Spare a thought

[slotalot]

Nice photos Jim, The Victorians knew a little bit about engineering and building things to last

[arrgee]

The Victorians knew a little bit about engineering and building things to last

Quite true Stuart but if we built to the same section sizes today it would not get through the current Building Regulations!

I have been working in the architectural business for over 45 years and in that time sizes such as standard timber sections have changed very little, even when metrication came in they just changed the imperial sizes into the metric equivalent, the good old 'six by two' became 150 x 50mm. A couple of years back a new Eurocode was introduced for determining timber sizes and guess what, the old tried and tested sizes are now no longer able to span the same distances they have for a century or more so the next size up has to be used - 'empirical' knowledge is obviously an anathema to our continental cousins. I am no ludite but change for change sake is costing this country money.

The arguement of 'timber years ago was better seasoned' does not wash with structural sections as the timber is strength tested at the factory when cut (C16, C24 ) however, I have to say that today we do have a much better safety record than in years gone by thanks to legislation, Brunel actually boasted after one of his projects that he only lost 60 men!!! compares favourably with the 50 lives lost during the building of the 3 gorges dam on the Yangtze river in China 10 years ago.