
The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand - lisper
https://gizmodo.com/inside-san-francisos-fire-department-where-ladders-are-1552279252
======
AdieuToLogic
The Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs"[0] show made a segment involving the
SFFD's ladder construction/maintenance crew. In it, they explained that wooden
ladders are cheaper to maintain than aluminum ones and I _think_ also discount
fiberglass ladders as well.

It's worth a watch if one is interested in this topic.

0 - [http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/dirty-jobs/about-this-
show...](http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/dirty-jobs/about-this-show/dirty-
jobs-about/)

~~~
curun1r
LOL at SFFD giving any shits about costs. This is the same department that
power grabbed emergency medical response away from dedicated paramedics in
ambulances. Responding in full ladder trucks to take care of drunk homeless
people...yeah, they do that, costing millions every year in added expenses and
road repairs. But good for them for saving a few bucks on ladders, that must
make a huge difference.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
Coming from NYC, it is somewhat surprising to see such anger directed at fire
departments. Here, the FDNY seems universally loved.

~~~
Gargoyle
The LAFD might be the most admired municipal organization in the city. They
have a very difficult range of environments and handle them very well.

~~~
jpster
From afar it seems the LAPD has a horrible reputation. So the LAFD must seem
like saints by comparison.

------
chrisseaton
Americans seem to take a lot of pride in their fire brigades - their fire
engines are still shiny and polished with more traditional signage and the
fire fighters still wear helmets with their traditional shape.

In the United Kingdom they wear more simple uniforms and the engines are just
a box shape with no bells any more - seems a shame.

Usually it's UK the has more ceremony in these kind of things.

~~~
eigenvector
One of the biggest differences between Europe and North America in this regard
is that in European cities, emergency vehicles have to be designed to fit a
1000-year-old city in terms of width, turning radius, maximum weight, etc.
This leads to a much more compact shape and shorter wheelbase.

In North America streets are designed to fit emergency vehicles. You're not
allowed to build a street so narrow that a fire engine couldn't turn around
there, for example.

~~~
Cofike
You should see some streets in San Francisco. No way that a fire engine is
fitting on those.

~~~
estebank
The narrowest street in San Francisco is roughly a regular European street.
This[1] is par for the course on most European cities, while San Francisco has
very few streets narrower than this[2] (and the average is probably wider, if
you look anywhere westwards of Park Presidio where theoretically two way
streets are wide enough for traffic to continue flowing in both direction even
with double parked trucks.

I would also point out that I'd prefer narrower streets in SF[3].

[1]: [https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-narrow-san-
francisco-...](https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-narrow-san-francisco-
street-image7772310)

[2]:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7998615,-122.4141133,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7998615,-122.4141133,3a,75y,259.45h,91.52t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAF1QipOPfUtW2v0nV3jvk1PMMnZY0AzEeig-R8tcM04F!2e10!3e11!7i11000!8i5500)

[3]: [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/08/san-
francisco...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/08/san-francisco-
narrow-streets-european-style)

~~~
dalbasal
Just as a side point... A lot of architects like this idea from an aesthetic
or architectural-sociological reasons.

Living in em.. these as houses don't give you a lot of privacy. People walk
by, less than a meter from where you're sitting. They sometimes stop to look
at your TV.

You get used to it, but it's not the kind of thing people go looking for on
purpose.

~~~
morsch
Put stores or offices in the ground floor. Or have a raised ground floor.

~~~
estebank
Or just embrace it, like the Dutch do[0].

[0]: [https://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2010/11/24/no-8-not-
owning-...](https://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2010/11/24/no-8-not-owning-
curtains/)

------
DannyBee
I can't think of any reason to acclimatize them this way instead of kiln
drying/vaporizing them (depending) to roughly the right moisture content and
waiting for 1% change (instead of kiln drying them to 0, or waiting forever
for completely green wood)

There are studies going back to the 70's by the forestry service (and others)
showing there is no change in mechanical properties of pine/fir from these
drying schedules.

(This is _not_ true of a lot of hardwoods, but is true of these softwoods)

Waiting years seems like a pointless waste of time.

~~~
padobson
I'm not sure how many degrees of separation this knowledge is from
programming, but it's got to be one of the highest values I've ever seen on
HN.

Bravo.

~~~
tptacek
It's funny how well this kind of lowbrow snark works here until exactly the
moment it totally doesn't.

------
legitster
If you get a chance to visit a Smokejumper base, I highly recommend it. One of
the things you learn is that everyone on the team is required to make all of
their own equipment by hand. So all of these highly trained, ex-military guys
spend days on end doing nothing but sewing clothes and packing parachutes. The
reasons described:

\- Cheaper than contracting out everything

\- They have a better idea of the exact specifications they need for
everything

\- It instills a strong culture of self-reliance and trust (anyone has to be
able to pack your parachute)

\- It fills a lot of offseason downtime

My takeaway is that it makes a lot of sense to in-house your own tools - a
lesson from outside of the software industry.

~~~
BurningFrog
It makes sense _for a job where 95% of the time is spent waiting for an
emergency to react to_.

~~~
enriquto
> a job where 95% of the time is spent waiting for an emergency to react to.

this describes quite accurately the work of many people maintaining computer
systems

~~~
craftyguy
I must be maintaining the wrong systems, because over here 95% of the time is
reacting to emergencies (some technical, but most fabricated by management)

~~~
qop
First thing that came to my mind too!

I've had two "Please call me, it's broke" calls just this morning!

~~~
WJW
Why does your manager know this before you do though?

~~~
sli
I would never in a million years, as a developer, give my personal phone
number to a client. That's probably why.

I get the same issue where I work. The client states that "everything is
broken," but it often turns out that their own servers are down (or sometimes
our API guys made a breaking change and I wasn't informed, but that's not
common anymore). I find this stuff out when I get to work in the morning,
because they certainly aren't calling me directly.

~~~
lostcolony
I think the implication is that the system should alert you directly. Though
if you are building systems for clients to run, you obviously would want the
system alerting them, not you.

------
mindcrime
There's an old saying among firefighters: "The fire service is 200+ years of
tradition, unimpeded by progress". Now obviously that isn't _strictly_ true,
and SF does have some good reasons for sticking with their wooden ladders...
but one can't help but suspect that sheer tradition is a somewhat significant
factor.

Of course some departments adopt change faster than others, and some kinds of
change are adopted more readily, so it's hard to make any sweeping
generalizations.

~~~
lisper
> one can't help but suspect that sheer tradition is a somewhat significant
> factor

Only if you didn't read the article.

"There's a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather
than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-voltage
cables and wires that guide the city's (oft-maligned) public transport system
Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every street, mean that ladders
made of conductive elements are generally just too dangerous to use."

~~~
LeifCarrotson
And only if you're also about 40 years behind ladder tech - notice the
stepladders in the "A view of the main repair facility" photo?

They're nonconductive fiberglass.

They're stronger than wood, lighter than wood, don't need to be
oiled/varnished, don't require cutting down old-growth trees, and aren't
susceptible to moisture damage.

You can buy them exhaustively tested, mass produced, in whatever quantities
you require for a couple hundred dollars - probably an order of magnitude less
than these artisanal wooden ladders.

~~~
reaperducer
_> They're nonconductive fiberglass_

They're also not being used right next to flames.

Yes, fiberglass can be made that won't buckle under both weight and heat, but
not at the same price point as wood.

~~~
zrobotics
Because wood reacts so well to fires?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Oddly, yes. Sufficiently dense wood takes a lot to ignite and burns quite
slowly, and I assume they coated it to make it even harder to get started.

------
qiqing
Favorite excerpt:

"We had one ladder here that was fully involved in a fire for 25 minutes, and
the whole tip of it—six feet—was crispy. It looked like a log you pull out of
a campfire," Braun says. "That can't go back in service but we were curious,
so we put a new halyard [rope used to hoist ladders] on it for a load test.
Even in that condition, it passed."

~~~
Doxin
Wood is a surprisingly good building material for surviving fires. A nice
thick wooden beam can take days to burn through in a house fire where e.g. a
metal support would yield as soon as it gets hot enough.

------
petee
Great read, but loved the end -

 _" "Pete has collected all these different donuts over the years. They're all
real, and covered with lacquer so they won't go bad. Some of these are ten
years old.""_

~~~
sparrish
Impressive collection but I only see a waste of a good donut!

------
emodendroket
I never knew we had so many experts on firefighting among us to tell us why
this makes no sense.

------
cesarb
> There's a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather
> than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-
> voltage cables and wires that guide the city's (oft-maligned) public
> transport system Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every
> street, mean that ladders made of conductive elements are generally just too
> dangerous to use.

I wonder how it's done in European cities with their trams (the ones which
don't use APS).

~~~
xienze
Fiberglass, probably. Which is what SF should be doing.

~~~
ra1n85
Most ladders are fiber glass - which makes me wonder why any off the shelf
ladder wouldn't suffice.

~~~
52-6F-62
The film industry uses almost exclusively fiberglass as well. There's no
shortage. They're swimming in those things. I would bet their lifespan is
shorter than the wooden ladders, however. At least from what I've seen.

~~~
throwaway5752
Fiberglass is reinforced plastic, though, so that might explain why it isn't
used in FDs even if it's heavily used in other domains. How well does it hold
up to heat? How does that exposure effect it structural properties? I honestly
don't know and don't have time to look it up, but I could see thermal plastic
deformation over such a long run as potentially hazardous.

~~~
52-6F-62
Could be. I know film shoots can end up occurring in all kinds of weather
(especially here in Canada), and often the ladders will be sidled up to large
sun lamps (which I can assure you get very hot), and in electrically-
compromising situations, but all of those are very different from an actual
fire.

~~~
throwaway5752
Wow. I wish I had time in the day to look at NFPA (Nat'l FIre Protection Assn)
standards. 1931, 1914, and 1911 seem pertinent - this is clearly something
that many people have devoted a lot of time and energy to.

edit:
[http://tkolb.net/safety/LadderSafety/LadderSafety.html](http://tkolb.net/safety/LadderSafety/LadderSafety.html)
... can't vouch for site but interesting.

------
ladders
ive spent most of my last 10 years on a ladder due to my job. This is absurd.
Aluminum ladders require practically no maintenance and are far far lighter.
Weight of a ladder being a significant factor in set up speed, required
manpower for set up, and ease of handling. A wood ladder is completely
impractical. Fiberglass however is another great option.

~~~
hosh
From the article:

> Wood is resilient in ways which aluminum—now standard for fire department
> ladders—can't even compare. "You know if you take an empty coke can and bend
> it three or four times and it tears really easy? That's what aluminum
> ladders will do," Braun says. "They have a seven to eight year lifespan,
> after which they need to be replaced."

> Wooden ladders, on the other hand, can last indefinitely. "You can stress
> wood right up to its failure point a million times; as long as you don't go
> beyond that, it will come right back to where it was. They can be involved
> in a fire for a pretty long time; after that, it's just a matter of sanding
> off the top coat of material then inspecting the wood. If it's good we'll
> re-oil it, revarnish it, and put it back in service."

------
larrik
[2014]

Dirty Jobs did an episode there in 2012 (which is probably where Gizmodo got
their inspiration from)

[http://www.tv.com/shows/dirty-jobs/onion-
processor-2392294/](http://www.tv.com/shows/dirty-jobs/onion-
processor-2392294/)

------
hfdgiutdryg
I would love to read about that big ladder with the multi-part, triangulated
side rails.

------
packeted
Loved reading this! I just finished restored a 1912 house in Oakland made out
of the same old growth west coast douglas fir - from the framing to the
copious clear vertical grain and quarter sawn wainscoting, all stripped,
sanded and refinished in a natural varnish. Great to see this kind of
craftsmanship alive and well!

------
ddingus
I love this. Fire is a mutual threat. I will very gladly pay for great,
capable people taking pride in what is so often tough, dangerous work.

They can and should own as much as they think makes sense.

Economically, the potential cost is trivial. Not a concern to me at all.

------
jonknee
This site has an interesting detail:

[https://sf-fire.org/wooden-ladders](https://sf-fire.org/wooden-ladders)

> The largest ladder made by the artisans is 50 feet, weighs 350 pounds and
> takes six firefighters to lift.

~~~
icey
I live near a fire station in SF, and see them practicing raising a huge 20+
foot ladder monthly out front of the station. They're pretty impressive
ladders, and it looks like it takes quite a lot of coordination to raise them
up.

------
duxup
I'd really like to learn some woodworking and make some stuff some day. I
recently found myself admiring the grain on the wooden train track my kids
were playing with...

~~~
fuball63
I started with this book, which is a furniture book that uses a technique
involving cutting slots in plywood. It's good practices measuring, cutting,
sanding, and finishing.

[https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Furniture-Forgotten-Building-
Bea...](https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Furniture-Forgotten-Building-
Beautiful/dp/0894710281/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531342036&sr=1-9&keywords=fast+furniture)

------
BarkMore
Previous post on the topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1852400](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1852400)

------
djacobs
Interesting to see that this headline typo (copied from the Gizmodo article)
has lasted on the front page of HN for 9+ hours!

Chalk it up to only reading the beginnings and endings of words?

------
Havoc
I like the mindset but...

Wooden ladders are heavy as hell compared to alu ladders. Really not what I'd
want to be schlepping across the place under pressure.

~~~
dasil003
They also conduct heat, electricity and lose their structural integrity
faster.

------
wenbert
Is there a good supply of bamboo in SF? If there is, they make really good
ladders. Very light and very strong.

~~~
bullosB
But would they withstand fire ?

------
buchanae
Great article, ruined by Gizmodo's disrespect for its readers by including
animated junk on the page.

------
robbrown451
In related news, San Francisco is now the most expensive place to live in the
whole world.

------
threatofrain
Reminds me of the supposedly dying art of scientific glasswork.

------
exabrial
I'm surprised they don't use an ablative coating

------
sasaf5
Hipster ladders :)

------
wpdev_63
Guess you would too if you were paid for all that overtime.

------
kugestu
L

------
chadwilken
Of course they do, that is the hipster capital of the world and hipsters need
everything to be retro.

~~~
butterfi
I would pay money to watch you tell a SFFD firefighter they were a hipster.

~~~
TimTheTinker
That was really funny. Thanks & kudos.

------
xixi77
But, are these approved by the American Ladder Institute?
[https://www.americanladderinstitute.org](https://www.americanladderinstitute.org)

~~~
SllX
I think the better question is: do they do the job the SFFD requires them to
do?

Given one of the ladders talked about in the article was over 60 years old and
still in service, I think the safe answer is: yeah, they do the job.

------
ksherlock
Yep, just like a Jedi warrior should build his own light saber and a
programmer should build her own editor and a Tesla driver should build his own
car, a firefighter should build her own ladder.

------
jack_quack
This is super cool but I'm positive this is also super wasteful

~~~
BanazirGalbasi
You should try reading the article. They specifically state that they re-use
components whenever possible, and they regularly service their ladders to keep
them in good condition. Aluminum ladders only have a 7-8 year lifespan vs some
of the ladders they use going on 60 years before being taken out of
commission.

~~~
jack_quack
I don't just mean wasteful in terms of materials, but also in terms of man-
hours, equipment needing to be owned and maintained. Once all factors for the
total cost of ownership are taken in to account I highly doesn't it's
efficient. It's like everyone growing their own vegetables.

