Askthefm's Weblog

Improvements in Earthquake Resistant Building Design

askthefm — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:14:53 +0000

Living in Southern California I am always interested in improvements to building design that affect how well they ride out an earthquake. I found this article from the Christian Science Monitor intriguing to say the least.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2012/0113/To-save-buildings-from-quakes-architects-try-self-destruction-by-design

As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com

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Coming Solar Storm – Disaster of major proportions?

askthefm — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 04:49:39 +0000

Interesting article on Forbes.com (http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/08/09/sky-full-of-trouble-bracing-for-super-solar-storms/) tells about the fact that the results of a major solar storm is headed our way in the next few days…..There is even a possibility that the electromagnetic pulse could even shut off the water to your house by disabling the computers at the pumping station near you.

How likely is this, well the answer is not very even according to the story. It would take a direct hit from a “super” storm to do any real damage. We have been being shot at by the sun pretty regularly since mid June and I am sure that if your toilet stopped working during that time it was due to a more typical cause.

Why am I writing about this here in a blog about building, construction and disaster recovery? Well it is a disaster you should consider if you are responsible for planning for recovery for your business and there has been more than a little scare mongering lately about this topic. However if you have planned ahead to survive a major earthquake and a solar storm hits you should be just fine as the things you will need are very similar.

And the government is planning for the event. Here is an official link from NASA all about it: (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/22jun_swef2011/)

Also here is a Youtube video showing what one looks like: (http://youtu.be/G4gwEpNYygU)

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Interesting Disaster Shelter

askthefm — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 05:48:57 +0000

I ran across and very interesting concept in rapidly deployable shelters. They are called concrete canvas shelters and you can find all about them here: http://www.concretecanvas.co.uk/

Here is a youtube video on the product:

Pretty amazing stuff!

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Cleaning supplies for unusual needs

askthefm — Sun, 29 May 2011 01:57:06 +0000

I ran across some unusual cleaning supplies this week to supplement your arsenal when it comes to keeping you buildings clean and safe.

The first is a product called slipgrip and it is for use on ceramic tile and polished stone floors. The idea is a cleaner that get the surface clean but doesn’t make it slippery. The office where i work just remodeled the lobby with beautiful terrazzo floors that were slippery even when dry. Management has started using the product and I can notice a difference when I walk across the floors. Information on the product can be found here at slipgrip.com( http://www.slipgrip.com/).

Next we have a product I found on the Cool Tools website (http://www.kk.org/cooltools/) called Ickee Stickee Unstuck. This product is a stain remover maybe from soybeans. It is said to remove many things like paint and magic marker. I can certainly find uses for this at my sites! It is available from Amazon and is manufactured by Franmar Chemical (http://www.franmar.com/).

Lastly tonight via the Geeky Gadgets website (http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/decongel-is-the-best-cleaner-in-the-world-28-05-2011/) comes a product that supposedly can clean up radioactive particles from hard surfaces. It is called DeconGel.

DeconGel’s unique qualities were accidentally discovered a few years ago when a scientist working for a technology incubator peeled it off a surface. Turns out what DeconGel does best is collect all sorts of microscopic particles that are cluttering the space it is spread on. When removed, it virtually cleans the object of thing it’s been covered with.

The company website has a lot more information and can be found here: (http://decongel.com/).

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New Solar Energy Tools

askthefm — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 05:20:58 +0000

Tonight I found a very interesting and exciting web page to share. It is from the folks at the University of California at San Diego and it gives us all several new tools to help figure out the optimal design for the solar system you are putting on your roof. You are planning to do that aren’t you?

They harness another of my favorite tools, Google Earth via a KMZ file which produces interactive overlays to the basic mapping data. The tools provide data on the solar energy density for your area, the optimal alignment and tilt for your panels and there is also shadow mapping that will allow future versions to calculate solar irradiance forecasts for specific areas. All this can be found at:

http://solar.ucsd.edu/
As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com

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Bedbugs Part 2 – Resources for Battle

askthefm — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 05:02:33 +0000

Being what I am, responsible for low income multi-family housing, this subject has become very important of late. Tonight I have a good selection of resources to dispel some myths and rumors around this pest.

First is a handout from the LA County Department of Health ( bedbugs_handout LA County Health) that is good primer on this annoyance. Now after you read this you will realize that aside from the severe creep factor bedbugs aren’t going to cause the next plague.

The most common vector seems to be hotels and motels as this is the most highly reported cause for them to show up in your home. There are of course web sites that can help you avoid these:

Bed Bug Registry – http://bedbugregistry.com/metro/la/

Bed Bugs Los Angeles – http://www.bedbugslosangeles.com/

These are both for Los Angeles but I am sure that there are sections or similar ones in most major cities by this time.

There is all one product that says it can help prevent you from bringing these pests home from your travels. This is the Packtite portable treatment device (http://www.bedbugsupply.com/PackTite-Bed-Bug-Treatment-Device_p_33.html?gclid=CNmn2tfOq6UCFQQQbAodXh_RXw )

Heat treatments are one proven way to get rid of most insect pests, including various grain beetles, roaches and termites so it is no surprise that it works for our new friend the bedbug.

If you are unfortunate to already have this problem please find a reputable local exterminator and don’t be pulled into some of the more shady proposals out there. There are sites that will sell you “Do it yourself” kits that will most likely be a waste of your time and money. These pests are very hard to get rid of and experience is the key to success.

There is one unlikely solution that seems shady but isn’t. There are trained dogs that can inspect your house to find where these bugs are hiding. The sources I questioned support the claim of 90% accuracy of detection. This process allows a much more targeted approach which save time and money.

So for tonight it really is “Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite”!

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Bedbugs, now officially an epidemic!

askthefm — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:15:42 +0000

I have written on this topic before and I was hopeful that science would have come up with a fairly simple answer to this age old problem. However these pests seem to have joined drug resistant staph infections as things that have stumped science.

Now we are having Bed Bug Summits! Actually the EPA had one last year (http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/updates/2009/bed-bug-summit.html) that completely slipped my notice. This year Bed Bug University, wait there is a whole university dedicated to eradicating these pests? Anyway they held a summit in Chicago this year and it attracted a whole lot of attention.

The official Site: http://www.nabedbugsummit2010.com/

Chicago Tribune: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-09-21/news/ct-talk-bed-bug-summit-20100921_1_bedbugs-dini-miller-tiny-pests

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30208436/

CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/21/earlyshow/contributors/susankoeppen/main6887137.shtml

Okay you get the idea. These pests have been on the march for a couple of years now and it seems that we aren’t going to get a chemical savior anytime soon. Unless of course we make DDT legal again. So we are in for a long frustrating battle that may only be in the end a holding action. No one is really sure why the infestation is growing so rapidly but there are certainly those searching for solutions.

Let’s just hope they find some good ones soon….

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Building Technology Update for Sept. 16, 2010

askthefm — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 04:26:57 +0000

Hello All! It has been some time since I posted and I thought that you should all get a great big thank you for continuing to visit while real life kept me away from my blog.

Tonight I have four interesting technology updates for you. The first and unfortunately farthest away is a supposedly radical re-envisioning of building air conditioning that could save anywhere from 50-90% of current power consumption! The full Story is here: http://www.miller-mccune.com/environment/air-conditioning-using-90-percent-less-power-20071/. The article mentions 3 plus years before it could possibly become commercially available and I hope that they are being conservative as HVAC consumes far too much energy and this, if widely deployed would make a big dent in our fossil fuel use even at 50% savings.

Next, can you soda bottle become a wall? According to this article on Greenopolis.com (http://greenopolis.com/goblog/green-groove/super-strength-polli-bricks-bricks-made-recycled-plastic-bottles) not only is the answer yes, but it is supposedly super strong.

Excerpt:

“They’re transparent and translucent. They interlock together to form a honeycomb structure that’s extremely durable. They can be used to build anything from buildings and fences to roofs and walls of light. So what are “they” referring to? They’re called POLLI-Bricks, and they’re a genius example of recycled bottle architecture.”

Third up tonight is pollution eating concrete! I can just imagine a super hero monster coming to solve all of the world’s pollution problems. Okay not so much, but what we do have is a product that manages to sequester common car exhaust pollutants through absorption. The article is here on Good.is (http://www.good.is/post/pollution-eating-concrete-to-save-your-lungs/).

Excerpt:

“Researchers in the Netherlands have recently tested a special type of concrete that has the potential to absorb nitrogen oxides, which are a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. If implemented, this concrete could cut down on the the smog and acid rain caused by car exhaust.”

Lastly is an article I just couldn’t resist because I really am a true geek! On How Stuff Works is a story about Transparent Aluminum Armor! (http://science.howstuffworks.com/transparent-aluminum-armor.htm) I like to think it might be the latest thing in bullet proof glass for those of you that might need that sort of thing for your facilities…

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Gimme Shelter?

askthefm — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:22:00 +0000

There is a series of recent news reports about a group of folks selling slots in an underground shelter city or at least village somewhere in the desert. While I think that this is just another scam based around the 2012 end of the world theory I thought that I might write a post on what is available out there for the do it your selfer.

What I found in large numbers are site purporting to have plans you can build or have built that will protect you in the event of a nuclear war. I guess they assume you won’t be suffering any direct hits…

The first site is: http://www.undergroundbombshelter.com/ is a fairly calm site compared to some and does take the time to give you some basic understanding of the issues that need to be addressed.

There are many examples of both this type of site and of the other more sensational kind. An example of this type is: http://www.alpinesurvival.com/nuclear_bomb_shelters.html

This site is much more scary and really tries to get you convinced that you need to spend serious money to protect yourself and your family from what they see as impending disaster. They so have a nice set of 3D mock up of shelters. However these examples seem a little unrealistic due to lack of storage for what I would think of as needed supplies.

Now what I think would be really able to make this type of a solution work is a planned town with a small sealed nuclear reactor that would allow the installation to be able to heat, light, cook, reprocess water and all of the other things an underground living space needs. There are small reactors coming to a neighborhood near you within five years say England’s Guardian newspaper: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

In any event I am not planning on building or buying in to one of these anytime soon. Not because I believe that the world is not at risk for any of the disasters mentioned but rather because I don’t think that any of these actually represents a reasonable solution or presents more than a very temporary solution to our survival problem.

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Building Technology Update for 5/23/2010

askthefm — Mon, 24 May 2010 03:58:04 +0000

Hello Everyone,

Real life got in the way of regular posts, which for now is solved. I will be posting again every week on Sunday evenings for the foreseeable future.

Tonight we have one update and several interesting technologies. The update is on the Chinese drywall problem where the product was off gassing dangerous level of toxic chemicals. On Building Green (http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2010/5/17/Chinese-Drywall-Manufacturers-Liable-for-Millions-in-Damages/) we have an update where cases have come to court and the plaintiffs have started getting big awards. I am glad that this has finally started and I hope that it will cause importers to more carefully screen where they are getting their products.

Here is Southern California we are finally starting to attack the air conditioning monster we need for living in a desert! In Glendale the first of I hope many projects is getting underway where they will be using ice created overnight with cheap wind energy to provide the cooling that was previous provided be the energy hungry conventional HVAC units. The complete story is on Clean Technica (http://cleantechnica.com/2010/05/22/53-megawatt-ice-energy-storage-trial-begins-in-california/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cleantechnica%2Fcom+%28CleanTechnica%29)

Prices and availability on LED bulbs is about to improve radically! The article on Ecogeek (http://ecogeek.org/efficiency/3167-affordable-high-performance-led-bulbs-finally-hitt?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoGeek+%28EcoGeek%29) gives me great hope that this much needed technology is finally going to become affordable!

Lastly tonight we have two stories about growing your outside wall covering. Both from Treehugger, one is about growing the map of Europe on your wall (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/living-map-europe-grows-copenhagen-wall.php?campaign=th_rss_design) and the other is about simply growing plants on your wall to improve your local environment. (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/lifewall-modular-vertical-garden-tiles-eat-pollution-feed-plants.php?campaign=th_rss_design)

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