Recent Stories with tag water

"Another Damn Condo" courtesy of Flickr's Great_Beyond

(For prescient, you can't beat Clark Humphrey, who wrote this 2002 story on Belltown's future--a year after The McGuire opened: "In 1999, city officials estimated that 150 to 200 recently built condo units had some form of water damage, needing a total of over $100 million in repairs. Some of these buildings will undoubtedly fall into serious disrepair before their occupants have paid off their mortgages.")

I wanted to know more about the city's role in assuring condo owners of quality construction of their homes--stepping back from this particular extreme instance to discuss the inspection process, and what level of responsibility the city takes for the number of water-damaged condos out there. DPD Deputy Director Alan Justad took the time to write back.

My first question was inspired by a Seattle Times story on the McGuire, in which I learned the city "does not inspect structural components of large buildings directly, but instead relies on a private report from a third-party inspection firm selected by the contractor."

What's the thinking behind allowing contractors to pick their own inspectors?

I think that was from a misstatement by me. The building code specifies that the owner selects the third-party inspector, not the builder. The demands of special inspections is such that it is not practical for the city to staff that work. Larger jobs can require as many of three special inspectors at the site on some days; sometimes an inspector needs to be there all day. We’ve had years where there were over 1000 projects needing special inspections. The standard throughout the country is to use private sector inspectors for this specialized work that requires ongoing oversight at the job site.   

Is the use of a rain screen system solely at the discretion of the architect/contractor? If so, has the city considered implementing guidelines to promote (if not require) use of a system?

Yes, this is a design decision for the applicant and their design team. We’re not planning to require it—there are other systems that work.*... (more)

The crowd that showed up on Tuesday at the Crocodile was a mix of new Belltowners and old rock fellows older and more jaded than myself. The gentrifiers were there "just to see some music" while the old rock guys were there to see Polvo. There were people wearing Birkenstock sandals with no socks. One gentleman was overheard saying "I remember seeing Screaming Trees at..." I would peg half the crowd as Built to Spill fans (but maybe they gave up on going to shows after the early stuff). The collared shirts mixed with the scruffy characters and the ironic mustaches preened next to the girls in heeled shoes. For each person, the experience of the evening was undoubtedly new.

Music is constantly at a crossroads of innovation versus tradition. Polvo and Bronze Fawn represent two bands that have taken steps away from popular music traditions and, in Polvo's case, even defined their own genres. However, when contrasted against Bronze Fawn's beautiful and emotional compositions, the Polvo songs sounded old and tired.... (more)

Photo: NASA

I know some of you may be wondering what NASA's LCROSS mission (aka "bombing the moon") has to do with Seattle, and it is simply this: If the moon happens to crack open after impact, that stuff is going to go everywhere.

"This is a completely unique mission that will excavate two large holes dozens of meters across on the lunar surface. It will give us composition measurements we wouldn't otherwise be able to get," said Tim McClanahan, from Goddard Space Flight Center.

And it may end life as we know it. Good night, moon. (It's almost as bad as CERN sucking us into a black hole.)

Here is the deal: NASA is winding up its Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission with a bang. The mission launched last June 18, and its goal is to determine whether there's ice on the moon. Tonight, the spacecraft will separate from its upper-stage Centaur rocket, and the rocket will impact a crater at the lunar south pole at about 4:30 a.m.PDT.

Photo: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Cue moon dust. The spacecraft will shoot through the plume and analyze the shit out of it in a hurry, because four minutes later it's due to smack into the moon itself. (It's got two near-infrared spectrometers, a visible light spectrometer, two mid-infrared cameras, two near-infrared cameras, a visible camera and a visible radiometer, says NASA.)

The idea is that once the moon dust hits the sunlight above the crater rim, anything water-esque will vaporize and the instruments will catch the results. NASA says, in all seriousness, that we need to know if the moon's got water because it would totally help with manned interplanetary trips.... (more)