analyze it.
Crossing over into the living room, there is tremendous damage to the floors in front of the picture windows. These windows swing up, and their attachments with the roof line create a sloping backward into the home. On days where the windows were accidentally left open and a rain storm passed, the windows served as a funnels dumping water into the living room.
The trusses/beams are in pretty good shape. I am going to admit I know nothing about roofs, or roof construction and tell you that I don't think anything is going awry with the roof. I hope not.
The windows themselves are shut. The pulley system that was supposed to help them raise and lower is broken. {I have no idea hwy it really would, or would not break. I don't even know what this pulley system looks like}.
Looking at the roof line on the slope facing side of then house, we can anticipate the sun entry to a greater accuracy. Looking at the drawings, I am going to estimate that the roof line will hang over the house 3 feet. I will assume the top of the exterior wall is going to be 9 feet. This is where the math gets worse. I don't know the roof angle, so I will estimate it being 90 degrees. It doesn't really matter, we can still solve for the angle at which the sun will enter the house without it, but if the roof angle is less that 90, which is is, the roof line will hang down a bit. Still, if we take 3 and 9 as the legs of the right triangle, creating a ratio of .33, and take the tangent of that angle, we find that the sun will first strike the floor when it is 18.26 degrees from straight over head. I do not know what time of the day, 18.25 comes out to be, but I am going to guess that you will have light in the house from, oh, 9:30-11. That's because the hill blocks the sun for the morning, and then the sun passes overhead. Bad math, sure, but let me tell you, it sure was fun to dust of the scientific calculator again.
Ok, back to the roof. Some of the beams extend beyond the roof. These, we will imagine in this nightmare, have not been varnished every year, and now are greying, dry, and need replacement. This is showing me that I need to learn about wood care in the tropics, and the degree of exposure to sun and heat and rain that they can endure and maintain their composure.
The gutters may have broken at some point, and the water now courses over the side. gutter maintenance is going to be a regular effort I will suppose. Not that big a deal. this is probably an issue with every house.
Ok, this might be overly horrific, but lets imagine that the slope has moved just slightly. The footers on which the entire structure stands have shifted. Yikes. That happened to a house in which I lived once in CA. My parents yelled and cursed a great deal. It broke the house in a way, and you could see cracks going down the walls. Maybe the steel frame will prevent this. Maybe the fact the footers rest on the soil, and do not necessarily drive into it, will prevent them from being moved with the slope.
The bedrooms face the same problem as the kitchen, sun damage where the sun comes in the window for a great portion of the day. There are trees...perhaps there is enough shade? How much longer must the roof be to prevent this exposure? Do I have any idea what I am talking about?
The tower.
The greatest fear I have is that the stair case to the terrace has become unstable. Oh, maybe not in year 1, or 5, or 10, but 20 years down the line...has the terrace become a wonder place to be, but a nightmare to approach? Those stairs are, currently cantilevered, which I like, but I have no idea about the long term structural integrity. What happens when wet leaves land on them, and the rains soak them. Over time, we have metal fatigue. Metal fatigue is very real, and requires only a very small variation past the flex point.
Which also leads me to consider the metal skin of the tower. Metal expands at a greater rate than concrete. What happens when the skin, day after day, grows further than the concrete to which it is anchored? Do the fasteners break? Is it possible that the wind will cause the skin to vibrate when it blows by? I don't know, but harmonics, while kind on the ears, are hard on building materials.
That's about all I have. No doubt few of these will come to pass, but it is always smart to kick the tires. Let me know if you can think of anything else, and, as always, thanks for your readership.
posted by warnerk at
2:00 PM
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