Concrete slab pancake in NJ

[Robert K. Colling]

How or why did that parking structure fail and kill several people in New Jersey? Haven't enough people been killed by pancaking slabs? Not enough steel? Poor design? Inadequate inspection? Pouring higher levels before lower ones (28 days) reach full compressive strength?

[Swan]

I bet the reshores were pulled before the test results were in. Having worked this kind of work rushing is always a problem.Swan

[glenn]

Robert,
I waited for a call to go and investigate this one but it didn't come. If it weren't so far away, I would probably have just showed up.

Causes vary. If there hasn't been an accident, where a hugh truck knocks down sereral columns, then it is usually construction error. Sometimes its design error.

When I used to design, I tried to overdesign enough so that the contractor had to screw up real bad to cause a contrastophe but costs, and new philosoply often do not allow the extra cost for this redundancey and you get accused of overdesigning.

It could be anything from bad prestressed panels, to improper field modifications or who knows.

I doubt that even if someone here knows the cause of this one that it will not be posted for a long time. Those kind of things are kept hush hush until after all the claims are filed and ajudicated.

glenn

[George Roberts]

I heard on the news today:¿Pouring higher levels before lower ones (28 days) reach full compressive strength."

I guess if you place supports for the floor above on top of uncured concrete you could exceed the failure load of the floor. Once the concrete starts going down there is not much to stop it.

[glenn]

I was not aware that it was under construction.

[Mike OHandley]

Hi,

Well, apart from the inadequately cured concrete I wonder if it might have had something to do with some of the help that the contractor had to use.

Back in the late 60's my father put up the AO Smith harvestors that they store the hops in on the roof of the Pabst Blue Ribbon factory in Newark. The day he and his crew showed up to begin the job, a crew of very thuggish-looking types showed up and told him he wasn't going to start the job unless they - union workers - were on the job. They blocked access and a fight darn near ensued.(My uncle has a bit of a temper.)

Pabst was powerless to do anything about it, so the thugs got hired, even though they didn't know how to do the work and he couldn't afford to halt work long enough to train them. They ended up showing up everyday to sit around on their butts, play cards and gawk, while the crew erected the tanks. None of 'em even tried to learn what to do to help.

If every major contractor in New Jersey has to deal with that type of labor situation, it is a wonder every building in the state doesn't cave in.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Swan]

Mike you can find good and bad workers both union and nonunion. I worked union for thirty years end here in the Seattle area if you do not do a good job you will be down the road. I can take pride in the work I have done.Retired carpenter and loving it. Swan

[Mike OHandley]

Hi Swan,

I agree. I wasn't speaking so much about 'union' workers or condemning NJ builders in general. I was just remarking about a particular incident involving a particular group of "union" workers in Newark.

According to my father, these guys looked, sounded and acted like they were auditioning for a part in some gangster movie. I don't think the union was the issue, so much as the fact that he was on their turf.

Coming from a small town about a hundred miles north of NYC, I grew up hearing stories about various "unions" in NYC and Newark. My father did business all over New England and New York state in those days and never ran into that problem anywhere else. He is kind of difficult to dissuade when he's set his mind to something and not one to be cowed. The plain fact that he sensed that crossing that bunch was not a wise move, and went along with their demands, spoke volumes.

I'm not saying that particular company had any of that going on. The incident only refreshed a distant memory. If only half of the stories we used to hear about construction practices in NYC and Newark are even half true, there are problems there and any collapsing structure wouldn't be surprising.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[glenn]

My experience with union workers has not been good. I worked at a textile mill early in my career. They were all union including the maintnance people that worked for the plant engineer (me). the thing that sticks in my memory is those painters complaining because I obtained some paint and a brush for an operator who proceeded to do some maintenance painting. The painters were so busy they couldn't get to it all. The painters filed a grievance complaing that they were entitled to overtime which they were losing if someone else did the painting. My response would have been to hire more painters and thereby eliminate all overtime for a while until they got the message, but it wasn't my decision to make. The boss couldn't control them because a crew of plant maintenance people were at his house everyday doing remodeling and he didn't want them telling anybody so he went along with everything.

I later had a runin with some pipe fitters installing a pvc water line. Three of them spent all day messing around with it. They would start at 7am with a cup of coffee and chit chat. By 8 am they were reviewing their workorders ( in this case to run about 20 feet of pvc pipe at the wasterwater plant.) Three men spent the next hour going over and doing reconaissance and writing down what they needed. By then it was time for a 15 minute break. 45 minutes later they left the break room and proceeded to gather up tools and materials to take to the wastplant across the street. By the time they arrived it was time to wash up for lunch. An hour later they went over and worked for an hour and then took their afternoon break. I was shocked that 3 men had spent 6 hours and not one single piece of pipe had been installed. So when they got back from break, I had it all installed. They filed a grievance and I ended up in the plant managers office. I was told to never do any work, the union would get upset.

I learned when i was 24 years old, that the union was not doing what was best for all concerned but what was best for its members. I thought this all to be a little self serviing, dragging a 1 hour job out to 8 so they may be able to get in some overtime.

I can see why unions were once important, but I think they are a problem now and we all end up paying for the inflation that it causes.

Even when you have division by trades there needs to be a group that can cross over and do multiple trades when there is a small job. To hire a millwright to erect a scaffold, a welder to weld a brace, a pipefitter to put in one piece of pipe, etc. makes no since. It would be a disaster in the residential remodeling business if you didn't have people that could do anything.

glenn

[Swan]

You people think you have it all under control wait till the Wallmarts of the country all use illegal workers to do all the work that you do now, then you will not have the money to spend to make capitalism work and we all lose. I say some unions are very good and some are very bad. Why is a school teacher able to go on strike? A goverment worker should not have that right.We have some nonunion house builders working on some houses close by that should of been framed in a week and they been almost a month but its cheap. I still have a retirement from the carpenters I hope you guys will have sometime. Thanks Swan

[glenn]

I'm the only one hear fussing about the unions and I shouldn't have brought it back up after it was laid to rest.

The garage didn't fail because of non-union workers, it failed because it either wasn't designed properly or wasn't constructed properly.

When we talk about unions, we're simply haggling over money, and power not construction. The only thing I hate is the abuse of power (in either direction). But that's neither here nor there cause it ain't got a dang thing to do with building science.

I rest.

glenn

[Swan]

I rest also. PEACE!!!! Swan

[Joe Carola]

Swan,

You said your are a retired union carpenter after 30 years. What specifically did you do as a union carpenter because around here in New Jersey, the only thing that union carpenters do is metal studs and sheetrock.

That's the problem I have and every other contractor that I know has with union carpenters because they're of no use to me being that I do mostly framing, they can't help me there or building decks, exterior trim, wood siding, interior trim, buildig cabinets the list goes on but they all have something to do with Wood. Over 20 years in this buisness as a Carpenter I've done all of the above but mostly I specialize in Framing.

On another forum somes guys from different states came back and said they do a variaty of carpentry like I mentioned above but on the most part most of the union carpenters will do metal studs and sheetrock and building scaffolds.

That's why I don't understand why they're called Union Carpenters when they don't even do Carpentry.

Last time I checked sheerocking was for sheetrockers.

I did work on a Restaurant last summer and I was framing out the whole front of the restaurant to get ready for the new doors and there was two guys in there sheetrocking a section of the restaurant that a previous contractor was doing until he was fired and they told me they were Union Carpenters and they were watching me framing and told me they would like to frame and I said what exactly do you guys do as Union Carpenters and they said metal studs and sheetrock.

If a Residential Contractor or builder were to hire out for a Union Carpenter for Carpentry work to be done they wouldn't be worth the money.

Maybe it's different where your from, that's why I'm asking you what you did.

[Swan]

I thought the forums were to help the users to get the expert help they need and to help the ones that are learning who will be the trade men and women of the future. I find a lot of bias from the personal attack on myself. I think that I have a lot of knowledge that I do not mind sharing. Also I can also can learn from others that want to share, nobody knows it all. (Some people think they do)

In response to Joe Carola

Three years USMC combat engineers

Millwright helper
Tool and template Boeing airplane co.
Carpenter Apprentice four years
Thirty-two years working in building trade doing formwork both residential and commercial, framing both wood and steel, interior and exterior finish (including many high end office buildings).
Working as a foreman on jobs that required me to hire tradesmen of all trades so I had to know a little about their jobs to make things work.
Four years USCGR as damage controlman.
I do think I have a little to offer.
In Seattle we can hustle or jobs so we do not have to wait for our turn to come up so the reputation you have about your work determines your workload. Poor work no jobs.

The apprentice system we have now requires you to have a broad knowledge of the trade.

I do not want to go any further with this. Lets get on with the forums with out the nit picking.

Swan

[Joe Carola]

Swan,

You seem a little sensitive about what I asked you. I wasn't nit picking I was just asking what you did as a Union Carpenter where your from because as I said above every Union Carpenter I ever met in New Jersey does metal studs and sheetrock and now I'm finding out that it's not true in every state obviously by what you've mentioned above with your experience.

I personally believe that a Union Carpenter should have all the skills you have not just metal studs, sheetrocking and scaffold building.

Everyone who psoted on this thread was talking about the union not Building Science so that's why I asked my question to you.

So don't take what I said as a personal attack towards you because it wasn't I was just trying to figure out if it was just New Jersey.

I'm with you on coming to these forums and trying to help people with anything I can offer and also to learn, I don't come on these forums to argue(I can do that with my wife) ;-)

If people want to argue on these forums they should just email eachother or call eachother on the phone instead of typing in arguments here and disrespecting the people who start the threads.