Manufactured Homes

 I have to wonder why after so many years the construction industry and governments seem to have abandoned the idea of building manufactured home communities. Is it not easier to build a home in a factory? Move it to a site and place it on a foundation? I've seen multiple story buildings being built with manufactured components. Isn't the way to go? We stopped building cars one at a time a century ago.

Converting Metres to Feet and Fractional Inches in Construction

 Have you ever wondered about converting Metric and Imperial units. In some cases it's pretty easy. You can even use an online converter. Other times it's a pain. Say you have a measurement in metres and then you need to convert that into feet and inches and even worse, fractional inches. So let's say we start with a measurement like 9.45m how many feet, inches and fractional inches are in that value.

1/ First step, the easy one, is to convert to decimal feet. (3.2808 is the number of feet in a metre.)

9.45m x 3.2808 = 31.10236 ft

That you can do on a calculator, or using an online converter.

2/ Second, is you want to take the remainder and convert that into decimal inches. At this point our decimal is in feet so we are going to convert decimal feet into decimal inches. (12 is the number of inches in a foot)

0.10236 ft x 12 = 1.22832 in

3/ Third step is to convert the decimal inches into fractional inches. Before you do that you have to ask yourself how you are going to use this measurement. If you are going to use this outdoors in some sort of landscaping then you might just round off the inch value to the closest inch, in this case 1". But say you need this value to the closest 1/8" for some application on the inside of a building. Again we will use the remainder and multiply it by 8/8. (8/8 is equal to 1 so you are not changing the value, just how it appears.)

0.22832 x 8/8 = 1.82656/8 

4/ Fourth, we will do some rounding and reduction. 

round 1.82656/8 to 2

our fraction now appears as follows 2/8

which we reduce to 1/4

5/ Finally, we combine everything together.

31' - 1 1/4"

Try a few on your own.

 

The 900

 

A new addition to the modular manufactured home series which I have been developing, This one I called "The 900". It is a 2 story construct, which would require building 2 elements in the factory and assembly on site. The advantages would include; two bedrooms, a second washroom. The staircase does take away space but some could be recuperated underneath via the washroom or hallway.

AutoCAD Web and AutoCAD LT

 Seems like it's been a long time coming but here are 2 major developments to come out of Autodesk related to its flagship product AutoCAD. 

AutoCAD Web

AutoCAD Web

Honestly, I almost didn't even try this one. I looked over some of the material online and there was not enough to perk my interest. I did finally enroll in a 1 month test which cost a whole 15$ CDN. I was surprised at how easy it was to transition from my old ACAD habits to this product. Then the hey not bad wore off quickly. Copy and paste from one file to another was non existent. Blocks seemed to be constricted to one drawing (unless you setup a library in the desktop version) One file open at one time, and unfortunately slow. So back to AutoCAD LT for my 2D drafting needs.

AutoCAD LT & AutoLISP

Damn, Mabel they finally done it.! Yup AutoCAD LT finally includes the ability to load AutoLISP routines. Back in ummmm what was it now 1992 (or something).? when LT was first introduced it, was supposed to include LISP, and then the powers that be pulled it at the last minute. It was probably a good decision for Autodesk as many people rely on those LISP routines to make themselves truly productive. Well thank you Autodesk for finally giving the users that can't justify the cost of a full blown version of AutoCAD something we have needed for a while now.

The 600

 "The 600" is an adaptation of the 450 with the simple addition of a module to the left of the entrance. The design gives a l-shaped layout surrounding a court garden. Spacious interior, despite it's small square footage.

The 450

 

I'm calling it "The 450" because that is the approximate size of the structure. (450 sq. ft.) It's a tiny home which features regular sized rooms, appliances etc. I'm working on units from a cabin "The 100" right up to a 2 story, double width unit "The 1050".

Celebrating 2 years on Vancouver Island

Images of buildings and landscapes on Vancouver Island. click here.