Dear Dennis and All,
Well I think it has finally happened - SI-metric trade dimensions have
finally taken hold - some thirty years after Australia first began
metrication in 1970.
Over the last few weeks I have been preoccupied with my mother-in-law's
health at the same time as I was remodelling the kitchen.
The work on the kitchen involved three different builders and all of them
used metric (specifically millimetres) exclusively. All of them used tapes
and rulers that were calibrated in millimetres - there were no dual measures
- and none of them had any trouble reading them.
Naturally I designed the new cupboards using millimetres; but I was
astounded at my wife who discussed all the dimensions in millimetres with
her friends and got quite cross if they had the temerity to ask questions in
feet, inches, or indeed, centimetres.
At the end of one days construction I was amused to see the number 2167
written on the side of a bench; this was the size of a sheet that needed to
be cut for the following morning and it was written quite comfortably to the
nearest millimetre without any attempt to round it to a ten or a five.
One impressive line from a young carpenter was 'where did I put the bit of
19 by 42 (pronounced 19 be 42) that I was using for a straight edge'. At no
time did I hear any of the workers refer to timber sizes in other than
millimetres. It seems that the trades have finally rejected the old inch
(nominal) size numbers in favor of the simpler millimetre (actual) sizes.
I am aware that my conclusion is based on an extremely small sample, however
the people working on my kitchen are deeply embedded in the local building
community and they showed absolutely no hesitation or embarrassment in using
millimetres exclusively. When I asked if they were deliberately using metric
because they knew I preferred it, I was firmly told that they preferred to
work this way and it was an absolute annoyance to have to translate back to
old units 'for the punters'.
Incidentally, I was again struck by the number of measurements and
calculations that a builder does in the course of a day. There are at least
hundreds of them, if not thousands, and all of them are prone to error.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin CAMS
Geelong Australia
> Greg wrote:
>
>> I'd rather buy a '40 x 140 x 2440', a '4 x 14 x 244', a '0.4 x
>> 1.4 x 24', or even a '0.04 x 0.14 x 2.44' than a 2x6x8 any day.
>
> You and I might, Greg, but most people wouldn't. They will go for the
> simplest, easiest expression.
>
> I think that one of the most important things we could do to encourage
> metrication--certainly the most important item on your earlier list--is to
> metricate dimension-lumber. But it will never happen unless the government
> makes it happen.
>
> Even well-metricated countries like Australia use the North American
> inch-based lumber sizes, according to Pat.
>
