When the Campbell government raised the allowed height of wood buildings to six stories, the idea was to spark timber sales and construction activity. But a lot of people are likely to get burned, safety experts have told ace reporter Sean Holman.
At six stories, all-wood buildings are more likely to buckle in an earthquake, pose a bigger fire hazard, and be harder to evacuate once ablaze, experts say in a January 29 post on Holman’s highly read blog Public Eye Online.
The new “wood-centric” regulations for new private buildings were passed after heavy lobbying by B.C.’s timber industry. But here are just some of the concerns sourced voiced to Holman:
"Many fire departments do not have the training or resources to respond" to fires in building of that height, wrote Stephen Gamble in a September letter to the government. Gamble chairs British Columbia's fire services liaison group and is president of the Fire Chiefs Association of B.C.
"I have talked to a lot of building officials. I've worked for a lot of building departments in four states in the past 20 years. And nobody even wants to talk about six wood" because of its "inherent dangers," said Greg Fox, a plans examiner for Des Moines, Washington, a state where all-wood buildings can’t be above five stories.
"That's really, really stretching what you can do with wood. I would never recommend it. I don't think it can be as steady or safe a construction as you could get from some other kind of construction,” Holman quotes SeaTac assistant building official Robert Kingsley.
"At some point it doesn't become economically reasonable to stack up that much wood. And it doesn't perform very well for you. If you have shrinkage, if you don't design properly, it will cause you problems with your construction - cracking, settlement, whatever," said Portland chief engineer Jed Sampson.
"I'm not willing to go there. I think you guys are brave. We'll watch you guys," said Seattle principle engineer and building official Jon Sui. "Myself, I'd be a little nervous about it -- probably more than a little.”
Holman’s post goes on to raise questions about the structural analysis used by the B.C. government to make its decision.
Yesterday, Holman posted a follow-up in which B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman tells him that five and six storey wood-frame buildings will be gradually phased in “to make sure we do this right.”
But, Holman adds, “he said there will be no legal requirement for that to happen, acknowledging such buildings could be constructed as soon as the BC Building Code amendments allowing them come into effect.”
"There's always going to be, when change comes, some group that says the sky is going to fall,” Coleman told Holman, who also is legislative reporter for 24 Hours Vancouver. “But the fact of the matter is we can build six storey wood-frame construction in British Columbia safely. And we're going to do that."
David Beers is editor of The Tyee. Sean Holman is editor of Public Eye Online, legislative reporter for 24 Hours Vancouver, and an occasional contributor to The Tyee.
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G West
3 years ago
six-story structures
It isn't so much the idea or the height of six-story wood construction that's the problem - it's the concept and the design and, most important, the type of construction.
Heavy timber post and beam construction at that scale is perfectly safe and sensible -Western Platform stick-frame construction isn't.
It will likely be a disaster. Furthermore, the ability of the current construction workforce to demonstrate the necessary skills and the capacity of the industry to produce heavy frame or laminated timbers of the appropriate dimensions and lengths is doubtful.
Grumpy
3 years ago
Je*** Ch****..........................
..........we can't even build 3 story wooden structures today that don't leak and this idiot Coleman says we are going to phase in 6 story wooden framed buildings to “to make sure we do this right'.
In a region where 40 to 100 year old wooden buildings seem to stand OK, but wooden buildings built in the 80's and beyond rot out in just a few years. Some of these rotten condo's and houses have been repaired 4 or 5 times in just a few decades, bankrupting the owners and Coleman and Gordo want to build 6 story leaky condo's?
Follow the money, and when you come to the end, that's who want this done!
Luke Skywalker
3 years ago
From the Surrey Fire Chief...
http://www.surrey.ca/Whats+New/News+Releases/Current/January/Statement+from+Surrey+Fire+Chief+regarding+Six+Storey+Wood-Frame+Buildings.htm
G West
3 years ago
I see the surrey fire chief
Knows about as much about stick frame construction as Coleman does...
zalm
3 years ago
You may build 30 stories in wood
....but no engineer or insurance company will ever sign off on it.
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/China/photo381653.htm
zalm
3 years ago
And the Surrey fire chief
...places a heckuva lot of trust in our construction workers, about 15-30% of whome are completely gooned on drugs all day.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/08/21/bc-construction-drug-testing.html
An independent reporter did an excellent expose of drug use on high-rise sites in Vancouver - says it took a long time to get the trust of the workers that they weren't going to be turned in, but eventually she got to see the horrendous drug use and the calamities that flowed from it. That was shortly before this union agreement was signed.
Based on what I've seen in our local hospitals (electric circuits that run nowhere, equipment not connected, pipes cross-connected, under-, over- or mis-sized fans and pumps, pumps installed backwards, motors hooked up backwards, generators hooked up backwards, and more....so much, much more) I think Surrey's fire chief should go back to playing the lottery for his pension. He'd have better luck.
There are mistakes in every building. But with the increasing complexity in modern buildings, the mistakes are getting bigger and bigger, and the tragedies are increasing in size right along with them.
Realist
3 years ago
The liberals have not
The liberals have not listened to any experts and only go on their own opinion. Think MCFD, think teachers, think nurses, think fish farming, think poverty experts, think homeless experts, think river management ETC. Fact of the matter is the liberals are so ignorant and arrogant that they can't afford to listen to the experts as it would interfere with their corporate rewards ideology.
SharingIsGood
3 years ago
quoting fire chief - Luke
Luke:
I guess it was safer for you to look for quotes from a single fire chief about fire issues than it is to quote engineers and builders that are familiar with structural problems with wood frame construction.
"George Amundson is a project superintendent with Adolfson & Peterson Construction and has over 35 years of industry experience working with wood-frame
construction."
This is what he tells us about wood frame construction:
"The shrinkage that occurs in wood is dependent on the moisture content of the material and the moisture content of the local atmosphere. The fiber of the wood will dry (and subsequently shrink) until the saturation of the fiber reaches the point in which it matches the local atmosphere. This is called the equilibrium moisture content (EMC). While in extremely wet conditions it is also possible for the wood to expand or swell, shrinkage is much more likely to occur (especially in northern climates). Since the amount of shrinkage that occurs is directly related to the type and moisture content of the
wood being used, dryer wood, preferably kiln-dried, can greatly reduce the amount of shrinkage occurring in a structure. A typical 2” x 4” framing member will lose 0.026” of thickness and take two years to dry out. This means that, depending on the moisture content of the wood, a typical four-story wood-frame structure can shrink anywhere from 1 3/16” to 3”."
http://www.a-p.com/pdf/Shrinkage_in_Wood_Frame_Construction.pdf
Amundson builds in Minnesota where winter conditions are typically colder and therefore drier. Note that the article, from which the above above quote was taken, also talks about the problem of uneven shrinkage due to using different materials. Uneven shrinking, as well as uniform shrinking and uneven heating and moisture issues in buildings leads to cracks, torque, squeaks & tears:
* in the concrete-masonry-stucco
* in drywall
* in roofing materials
* in vapour barriers
* in plumbing and plumbing venting
* in stairwells and elevator shafts
* around dooorways and windows
Simple math tells me that up to 3 inches of shrinkage in 4 storeys is equivalent to 4.5 inches of shrinkage in 6 storeys. That sounds like alot of loose nails and cracking succo to me - especially with the many 100+ km/hr winds we have received throughout the province over the last decade. Imagine the sway at the top of six storeys!
I wonder if Coleman and Campbell would use their huge salaries to Personally finance and self-insure the structure some six-storey wood apartment buildings for themselves? Not Likely!
SIG