I am wondering how a gas stations pumps / pipeing is put together . Does anybody know of a youtube video or video on the internet that shows the construction of a gas station from start to finish? Links please.
I am familar with alot of the components solenoid , pipes ,electrical components...etc but would like to see it being put all together.

Similar for the construction of a car wash machine.


Question 2
Is there any videos of construction of a bridge from start to finish.

Question 3
For the decorative/archtectic houses (that are more like a work of art) I am curious who makes or what companies are involved in making the arches , and other obscure/artistic building staires etc etc. These must be custom made since there is no standard for artistic houses.

Question 4
How often does a builder have to work with or come across artistic not standard materials I would imagine they would want to minimizes this normally
since repair/maintance would be much more difficult with non-standard materials. ( when I say artistic or non standard I mean custom made maybe that is the word)

Question 5
How many people does one have working on building a large building like the empire state building. Or a large bridge , damn ,...etc I am trying to get a feel for how many people a small build like a house , medium build like a apartment complex , and a large build like an empire state building takes. And the duration of time it takes to build it. Some type of true story /real life approximation man hours .

 

There is a web site, http://www.howstuffworks.com , that explains how stuff works (clever name). You might find some answers to your particular questions there. Better chance than an electronics forum. In particular, there is a time lapse video of bridge construction (I found that out by Googling "video bridge construction").

 

I used to work in construction on large water treatment/waste water treatment and also did some road and bridge jobs. The vast majority of these project are one-offs, purpose designed to fit the available site and handle the local situation, so from that point of view almost everything was a custom build. Things like tanks, more often than not were different sizes from one job to the next so it was not worth trying to standardize any of the civil engineering elements. Even electrical control panels were also purpose designed and built. Clients would often specify specific manufacturers for things like PLCs and Pumps so that they only had one set of parts to maintain but how they were configured varied.

As for the number of people employed it varied massively depending on the stage the job was at and the available working space. Some jobs could have hundreds of people at their peak, others never got more than 20 or 30.

 

Question 1,
I couldn't answer since it would be part of the building process called 'fit out.' That may or may not be part of the building contractors contract.

It is a specialist field, and could include such things as network cabling and routers/switches, or perhaps a custom kitchen such as may be found in a restaraunt or hotel, or maybe lighting gantries for a TV studio.

Question 2,
I'm sure there is, just google a famous bridge that is modern. (or search you tube.)

Question 3,
Because of the nature of the building process, there is no such thing as two buildings that are identical, however buildings are sometimes made to the same 'design,' and they look alike
.
Even though they look alike they are all custom built in a sense. Things like staircases are almost always custom made, because of the tollerances involved.

A staircase must be made (built) in such a fashion that a person will not trip when they climb it. Because of the way that human balance works, each step must be exactly the same height.

But it is often very difficult to ensure that the different floor levels are the same, this is because the tollerances of the wall/floor builders are much larger than those required for the staircase builder.

For one off, bespoke designs, specialists are used to supplement the contractors team. These 'specialists' vary according to what is required.

For instance, if a staircase was designed to be made from glass, then the builder would get a glass specialist (who might not have any clue as how a staircase is made, whereas the builder would have no knowledge of how to work the glass or join it or what stresses it could withstand) and consult with them, sharing their knowledge until they had achieved a solution that worked.

Arches are normally part of the structure, and no matter how complex they are, can be achieved with relative ease. They are however considerably more expensive than a simple lintol (beam).

Question 4,

Building construction is a broad and complex field, just as any other large industry is.
Some builders never come across these things, for others its something new every day. Some relish the challenge, others are frightened/disdainful of things they don't know.
As to repair and maintenance that is the sphere of the designer/owner, they must decide if they wish to use materials that are difficult/expensive to repair/ maintain.

Question 5,

Almost impossible to answer, it depends on too many variables....

I hope I've answered your questions, I've not been very exact, but rather tried to give a feel of the complexity of construction.

HTH Steve

 

Question 3,
Because of the nature of the building process, there is no such thing as two buildings that are identical, however buildings are sometimes made to the same 'design,' and they look alike
.
Even though they look alike they are all custom built in a sense. Things like staircases are almost always custom made, because of the tollerances involved.

Obviously you were never in Levittown or some such assembly line community. The houses (some 15,000 plus) were constucted by a moving assmebly line of some 30 different trades, each trade moving to the next house when their task was complete.

All the building materials were pre-cut in a distant factory before delivery to a site. This included the stair runners that were simply fitted together and nailed.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

As it happens the company next door to mine is a custom staircase house. And as happens, I will occasionally see a completly assembled beautiful hardwood staircase sitting in their parking lot until they get a chance to cut it up for disposal.

One had a beautiful curve 3/4 the way up for a reverse landing. Turned grey before the winter, now long gone.

My guess is either the owner did not like the look when in their new home, or they only measured once before cutting twice.

 

Little Boxes = Theme song for "Weeds"... good show.. Well it was