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The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

gizmodo.com

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Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#191

Post by petee »

sol_remmy wrote: post #133
petee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you're describing sounds way more expensive than a couple carpenters...simply being able to fix a ladder than toss it is a huge saving Its the little details: -- For example, a 3" Fiberglass Ibeam 10 feet long is ~$200, and only rated to 140 degrees. I can't readily find a more comparable product. -- your aluminum ladder with high temp rubber, also needs to be electrically insulated; so now you have to toss the w…

Carpenters earning San Francisco wages, who probably qualify for a pension after 25 years of service (because they are in the fire dept)

You say it like its a bad thing. They build a product that consistently has carried firefighters and civilians to safety. They should be making a living wage, and have the ability to retire instead of dying on a factory line at 90.

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#192

Post by petee »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #88
ra1n85 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most ladders are fiber glass - which makes me wonder why any off the shelf ladder wouldn't suffice.

The film industry uses almost exclusively fiberglass as well. There's no shortage. They're swimming in those things. I would bet their lifespan is shorter than the wooden ladders, however. At least from what I've seen.

We use them because they are osha mandated, and have to be rated for like 350lbs. And aluminum will just kink and bend the first week on the job.

Huge downside to fiberglass is they are UV sensitive - i've seen ladders just crumbling because they were left in the sun

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#194

Post by ghaff »

hinkley wrote: post #132
Retric wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The San Franciso Fire Department is using wooden ladders due to an abundance of overhead power lines. Which I think is the core issue, use other peoples tools unless you have some critical and unique requirement.

I think the low yield strength of aluminum also plays a role here, as one guy mentions. But I’m surprised thermal conductivity didn’t rate a mention. There was a time when aluminum bikes were new but before the parts likely to bend were replaceable where many a bike owner had to buy a new frame due to misadventure. You can only bend aluminum once, then you’re done. When they started making cogsets with more than six…

The other property of aluminum that is relevant for some uses (but likely not ladders for most uses) is that, unlike steel, it doesn't have a well-defined fatigue limit. Therefore, it can eventually fail after a large number of even relatively small loads that don't visibly deform the material. That's one of the main service limits on airframes.

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#195

Post by Cofike »

eigenvector wrote: post #158
chrisseaton wrote: post #11

Americans seem to take a lot of pride in their fire brigades - their fire engines are still shiny and polished with more traditional signage and the fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape. In the United Kingdom they wear more simple uniforms and the engines are just a box shape with no bells any more - seems a shame. Usually it's UK the has more ceremony in these kind of things.

One of the biggest differences between Europe and North America in this regard is that in European cities, emergency vehicles have to be designed to fit a 1000-year-old city in terms of width, turning radius, maximum weight, etc. This leads to a much more compact shape and shorter wheelbase. In North America streets are designed to fit emergency vehicles. You're not allowed to build a street so narrow that a fire eng…

You should see some streets in San Francisco. No way that a fire engine is fitting on those.

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#196

Post by [deleted] »

exDM69 wrote: post #130
DannyBee wrote: post #53

I can't think of any reason to acclimatize them this way instead of kiln drying/vaporizing them (depending) to roughly the right moisture content and waiting for 1% change (instead of kiln drying them to 0, or waiting forever for completely green wood) There are studies going back to the 70's by the forestry service (and others) showing there is no change in mechanical properties of pine/fir from these drying schedul…

The material they show in the article is massive. Thick, long and heavy. Even if there are kilns big enough, the wood would no longer be straight after a fast kiln drying. A 50' 3x3" board would be twisted and bowed so much that the ladder would be a spiral staircase. It doesn't matter for 20' 2x4 destined for a construction site. Even if the wood was kiln dried, it would still have to acclimatizate for months or yea…

[deleted]

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#197

Post by petee »

jdietrich wrote: post #63
Retric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could buy wooden ladders Can you point me to someplace selling 50' wooden ladders appropriate for firefighting?

http://alacoladder.com/fire-ladders/

San Francisco is listed as a client

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#198

Post by maxxxxx »

enriquto wrote: post #24
BurningFrog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense for a job where 95% of the time is spent waiting for an emergency to react to .

> a job where 95% of the time is spent waiting for an emergency to react to. this describes quite accurately the work of many people maintaining computer systems

I have heard the same about anesthesiologists. 99% boring routine and 1% sheer terror.

Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand

#200

Post by jakelarkin »

chrisseaton wrote: post #11

Americans seem to take a lot of pride in their fire brigades - their fire engines are still shiny and polished with more traditional signage and the fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape. In the United Kingdom they wear more simple uniforms and the engines are just a box shape with no bells any more - seems a shame. Usually it's UK the has more ceremony in these kind of things.

guessing this also has to do with the fact that most American homes are single-family wood framed structures, so the relative importance to people is perhaps higher.
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