This is the main US corporate campus of a 23 billion dollar a year multinational pharmaceutical company. Those are all permeable pavers.
Q: What happens when a S.U.E. crew doesn't pay attention in their morning briefing and blows through 3 or 4 cans of paint marking the utilities, when they were told to use only chalk (and very discreetly).
A: Large engineering firm buys a lot of new pavers. And there is a lot of yelling.
Puyallup is the only place in America to use permeable pavement on a main arterial. (39th St SW)
The city fired the contractor and the project sat idol all last summer. The contractor sued the city and won. The city hired another contractor and the project was completed this summer. Probably cost 4 times the original estimate...
That poster, RADAR; sure is a swell guy.
They've been around at least 15 years. Incredibly expensive to build. The build green folks keep pushing them, but they seem to be relegated to high profile-highly funded private projects for obvious reasons.
Steve
sjc1989, post: 451085, member: 6718 wrote: They've been around at least 15 years. Incredibly expensive to build. The build green folks keep pushing them, but they seem to be relegated to high profile-highly funded private projects for obvious reasons.
Steve
There are some really wonderful products available for private and/ or public infrastructure that we rarely see out here in the trenches. Local and even state governments are scratching for every penny they spend on improvements or maintenance. Nobody wants to be the guy that spent too much money on something that was avant-garde. A good example over the last forty years around here was pvc for water and sewer. When I first started surveying all anybody would put in the ground was vitrified clay pipe for sanitary sewer or ductile iron for water. The powers-that-be were convinced cutting materials cost with the initial investment would bite them in the butt with maintenance a few years down the road. Things change slowly but surely when it comes to spending tax dollars for infrastructure.
I can't believe we still build huge heavy dinosaur structures out of concrete. It doesn't last but about 50 or 60 years. Maybe someday we'll see structural bridge components made out of carbon fiber. 😉
New materials are worthy of suspicion. Anybody remember Orangeburg sewer pipe?
Bill93, post: 451095, member: 87 wrote: New materials are worthy of suspicion. Anybody remember Orangeburg sewer pipe?
They resurfaced a section of Hwy 101 with recycled tires. It caught on fire.
That poster, RADAR; sure is a swell guy.
Bill93, post: 451095, member: 87 wrote: New materials are worthy of suspicion. Anybody remember Orangeburg sewer pipe?
They called it "Wonder Pipe"....because owners would wonder when it was going to collapse.
Bill93, post: 451095, member: 87 wrote: Anybody remember Orangeburg sewer pipe?
A few years ago I had to have the 60' run of Orangeburg replaced at my house, to the tune of $100 a foot. It had lasted about 50 years, which is much longer than most of my neighbors got.
As it turned out, it wasn't the Orangeburg that was causing most of the problem. The pipe was certainly distorted in places, but when the plumbers got to the VCP service tee they found that root invasion had diminished the effective pipe ID to about 3/4". The roots were so densely packed that when they removed the blockage it came out in a single piece that looked like a solid block of wood. To this day I'm mystified by the fact that years of household sewage had managed to pass through that tiny opening.
Many people found that Orangeburg lasted until shortly after they had roots augered out. That chewed on the sagging pipe and hastened its demise.
Many people found that Orangeburg lasted until shortly after they had roots augered out. That chewed on the sagging pipe and hastened its demise.
Bill93, post: 451127, member: 87 wrote: Many people found that Orangeburg lasted until shortly after they had roots augered out. That chewed on the sagging pipe and hastened its demise.
In 1986 I purchased a house that was originally built in 1947. Not long after I moved in I had to have the sewer service replaced and discovered Orangeburg full of tree roots and congealed yuck like you described. I don't remember the exact cost (I couldn't afford it) but the city inspector made my day exponentially worse. The house had a '60s add-on (with crawl space) to the rear that was built over the Orangeburg sewer service line and the city required me to replace that also. Having the contractor replace the service through the back yard was expensive enough; but for him to hand dig the new service by laying down in the crawl space quadrupled his estimate.
The contractor came up with the idea to 'push' a new pvc line through the old Orangeburg since it was apparently root free under the house. With the aid of a small rubber-treaded excavator doing the pushing it worked. It only required a 12' joint of pipe. Had we needed to go further I don't believe it would have worked.
Oh, the joys of home ownership.
The Permeable Pavement I'm familiar with is the type that's put on runways.
Like other's have said the issue with it is when it gets clogged.
If you work at the local airport which does have it, they will draw and quarter you if you take a truck with mud covered tires across the runway. For whatever reason freeze thaw hasn't seemed to be a problem.
I had to sit through a seminar in Savanaugh once and the guy talked about this and designing to prevent global warming. I swear he went on and on for 4 hours. About how Atlanta creates its own weather. I think this was after poker night or something a bunch of us Surveyors stayed up too late drinking.. So the whole time he's speaking I'm thinking what the hell does this have to do with surveying? I know we can design roads incedental with subdivisions but I swear it was the longest seminar ever.
makerofmaps, post: 451418, member: 9079 wrote: I had to sit through a seminar in Savanaugh once and the guy talked about this and designing to prevent global warming. I swear he went on and on for 4 hours. About how Atlanta creates its own weather. I think this was after poker night or something a bunch of us Surveyors stayed up too late drinking.. So the whole time he's speaking I'm thinking what the hell does this have to do with surveying? I know we can design roads incedental with subdivisions but I swear it was the longest seminar ever.
I worked for a number of years for a highway construction outfit/ asphalt/ materials producer. I know more about aggregates and asphalt production than I really care to due to those intense seminars. Hated 'em.
In the contracting business most of those seminars were actually thinly veiled sales pitches (But wait, there's more!) with only a hint of actual technical substance. I kept up with the poker games with a lot more enthusiasm.
"some "proprietary" industrial secret mix of goo-gunk"
Currently the proper terminology is Magic Monkey Pee. Used to be Snake Oil, but years of mis-use have forced the industry to re-brand it.
Steve