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Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

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Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#171

Post by mcpackieh »

autoexec wrote: post #141
nonethewiser wrote: post #64

I see this a lot in the rural US with wooden fences but had no idea why it was done, but I guess its for the same reason (stability). Apparently they've done it since the 1600s. https://www.louispage.com/blog/bid/11160/worm-fence-what-is-... Still, this seemed totally unecessary until I realized this mean they dont have to put any posts into the ground. No digging holes, which would be really nice when you're trying…

The US is so bad at naming things! A Serpentine Wall sounds better than a Worm Fence or Snake Fence. Crinkle Crankle Wall is a bit more fun than ZigZag Fence. A Ribbon Wall seems like a nice thing to have on your property vs a Battlefield Fence.

That's just like, your opinion man. Worm is a cool word. Maybe we can compromise and call it a wyrm fence.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#172

Post by HWR_14 »

araes wrote: post #167
HWR_14 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own a large amount of land than the savings add up. Especially if you live 250 years ago (or you want to match the walls from then) when bricks were not produced and delivered in massive industrial processes and large estates were more common.

Even in the modern era the cost is still relevant. Bricks are still pretty expensive. If I have 100 acres (square), I need ~2.5 km of wall, at ~150,000 bricks for a 1m wall single brick-width wall (deter animals, mark property). At the online prices I'm seeing ($0.65), that's ~$100,000. If I have to make it all double width, suddenly its $200,000. $100,000 delta is still pretty relevant for a modern small scale farme…

The difference is people enclosing 100 acres today are either wealthy estates or using non-brick fences for farmers.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#174

Post by gweinberg »

geeky4qwerty wrote: post #26

This feels a bit like diet clickbait... "use fewer bricks than a straight wall"* *A straight wall of the approximal strength and length of a wavy wall, not just length. My counter would be that from a practical perspective the amount of space wasted by the wavy design seems to negate the usefulness of the design. Probably makes the lawn crew dizzy when mowing it too!

Yes, it's clickbait and nonsense. Obviously a straight wall would use fewer bricks. Your brick wall is going to be one brick thick either way, nobody is going to try to somehow make the straight wall as strong as the wavy wall. Most likely the straight wall is already way stronger than it needs to be.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#175

Post by oxygen_crisis »

mcpackieh wrote: post #171
autoexec wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is so bad at naming things! A Serpentine Wall sounds better than a Worm Fence or Snake Fence. Crinkle Crankle Wall is a bit more fun than ZigZag Fence. A Ribbon Wall seems like a nice thing to have on your property vs a Battlefield Fence.

That's just like, your opinion man. Worm is a cool word. Maybe we can compromise and call it a wyrm fence.

A worm fence sounds like it should be a couple inches tall and several feet deep, to block the worms.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#177

Post by WorldMaker »

jerry1979 wrote: post #168
vharuck wrote: post #78

Soda cans also have a counterintuitive efficiency feature: concave bottoms. If a can with a flat bottom held the same amount of soda, it would be shorter and have less surface area, but its metal body would need to be thicker to withstand the same pressure. In the end, it'd require more aluminum. https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/0414... ^Probably not the best article for this, but it was easy t…

I think the Christian Science Monitor is perfectly fine. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/christian-science-monitor/

The religious group that funds it has a questionable relationship to science including and despite "Science" being in its name. (It was started as a 19th Century anti-hospital group. We'd consider them "proto-anti-vax" in today's concerns and terminology.) They may be unbiased in reporting the news, generally, but there's still concerns about their relationship to reporting science given their name and the known beliefs of their church.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#178

Post by hfivivfub »

autoexec wrote: post #157
NavinF wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather have a Battlefield Wall on my property in the US than a Ribbon Wall or Crinkle Crankle Wall. The latter two sound ridiculous. I really like "Serpentine Wall", but it sounds a little too technical for everyday conversation with nontechnical people

I suppose it's subjective but Crinkle Crankle is better because it sounds so ridiculous. Ribbon Wall doesn't sound any more ridiculous than same-shaped Ribbon Candy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_candy ) or Ribbon Cables ( https://www.fxpstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ribbon-w... ), and ribbons don't call to mind atrocities or human suffering. Battlefields are terrible places where horrific things happe…

The value in this is the historical dimension. Apparently, "crinkle-crankle" dates to 1598. So it's a pre-US term.

I agree that it's not a good look to automatically prefer the military term to the "ridiculous" one. It smacks of toxic masculinity.

"Crinkle-crankle" is obviously archaic, and it evokes folk art and (in the US) colonial culture. That is fairly neutral, as placenames go.

Re: Wavy walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall (2020)

#179

Post by helb »

nonethewiser wrote: post #64

I see this a lot in the rural US with wooden fences but had no idea why it was done, but I guess its for the same reason (stability). Apparently they've done it since the 1600s. https://www.louispage.com/blog/bid/11160/worm-fence-what-is-... Still, this seemed totally unecessary until I realized this mean they dont have to put any posts into the ground. No digging holes, which would be really nice when you're trying…

they don't use less wood than a straight fence though :)
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