Montevideo has the best carnaval. It started yesterday and I am here working on AIRMOD. Pfuiia!
7
comments:
Anonymous
said...
What is Airmod?
You are in Montevideo now? 30 degrees and sunny - I envy you. It's 30 here also - 30 Fahrenheit (-1C) and the ground is covered in a meter of snow, without exaggeration. My inlaws are here because their house is without electricity - the snow brings down tree branches which bring down the overhead power lines. This happens after every major snowstorm and yet they will not invest the $ to bury the power lines. We live in an area that is a natural forest (when the white men arrived the entire northeastern US was one great forest except for little clearings the Indians had made) and trees sprout everywhere. Not little Israeli stick trees but massive hardwoods that can crush your house like a toy when they keel over (especially since American houses, even those of the very rich, are themselves made of sticks. Even if you see a house that appears to be brick or stucco, it is only a veneer on top of the light wooden structure. They try to trim the trees back away from the power lines every year but it is a Sisyphean task. The US is falling behind more and more - at the rate the Chinese are exporting they have the funds to build up their capital base every year while ours is shrinking.
How long does it take to get from Lod to Montevideo?
I am not in Montevideo but Kever Benjamin. We had a sunny Friday and the weekend promises good weather.
American houses are cheap to build but the system was not accepted in Israel. Here people wants solid concrete block houses that are expensive and takes years to build.
Sorry I misunderstood - now that I read this I understand that "here" means home for you and not at carnivale.
And what is Airmod?
I don't see why block construction should take years - I've seen masons laying concrete block (in the US the standard block is 20 cm high x 40 cm wide) and it goes up fairly quickly, if not as fast as a wood frame wall (a wood frame often sprouts in a matter of days, but then there are months of finishing work - plumbing, electrical, wallboard, etc.). We also use block extensively to build foundation walls and commercial buildings. One of the reasons why wood framing remains popular is that it lends itself to stuffing 10 or 15 cm of fiberglass wool insulation inside the large hollow cavities formed between the outside walls and their inner surface. Insulation is much more important in a cold climate and concrete is a poor insulator.
AIRMOD is a gas diffusion model used required by the EPA and its local counterpart for environmental permitting. A kibbutz in the dessert, on theborder with Egypt, want to erect a chicken farm, and commissioned me to do the environmental design and permitting. Difficult.
In the british isles wooden frame houses are not popular due to the dampness they accumulate (there may be other reasons I'm not aware of). However, J, I don't think block/brick houses take that much longer to build. The insulation is certainly inferior, but it never gets too cold anyway. A new development is construction with pre-cast concrete walls. One of these houses could be up in a month.
I'm not sure what T. Fitzgerald means about "accumulating dampness". As long as the roof and exterior covering material are properly constructed, wooden buildings are bone dry even in the wettest climates.
I think one of the reasons why wood remains popular in the US is that we still haven't cut down all of our virgin forests. In the NW US you can see lumber trucks hauling away giant 800 year old logs, freshly cut, even today.
Traditional building in Israel was always with stone, and everybody wants heavy, cool, solid, Middle Eastern type of houses. Only for permanent stone/block houses you need permits and gives you property rights. Wooden structures are considered transitory and dont count as buildings.
Montevideo has the best carnaval. It started yesterday and I am here working on AIRMOD. Pfuiia!
7 comments:
What is Airmod?
You are in Montevideo now? 30 degrees and sunny - I envy you. It's 30 here also - 30 Fahrenheit (-1C) and the ground is covered in a meter of snow, without exaggeration. My inlaws are here because their house is without electricity - the snow brings down tree branches which bring down the overhead power lines. This happens after every major snowstorm and yet they will not invest the $ to bury the power lines. We live in an area that is a natural forest (when the white men arrived the entire northeastern US was one great forest except for little clearings the Indians had made) and trees sprout everywhere. Not little Israeli stick trees but massive hardwoods that can crush your house like a toy when they keel over (especially since American houses, even those of the very rich, are themselves made of sticks. Even if you see a house that appears to be brick or stucco, it is only a veneer on top of the light wooden structure. They try to trim the trees back away from the power lines every year but it is a Sisyphean task. The US is falling behind more and more - at the rate the Chinese are exporting they have the funds to build up their capital base every year while ours is shrinking.
How long does it take to get from Lod to Montevideo?
K
K,
I am not in Montevideo but Kever Benjamin. We had a sunny Friday and the weekend promises good weather.
American houses are cheap to build but the system was not accepted in Israel. Here people wants solid concrete block houses that are expensive and takes years to build.
Lod - Montevideo is about 20 hours in the air.
Sorry I misunderstood - now that I read this I understand that "here" means home for you and not at carnivale.
And what is Airmod?
I don't see why block construction should take years - I've seen masons laying concrete block (in the US the standard block is 20 cm high x 40 cm wide) and it goes up fairly quickly, if not as fast as a wood frame wall (a wood frame often sprouts in a matter of days, but then there are months of finishing work - plumbing, electrical, wallboard, etc.). We also use block extensively to build foundation walls and commercial buildings. One of the reasons why wood framing remains popular is that it lends itself to stuffing 10 or 15 cm of fiberglass wool insulation inside the large hollow cavities formed between the outside walls and their inner surface. Insulation is much more important in a cold climate and concrete is a poor insulator.
K
AIRMOD is a gas diffusion model used required by the EPA and its local counterpart for environmental permitting. A kibbutz in the dessert, on theborder with Egypt, want to erect a chicken farm, and commissioned me to do the environmental design and permitting. Difficult.
In the british isles wooden frame houses are not popular due to the dampness they accumulate (there may be other reasons I'm not aware of). However, J, I don't think block/brick houses take that much longer to build. The insulation is certainly inferior, but it never gets too cold anyway. A new development is construction with pre-cast concrete walls. One of these houses could be up in a month.
I'm not sure what T. Fitzgerald means about "accumulating dampness". As long as the roof and exterior covering material are properly constructed, wooden buildings are bone dry even in the wettest climates.
I think one of the reasons why wood remains popular in the US is that we still haven't cut down all of our virgin forests. In the NW US you can see lumber trucks hauling away giant 800 year old logs, freshly cut, even today.
Traditional building in Israel was always with stone, and everybody wants heavy, cool, solid, Middle Eastern type of houses. Only for permanent stone/block houses you need permits and gives you property rights. Wooden structures are considered transitory and dont count as buildings.
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