The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by morsch » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #302

estebank wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The narrowest street in San Francisco is roughly a regular European street. This[1] is par for the course on most European cities, while San Francisco has very few streets narrower than this[2] (and the average is probably wider, if you look anywhere westwards of Park Presidio where theoretically two way streets are wide enough for traffic to continue flowing in both direction even with double parked trucks. I would…

Just as a side point... A lot of architects like this idea from an aesthetic or architectural-sociological reasons. Living in em.. these as houses don't give you a lot of privacy. People walk by, less than a meter from where you're sitting. They sometimes stop to look at your TV. You get used to it, but it's not the kind of thing people go looking for on purpose.

Put stores or offices in the ground floor. Or have a raised ground floor.

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

#312

Post by cascom » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #219

curun1r wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL at SFFD giving any shits about costs. This is the same department that power grabbed emergency medical response away from dedicated paramedics in ambulances. Responding in full ladder trucks to take care of drunk homeless people...yeah, they do that, costing millions every year in added expenses and road repairs. But good for them for saving a few bucks on ladders, that must make a huge difference.

Coming from NYC, it is somewhat surprising to see such anger directed at fire departments. Here, the FDNY seems universally loved.

It’s also a function of the job - people don’t hate them because the vast majority of their work is non-confrontational and they don’t pose a risk to citizens (write tickets, arrest people etc) so most people are happy to see them when they arrive somewhere they are needed. Put it another way - I’m willing to guess that a large percentage of people here have had or witnessed a negative interaction with a police officer, and far fewer could say the same of a firefighter or EMT...

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

#313

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #216

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #27

The Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs"[0] show made a segment involving the SFFD's ladder construction/maintenance crew. In it, they explained that wooden ladders are cheaper to maintain than aluminum ones and I think also discount fiberglass ladders as well. It's worth a watch if one is interested in this topic. 0 - http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/dirty-jobs/about-this-show...

LOL at SFFD giving any shits about costs. This is the same department that power grabbed emergency medical response away from dedicated paramedics in ambulances. Responding in full ladder trucks to take care of drunk homeless people...yeah, they do that, costing millions every year in added expenses and road repairs. But good for them for saving a few bucks on ladders, that must make a huge difference.

[deleted]

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

#314

Post by shitgoose » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #91

HillaryBriss wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a retired police officer once told me that the quantity of officers citywide goes through a repeated cycle from low to high to low again. when the number of officers is too low and there's too much crime, the people demand that the government hire more. so government does that. and crime goes down. then the public notices all these police officers "doing nothing" and complains about wasted government resources. so, n…

This is a common phenomena, and I'm not sure if there's a general term for it. E.g. people prematurely stop taking antibiotics because they feel better, or people go off their meds because they feel fine, etc.

predator–prey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equatio...

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

#315

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #264

noer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heat deteriorates fiberglass

Do you have any data to detail this? Fiberglass is glass fibers + resin. Decent resin doesn't melt or become weak with normal heat, it just thermally stresses at some point (we're talking > 180C at which point a wood ladder would be on fire). Wood also has issues with heat - it expands, which can cause buckling and cracks. I'm trying to find fiberglass temperature-strength data to figure out why it's not used in fire…

[deleted]

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

#316

Post by 52-6F-62 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

petee wrote: post #192

52-6F-62 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I worked for a supplier to the industry for a little while heading an electrical department, but spent some time in hardware maintenance as well. I saw plenty of those things nearly bleached white if they lasted long enough.

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

#317

Post by shitgoose » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

fhars wrote: post #54

icegreentea2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article says they are one of two wooden manufacturers in California.

s/California/United States/;

s/United States/China/;

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

#318

Post by mdorazio » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

maxbond wrote: post #289

function_seven wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as those steps and caps are connected with fiberglass sides, what’s the issue?

At high voltages the electricity may be able to arc between the steps. Electricity will do some pretty incredible things at high voltages. Check out this video of some idiots turning a powerline into a Jacob's ladder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yBTHrXEK4U

At the voltage needed to arc between aluminum steps you've got a lot bigger problems than worrying about your ladder. A quick search shows overhead trolley cables deliver 600V DC. Not exactly "turning air to plasma" level there. The rest of the overhead cables firefighters should encounter are the same normal residential 34kV lines you see everywhere (data tables show an air arc distance under 2 inches) unless I'm missing something.

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

#319

Post by d0lph » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

LMYahooTFY wrote: post #296

arkis22 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of a silly thing to say given that the government of SF spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the homeless a year.

My immediate reaction is incredulity at the notion a city could spend hundreds of millions on its homeless population and still have a homeless population... Are there further details/good articles you would be able to provide?

I feel like you could house and feed all the homeless in America with that much money.

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

#320

Post by shitgoose » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #18

kwhitefoot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- a lesson from outside of the software industry. Not really, just a forgotten one. Fred Brooks described his ideal development team in The Mythical Man Month and it included a toolmaker.

That was also written before there were many commercially available tools. (Still a great book!) Perhaps tool specialist is more important today?

the toolmaking, that is being discussed here, is not generic, but very specific to the business. tool specialists today are probably even more important, because "we" (collective IT industry) became carried away with frameworks and lost ability to solve simplest problems by hand (the infamous 'leftpad' comes to mind; or was it rightpad?). writing small, targeted, fast code that solves specific business problem is the lost art now.