Originally published at: Plumbing systems at SF's Millennium Tower show signs of impending doom | Boing Boing
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Surely there has to be some kind of engineering contingency plan for how skyscrapers are to be dismantled at the end of their usable lives, right? It sure would be dumb if cities let these things go up under the assumption they will last forever.
(I would not actually be surprised to learn that cities let these things go up under the assumption they will last forever.)
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Blockquote How will they demolish this thing in the middle of downtown San Francisco?> Blockquote
Veeeeery caaaarefully.
Or, they could hire the Jenga Demolition Company.
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I hear the Saudi have some subcontractors that can do this.
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Yeah… No.
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use the money raised auctioning the chance to push the button to blow it up to fund a consultant to tell you how to do that safely
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Yes, concrete beavers, you heard me right, concrete beavers is the answer to this problem.
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They could take it down like this:
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I’ve been wondering what the Point of No Return will be for this place.
I’m pretty sure it will be when it falls over catastrophically as no one wants to be the one that says “we are done here, everyone leave NOW”.
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I always loved this book from my childhood that discussed the challenges involved.
One way or another this building (as well as the equally shoddy ultra-high condo buildings for billionaires in NYC) is going to come down sooner than expected – sooner still when I read a story like this. Better for the city to condemn it and let the owners and developers fight it out for the privilege of paying the demolition bill.
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In situations like this, I am always reminded of the 3 rules of plumbing which were given to me by a plumbing subcontractor that I had hired back in the day and which are comprehensive.
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Shit runs downhill.
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Hot is on the left and cold is on the right.
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Don’t chew your fingernails.
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My bet is that all the various responsible (guilty) parties will continue to point fingers at each other until well after the tower fully collapses, causing a multi-billion-dollar disaster.
None of these boobs will actually do anything until it’s far far too late.
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Pressurized waste lines.
Sucks when you spring a leak.
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The building is leaning at a slope of 22" / 645’ ~ 1 / 350.
The slope required in the video is 1/8" / 1’ ~ 1 / 100.
So it’s not likely to be a real problem yet, but definitely could be if things get 4x worse.
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I think it is more of a, “We will blow up the bridge when we get to it.” attitude.
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So sewer pipes in high-rises aren’t insane water-slides? They’re some sort of gentle helix? awww. (“No! you @#$ fool! Do you know what terminal velocity does to the kinetic energy (1/2 m v ²) of a 7.5 Couric dump!?”)
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Also, Payday is on Friday, but yeah other than that, you are a qualified plumber 
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Clogged drains in a leaning skyscraper would not be my primary concern, I would be more worried about the building becoming horizontal in a rapid fashion.
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