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I don't know about SFO. I can say from painful personal experience that, if it is worse than LA County --which is a nightmare-- I cannot imagine building anyth

I don't know about SFO. I can say from painful personal experience that, if it is worse than LA County --which is a nightmare-- I cannot imagine building anything in SFO. In one of my projects the plan-checker got into a fight with the civil engineering firm I hired over the method used to calculate static and wind loads on a structure. I had done all of this work myself --including running FEA simulations. However, because I am not a Civil Engineer, I had to hire a firm to, effectively, duplicate my work. Physics is physics, right? That's OK. No problem. The issue was that the plan-checker did not like the method the civil engineering firm used to do the math. He called it the "European" method. This was a US civil engineering firm bonded for operation on all 50 states, BTW. What was absolutely perplexing to witness and endure was that the numbers were correct. My numbers, the civil engineering company's numbers and the non-European method (whatever that means) numbers were the same (within the margin of error). The plan checker (a Civil Engineer) knew this. The results were the same. He just wanted it done his way. That cost me weeks and thousands of dollars. The problem with these people is that they have an incredible amount of power. One cannot challenge this power without being willing to delay a project for months or years and incur thousand, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) in costs. It is as close as one can get to dealing with a totalitarian regime within a free society. The same permit office forced me to install 64000 lbs. of concrete as the footings for my ground-mounted 13 kW solar array. An architect friend of mine told me those footings can support a four-story building. There was no way to have that decision reversed. I tried. It cost me a couple of months and tens of thousands of dollars. Building safety and zoning regulations are most-definitely important. However, there needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure there's fairness in the system all-around. I don't want unsafe buildings anywhere around me. I also want construction projects to be able to execute on reasonable timelines and at the lowest possible cost; one that is not inflated by bureaucracy and, yes, incompetence.

theflipside000 4y ago
> I also want construction projects to be able to execute on reasonable timelines and at the lowest possible cost; one that is not inflated by bureaucracy and, yes, incompetence. As a resident of San Francisco I complete sympathize and mostly agree with your position. That said I don't think you can comprehend how broke and cheap the landlords are here in San Francisco. 50+ year old buildings that are all crumbling. They pay absolute nincompoops to keep everything standing and not more. Literal illiterates. The maximum action I've seen taken against these people is like, a $900 permit fine. Maybe once out of every 100 unpermitted repairs / modifications / works. > bureaucracy... He just wanted it done his way. The majorities in LA and SF communities where development is economical are not aligned culturally with you and me. I don't totally understand why "they" are excused from following the rules. I don't know why Prop 13 ensures they pay 1/20th the property taxes you do and I eventually will (I am a renter). I can't comprehend why we tolerate how people in these communities use old people and children to maximize their compulsory buyout payments when someone else moves into the home a person with whom they share a cultural affinity is selling. Somehow these same people have fucked up the compact that people in the Mission could send their kids to Presidio schools. A 10 year law that would have made it reasonable for me to permanently live here, now reversed. They're just so god damned stupid. Eventually people will crack and figure out whom to point the finger at.
- prottog 4y ago
  The crumbling buildings with horrid management are all classic symptoms of the effect of price controls, exacerbated by other anti-development factors in SF. Put it this way: when demand far outstrips supply due to the supply being effectively made illegal, prices rise. When said prices are forced down by rent control, quality deteriorates as landlords must make up the difference somewhere.
gamblor956 4y ago
"I had done all of this work myself" And yet you're blaming LA County for this. Civil engineering work is required to be done by engineers. There are rules and procedures that must be followed. That's the law pretty much everywhere you have nearby neighbors; if you don't like those laws go out to the boonies and you can build whatever you want, however you want. But if you're going to try to build something that might affect other people you need to follow the rules. An architect friend of mine told me those footings can support a four-story building. Your architect friend would be wrong on that...For point of comparison, the average concrete foundation is 200 lb/square foot, or about 480,000 for a 1-story 2,400 square foot house (see https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20041219&slug=homehay19 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20041219&slug... estimating the foundation for the garage of a single-level home at approximately 30,000 lb). That's why engineers are required to review the work. Because self-styled architects are constantly messing up on the math and physics. EDIT: numbers and math come from the linked article.
- abduhl 4y ago
  I’m not sure what you’re talking about with “the average concrete foundation is 200 lb/square foot” but I assume you’re talking about allowable bearing pressures. First there’s two things to note: (1) a 2400 sf house is living space, its foundation’s bearing area has little relation to this number, especially if it’s not slab on grade and (2) the actual loads going into the foundation are not calculated in a way even remotely close to what your post implies. Regarding allowable bearing pressure, the allowable bearing pressure specified in the building code for the most likely soil condition can be found in CBC 1806 and it is 3000 lb/square foot for sandy gravel (assuming good fill was placed for the original house and the solar addition sits on similar structural fill). Your Seattle garage would be supportable by a 3 ft by 3 ft foundation (call it 4x4 after foundation weight is added). A 480kip house could be supported by a 12 ft by 12 ft slab. Even taking the lowest presumptive value (1500 psf for clays, which is incredibly unlikely to be the bearing strata for a modern or even recent home) would only double these areas (8x8 and 24x24). 64000 lbs of reinforced concrete is almost 450 cubic feet (17 yards!). This is 2 entire concrete trucks’ worth of concrete, which is absurd for a residential foundation. Assuming a 2 ft thick slab this is 225 square feet of bearing area. This is enough to support your ENTIRE hypothetical home, not just to support a solar array. More likely the slab is under 18 inches thick, or maybe even 12. So it’s entirely believable that a 4 story building with 2400 sf of living space (or 3600 or 4800 sf) exists and is supportable by 17 yards of concrete. The architect is right, you are wrong. There is simply no reason to have this much concrete for a residential solar addition. For your information and to head off argument: I am a licensed civil engineer in California. The rules and procedures for little shit like a solar array foundation can be followed by almost anyone who can do simple arithmetic by using the CBC, you do not need a license to do it correctly. You need the licensed engineer’s stamp so that there is someone (insurance) to sue if things go wrong.

theflipside000 4y ago

> I also want construction projects to be able to execute on reasonable timelines and at the lowest possible cost; one that is not inflated by bureaucracy and, yes, incompetence. As a resident of San Francisco I complete sympathize and mostly agree with your position. That said I don't think you can comprehend how broke and cheap the landlords are here in San Francisco. 50+ year old buildings that are all crumbling. They pay absolute nincompoops to keep everything standing and not more. Literal illiterates. The maximum action I've seen taken against these people is like, a $900 permit fine. Maybe once out of every 100 unpermitted repairs / modifications / works. > bureaucracy... He just wanted it done his way. The majorities in LA and SF communities where development is economical are not aligned culturally with you and me. I don't totally understand why "they" are excused from following the rules. I don't know why Prop 13 ensures they pay 1/20th the property taxes you do and I eventually will (I am a renter). I can't comprehend why we tolerate how people in these communities use old people and children to maximize their compulsory buyout payments when someone else moves into the home a person with whom they share a cultural affinity is selling. Somehow these same people have fucked up the compact that people in the Mission could send their kids to Presidio schools. A 10 year law that would have made it reasonable for me to permanently live here, now reversed. They're just so god damned stupid. Eventually people will crack and figure out whom to point the finger at.

prottog 4y ago
The crumbling buildings with horrid management are all classic symptoms of the effect of price controls, exacerbated by other anti-development factors in SF. Put it this way: when demand far outstrips supply due to the supply being effectively made illegal, prices rise. When said prices are forced down by rent control, quality deteriorates as landlords must make up the difference somewhere.

gamblor956 4y ago

"I had done all of this work myself" And yet you're blaming LA County for this. Civil engineering work is required to be done by engineers. There are rules and procedures that must be followed. That's the law pretty much everywhere you have nearby neighbors; if you don't like those laws go out to the boonies and you can build whatever you want, however you want. But if you're going to try to build something that might affect other people you need to follow the rules. An architect friend of mine told me those footings can support a four-story building. Your architect friend would be wrong on that...For point of comparison, the average concrete foundation is 200 lb/square foot, or about 480,000 for a 1-story 2,400 square foot house (see https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20041219&slug=homehay19 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20041219&slug... estimating the foundation for the garage of a single-level home at approximately 30,000 lb). That's why engineers are required to review the work. Because self-styled architects are constantly messing up on the math and physics. EDIT: numbers and math come from the linked article.

abduhl 4y ago
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with “the average concrete foundation is 200 lb/square foot” but I assume you’re talking about allowable bearing pressures. First there’s two things to note: (1) a 2400 sf house is living space, its foundation’s bearing area has little relation to this number, especially if it’s not slab on grade and (2) the actual loads going into the foundation are not calculated in a way even remotely close to what your post implies. Regarding allowable bearing pressure, the allowable bearing pressure specified in the building code for the most likely soil condition can be found in CBC 1806 and it is 3000 lb/square foot for sandy gravel (assuming good fill was placed for the original house and the solar addition sits on similar structural fill). Your Seattle garage would be supportable by a 3 ft by 3 ft foundation (call it 4x4 after foundation weight is added). A 480kip house could be supported by a 12 ft by 12 ft slab. Even taking the lowest presumptive value (1500 psf for clays, which is incredibly unlikely to be the bearing strata for a modern or even recent home) would only double these areas (8x8 and 24x24). 64000 lbs of reinforced concrete is almost 450 cubic feet (17 yards!). This is 2 entire concrete trucks’ worth of concrete, which is absurd for a residential foundation. Assuming a 2 ft thick slab this is 225 square feet of bearing area. This is enough to support your ENTIRE hypothetical home, not just to support a solar array. More likely the slab is under 18 inches thick, or maybe even 12. So it’s entirely believable that a 4 story building with 2400 sf of living space (or 3600 or 4800 sf) exists and is supportable by 17 yards of concrete. The architect is right, you are wrong. There is simply no reason to have this much concrete for a residential solar addition. For your information and to head off argument: I am a licensed civil engineer in California. The rules and procedures for little shit like a solar array foundation can be followed by almost anyone who can do simple arithmetic by using the CBC, you do not need a license to do it correctly. You need the licensed engineer’s stamp so that there is someone (insurance) to sue if things go wrong.