2002-12-28 > > As far as I can remember, there was no controversy in Canada about > the centimetre versus the millimetre. The arguments were metric > versus inch-pound. The engineers and architects went metric, but the > house builders would have none of it .
I think Australia went through the same phase. Pat, mike and Brenton can clarify this. The reason the FFU-ists lost the battle was that "products" were not available in FFU after a certain date. Thus a house builder who wanted to continue with FFU could not do it so easily. If your panel wood is only available in incremental sizes of 1200 x 2400, it makes it hard to continue with inches if the inch equivalents don't match up to fit these sizes. If products are still made in the 4 x 8 foot size range, one can continue with inches forever. But, see how far you can go if you have to put your stud spacing at 400 mm or 600 mm using inches. It doesn't work that well and the builder eventually gives up. Get rid of FFU products and you can get rid of FFU too. It is the FFU products most of all that keep FFU alive. John
