Napoleon Bonaparte changed the specification for the traditional round bread so that his soldiers could more easily march with food. Chef Woehrle from the National Center for Hospitality Studies in Jefferson County Kentucky demonstrates how to do it.
Building schoolhouses with wood in the United States had significant practical and cultural implications, particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries. Wood was the most readily available and cost-effective material in many parts of the country. Abundant forests provided a plentiful supply, making it the logical choice for construction. The use of wood allowed communities to quickly and efficiently build schoolhouses, which were often the first public buildings erected in a new settlement.
Wooden schoolhouses were emblematic of the pioneering spirit and the value placed on education in early American society. These structures were often simple, reflecting the modest means of rural communities, but they were also durable and could be expanded or repaired as needed. The ease of construction meant that even remote and sparsely populated areas could establish schools, thereby fostering literacy and learning across the nation.
Moreover, wooden schoolhouses became cultural icons, representing the humble beginnings of the American educational system. They were often the center of community life, hosting social and civic events in addition to serving educational purposes. Today, preserved wooden schoolhouses stand as historical landmarks, offering a glimpse into the educational practices and community life of early America. Their construction reflects the resourcefulness and priorities of the early settlers who valued education as a cornerstone of their communities.
Building schoolhouses with wood presents several technical challenges, including durability, fire risk, maintenance, and structural limitations. Here are the key challenges in detail:
Durability and Weather Resistance:
Rot and Decay: Wood is susceptible to rot and decay, especially in humid or wet climates. Without proper treatment and maintenance, wooden structures can deteriorate rapidly.
Pests: Termites and other wood-boring insects can cause significant damage, compromising the integrity of the building.
Fire Risk:
Combustibility: Wood is highly flammable, increasing the risk of fire. This was a significant concern in historical and rural settings where firefighting resources were limited.
Safety Standards: Ensuring that wooden schoolhouses meet modern fire safety standards requires additional measures, such as fire-retardant treatments and the installation of fire suppression systems.
Maintenance:
Regular Upkeep: Wooden buildings require frequent maintenance, including painting, sealing, and repairing any damage caused by weather or pests.
Cost: Ongoing maintenance can be costly and labor-intensive, posing a challenge for communities with limited resources.
Structural Limitations:
Load-Bearing Capacity: Wood has limitations in terms of load-bearing capacity compared to materials like steel or concrete. This can restrict the size and design of the schoolhouse.
Foundation Issues: Wooden structures can experience foundation issues if not properly designed and constructed, leading to uneven settling and potential structural damage.
Environmental Impact:
Deforestation: The widespread use of wood for construction can contribute to deforestation, which has environmental consequences. Sustainable sourcing practices are essential to mitigate this impact.
Insulation and Energy Efficiency:
Thermal Insulation: Wood provides moderate thermal insulation, but additional materials and techniques are often required to ensure energy efficiency and comfort for students and staff.
Despite these challenges, wooden schoolhouses were popular in the past due to the availability of materials and ease of construction. Addressing these technical challenges requires careful planning, use of modern materials and techniques, and regular maintenance to ensure the longevity and safety of wooden schoolhouses.
Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the United States, and the maple syrup industry is an important part of the state’s economy and culture. Vermont maple syrup is renowned for its high quality and distinctive flavor, and many people around the world seek out Vermont maple syrup specifically.
The maple syrup industry in Vermont is primarily made up of small-scale family farms, where maple sap is collected from sugar maple trees in early spring using a process called “sugaring.” The sap is then boiled down to produce pure maple syrup, which is graded according to its color and flavor. Vermont maple syrup is graded on a scale from Grade A (lighter in color and milder in flavor) to Grade B (darker in color and more robust in flavor).
The Vermont maple syrup industry is heavily regulated to ensure quality and safety, and the state has strict standards for labeling and grading maple syrup. In addition to pure maple syrup, many Vermont maple producers also make maple candy, maple cream, and other maple products.
Chapter 8 of the International Building Code contains the performance requirements for controlling fire growth and smoke propagation within buildings by restricting interior finish and decorative materials. A great deal of interior square footage presents fire hazard; even bulletin boards and decorations; as a simple web search will reveal. We are respectful of the competing requirements of safety and ambience and try to assist in a reconciliation of these two objectives.
Free access to the current edition of the relevant section is linked below:
The public input period of the Group A Codes — which includes the International Fire Code; which contains parent requirements for this chapter — closed in July 2nd. Search on the word “interior”, or “school” or “classroom “in the document linked below for a sample of the ideas in play.
Most of the ICC bibliography lies at the foundation of the safety and sustainability agenda of education communities everywhere so we follow development continuously; setting priorities according to our resources. We keep the issues in this chapter on the standing agenda of our Interiors colloquium. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority. We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.
Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter. We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting). Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.
1. Leviathan. We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress. Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.
We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level. We respond to public consultations but there it ends.
We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture. Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C. It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.
Michigan can 100% water and feed itself. Agriculture is its second-largest industry.
Every earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood and ice storm inspires a revisit of standards action and building code development that we track on behalf of the US education facilities industry. It is wise to keep pace with the full span of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) regulatory product catalog because so much of the fundamental characteristics of college and university campuses–waterworks, roads, structures, energy etc.–is governed by the safety and sustainability concepts that vary from state-to state.
CLICK HERE to access them both. You will need to register as a public commenter.
Background & Perspective:
As covered in previous posts, we pay special attention to how occupancy classifications are defined in the International Building Code and ASCE/SEI-7 because those definitions inform how the decisions of academic unit programmers, facility planners/managers and building design professionals contribute to our lower cost agenda.
Throughout 2019-2021 we will be following development of the next edition of the International Existing Building Code (IEBC) and its companion titles — in large measure a companion document for the safety concepts found in ASCE SEI-7 — because a great deal of construction activity in education facilities involves renovated space.
Stanford University Medical Center / Photo Credit: Perkins -Eastman
The revision cycle for the 2022 edition started earlier this year (see previous posts) and the meetings of various SEI-7 technical committees responding to public input is proceeding according to the schedule linked below:
There are no open public consultations at this time (March 6, 2025).
The new home of the Nikola Tesla Museum will convert a century-old paper mill into a design featuring energetic loops reminiscent of electromagnetic field lines.
Keep in mind that owing to weather conditions interrupting committee member travels, and the present COVID-19 pandemic contingency, some of the meetings may be cancelled or conducted online. In any case, as technical committees meet throughout 2019 exposure drafts open to public comment public will be uploaded to the ASCE public commenting facility:
More information about participating in the ASCE standards development process for this and other documents may be obtained from Jennifer Groupil ([email protected]).
Moscow State University
Given that it is a relatively rarified standards space, we group our tracking, discussion and prospective advocacy in the ASCE standards suite during our Construction Spend colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next online teleconference; open to everyone.
The 2024 National Design Specification for Wood Construction was developed by AWC’s Wood Design Standards Committee and approved as a standard by ANSI (American National Standards Institute) on October 16, 2023. The 2024 NDS is referenced in the 2024 International Building Code.
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content. We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:
N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format.
Recap of the May meetings of the Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas. The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.
We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.
We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:
Codes & Standards:
While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO. Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”
Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles. The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235. Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful. A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.
Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:
Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:
Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction. UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.
This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid. Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies. Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.
Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids
District energy:
Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums. David Shipp and Sergio Panetta. Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.
Reliability:
Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.
Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points. Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.
Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter. The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts. For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain. It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades. Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions. Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.
Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.
Mike will update the campus power outage database.
Healthcare:
Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk. Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:
Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.
The Internet of Bodies
Forensics:
Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.
Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.
Ports:
Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports. Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.
A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT
Other:
Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,
Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development. Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno. Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)
Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing. All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.
Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.
Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons? Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:
The Architectural Woodwork Institute (AWI) seeks to be the global leader in architectural woodwork standards and related interior finishes. It has released a redline for public review and comment its standard AWI 0620 Finish Carpentry/Installation. AWI 0620 is written to provide comprehensive guidelines for the installation and finishing of architectural woodwork and related interior products. This standard should be important to the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States.
Comments are due August 20th. You may obtain an electronic copy from: [email protected]. Send your comments to the same email address (with copy to [email protected]). All consensus standards involving the architectural trades are on the agenda of our weekly Open Door teleconference — every Wednesday, 11 AM Eastern time (CLICK HERE to log in). Additionally, we have set aside an hour per month to run through all consensus documents that are referenced in typical design, construction, operations & maintenance contracts. The next teleconference is scheduled for July 23rd, 11 AM Eastern time, as described in the link below:
‘It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade’ ☀️❄️
– Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861) pic.twitter.com/1RJADJDCna
Water standards make up a large catalog and it will take most of 2023 to untangle the titles, the topics, proposals, rebuttals and resolutions. When you read our claim that since 1993 we have created a new academic discipline we would present the best practice literature of the world’s water standards as just one example.
During the Water 200 session we reckon with best practices inside buildings. During the Water 400 session will run through water management outside buildings, including interface with regional water management systems.
Water safety and sustainability standards have been on the Standards Michigan agenda since the early 2000’s. Some of the concepts we have tracked over the years; and contributed data, comments and proposals to technical committees, are listed below:
Send [email protected] an email to request a more detailed advance agenda. To join the conversation use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
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