2001-06-09 This guy claims that since metrication of the construction industry in Britain, the only change that took place was renaming of imperial products with a metric number. Did Britain ever adapt the 100 mm module and adapt products to increments of 100 mm? Or use 1200 mm as a base instead of 1000 mm? What is the experience of Canada, Australia, France, Holland, etc.? Do the newly metric countries still use hissen FFU in construction, and if so, how does that affect the ease of measurement? This guy seems to blame metric for practices instead of the practices themselves. In 1965 the building industry decided to change to the use of French Decimal measurement, commonly known as the Metric system. Thirty years on and with the rest of industry now obliged to follow suit, perhaps it is time for a progress report. No one seems to have asked yet; has it worked? is everyone happy with it? is it easier, as the metricators claim, or is it harder? is it better than the traditional system or worse? Working in the industry, I went along with this idea at the time without giving it much thought. In those days people still had faith in politicians and business leaders and believed that they knew what they were doing. Now that I have spent a number of years studying the history of architecture and of building, I have discovered how and why we arrive at the measurements we have always used. The first and most striking thing about the 1965 change is that there has been no change. The industry carried on using and continues to use the same materials in the same sizes but with different unit values. Thus a brick is still 9" long but is now designated as 225mm. The standard door size remains at 6'6" x 2'6" but now has what appears to be a code number of 1981x762mm. Why is this? Where are the materials/components which are whole units of 1 or 2 metres or natural multiples/divisions such as 250mm or 500mm? There seems little point in adopting a system of measurement whose basic unit is incompatible with the building process in terms of sizes required to build a house, for example, which is correctly proportioned relative to the size of the people who live in that house. After 30 years, it is apparent that the metric unit of 1 metre is too large and 1 centimetre is too small to be used comfortably in the building process. This is relevant in the rest of Europe too, by the way. Did you know that in Spain they still build brickwalls one foot thick (ladrillo de un pie)? By "one foot" thick, is that one British foot, or one Sapnish foot and if so, how does a Spanish foot compare to a British foot or to millimetres? John Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt frei zu sein. There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they are free! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
