should a balcony be able to withstand the weight of everyone who could squeeze on it?

[Liberal_in_LA]

This is a pic of the broken off balcony in Berkeley. 12 to 14 people were on it. It looks like it was meant to hold four people max

[hobbit709]

1. That was obviously a get drunk and be stupid idea.

[jberryhill]

2. Design has to account for that

People get drunk and do stupid things.

Unless the engineer is there to guard the thing, then the thing has to deal with people on its own.

[hobbit709]

4. If there were 14 people on that they had to stack them on top of each other.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. 3 deep 4 across. 13 fell

[hobbit709]

6. I don't think the idea of a sardine can occurred to the engineers.

[LanternWaste]

7. Unlike the engineers who design elevators?

Unlike the engineers who design elevators?

(distinction lacking relevant difference below...)

[hobbit709]

11. Murphy says it's impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so damn ingenious.

[bananas]

66. Actually, it was Einstein who said that. *** Edit! Oops! ***

I realized that is one of Murphy's Laws:

11.It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~kurmasz/Humor/murphy.html

Einstein said something slightly different.

Here's my original post:

Murphy said, "Anything that can go wrong, will."

Einstein said, "Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning."

Einstein has been paraphrased many times, for example by Rich Cook: "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning."

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law
http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2701
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/31/quote-rich-cook-on-programming-idiot-proof-programs/

[sir pball]

72. It's been around for ages; Douglas Adams' phrasing is my all-time favorite.

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."

[jberryhill]

13. The idea of overdesign beyond maximum load is known to all engineers

[hobbit709]

17. What happens if you push it beyond that point?

You put 3000 lbs on a structure designed for a maximum of 2500 what do you think will happen.
Yeah, the balcony could have been built to hold a tank but it would have been cost prohibitive and used way too much space for the supports.

[jberryhill]

35. It didn't have to hold a tank

If it is large enough for X humans to squeeze onto, then it should support the dynamic load of 3X of them. Absent that, it should have a prominent warning.

[Lonusca]

45. You sound like you know what you are talking about

Does it look the wood of the balcony might have rot? It looks like a lot of the joists are broken straight through.

Could this be an indication that the design was fine but the construction was poor in that it allowed water to rot the joists?

[jberryhill]

56. I can't tell

I'm not a qualified mechanical or structural engineer, and it will be gone over by investigators for sure.

The point, however, is that this is the kind of thing which simply should not happen. Of course a balcony should be well overdesigned. Maybe someone will temporarily move their refrigerator out there when decorating, and it could fall over, generating a high dynamic load. This is what building codes are for.

If it is held up by wood, then perfect construction shouldn't be thing that keeps the wood from failing.

I'm reminded of the tiger that got out of its enclosure in SF a few years back, and how people said "Oh but he was taunting the tiger."

Who gives a shit? The point is that a tiger should not be able to get out of a zoo enclosure. Period. End of story.

Same here. I don't care how many people were on it, and if they were jumping in search of resonant frequencies. It simply should not be possible for this to have happened.

[yeoman6987]

62. Wow. You really want rent to be even higher

In order to do what you suggest would cost a fortune and unnecessary. Drunk partners should not all climb on a structure that high up.

[jberryhill]

64. Yesterday, millions of balconies did not collapse.

[Lonusca]

70. I agree on the design

It should be able to hold many times the weight of people than it could actually physically fit on the balcony, and I am guessing it was. This is CA

My point was, the joists look rotten in how the split. An 8 year old dry joist would not do that. It looks like the conduction not the design could be the issue

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. they might have been jumping. young partiers did that in an apartment building I lived in

Jumped / danced on the balcony

[jberryhill]

12. Yes, people do that

They also dance:



(now, in that instance, there was a last-minute design change by a person who did not understand how it changed the load-bearing scheme of the entire walkway)

The Brooklyn Bridge towers were overdesigned by a factor of six.

[KittyWampus]

40. Here's the thing… there are building codes. Buildings don't get past inspection if they don't meet

requirements. So if code says balcony must hold X amount of weight, then potentially it isn't the fault of the architects, engineers or builders.

[HereSince1628]

31. Yes, design, and if its built of wood I see no sign of joists ...

I would have expected to see remnants of joists to cantilevered off the interior floor framing even if they were rotted

It likely looked like the balcony it landed on and that one is not designed with supporting brace/bracket or a post.

I've never seen a balcony built of lumber simply lagged or bolted to a ledger board, never built with steel girders so I don't know what's possible there...

[jberryhill]

34. Yeah it looks like bolted on wood

But the exterior sheathing makes it look like reinforced concrete.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

76. That looks like remnants of cantilevered joists poking out of the black water membrane.

I see what looks like osb. I wonder if the cantilevered the interior engineered wood I-beam type joists?

[AngryAmish]

47. Exactly.

It broke off clean, as far as I can tell with the one picture. Wood can hold an incredible amount of weight. I have had similar loads on my deck. It stayed up.

[HereSince1628]

51. The shear strength of bolts is huge...the hold of threads in tension, in manufactured chipboard rim

that's been infiltrated with water? God knows, but I bet God wouldn't risk angels dancing on such a thing just to get a count.

[Glassunion]

49. These people were not very smart.

Would we blame the car engineers if these same drunk folks jumped into a truck, seat belted themselves in then drove off a cliff?

[jberryhill]

79. Not at all comparable

What "these people" are, is dead.

I realize it is fashionable on the Internet to find death an occasion for insults. However, young people are boisterous and at times inebriated. Operating a vehicle does not compare to operating a floor.

A balcony should support stupid people, drunk people, and even comfortably smug people.

[arcane1]

3. I'd expect if it can't handle capacity, there should be a sign or something saying so.

I suppose we'll find out eventually.

[LiberalElite]

69. All the signs in the world mean nothing unless you 1)

read them and 2) heed them. Since it was a 21-year-old's birthday party - and the celebrants on the balcony were probably at least tipsy - I doubt a sign would have done any good.

[djean111]

9. There is a really good book called "To Engineer is Human", written by an engineer from Duke,

I think. It says all building is a compromise between safety and money and aesthetics. Or something like that. He wrote it after a balcony/walkway in a hotel in Kansas fell, killing people. The builder had not constructed it to the blueprints, and it could not bear the load.

Anyway, unless there was a sign, like an elevator has, that says how much weight or how many people can be safely accommodated, the builder or owner might be liable. Sometimes people put too many heavy plants and things on balconies, too. Those things need to be on steel girders that run through the building, or something like that. IMO as a non-engineer.

When I lived in Bloomington/Normal (Il.), a friend who bought a couple of student housing apartment units sold them after a year or so. Drunken parties = drunk students on balconies. In his case, partying students crowded a small landing inside the building, in front of a second floor apartment, broke the railings, and people fell and got hurt. To make things worse, same party - a few hours later, he got a call from the kids in the bottom floor apartment, they said the ceiling in their bathroom was turning black and smelled lfunny. The drunk party students thought it was a swell idea to fill the bathtub on the second floor with charcoal and roast a pig. If the downstairs folks had not called, most likely the barbecue bathtub would have burnt through the ceiling and fallen through.

[Liberal_in_LA]

43. The Latest: Engineer says balcony appears small for load

A structural engineer says a balcony that collapsed in California appeared too small to hold the 13 partygoers that officials said had gathered on it.

Engineer Grace Kang says California building codes during the past decade have required balconies to support 100-pounds per square foot. The previous codes called for 60 pounds of support per square foot.

Kang, who is also a spokeswoman for Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, says moving and dancing would have put additional strain on the balcony.

http://www.netzero-news.net/news/read/category/Top%20News/article/the_associated_press-the_latest_several_irish_dead_in_berkeley_balcony-ap

[djean111]

48. Thanks! Not a surprise, sadly.

[Gormy Cuss]

75. Duelling engineers assessments...

An Oakland based engineer said it looks like a dry rot problem rather than a load problem

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6848377

There will surely be an investigation and the cause will be announced long after the partygoers are blamed for their own demises.

[KamaAina]

10. Most of the victims were Irish

In Ireland, it seems, balconies are better engineered, as dancing on them is a thing.

[petronius]

15. That would seem like a reasonable standard: take the area of the balcony multiplied by

6' or so and figure out how much that cubic volume of human would weigh. Then add a safety factor of some significant percentage. I've honestly never thought about it--although I imagine civil engineers have--but it's certainly not uncommon in college towns to see frighteningly large numbers of people packed onto small balconies. (And onto other things: in my local area we recently had a near-disaster when a very large number of partying students crammed themselves onto the roof of a garage. Which, not so surprisingly, collapsed. Luckily no one was killed, nor even seriously injured IIRC...)

[winstars]

16. Looks like the front rail is missing. It broke off and everybody fell down (out) to the ground???

[hobbit709]

18. If it broke first and everyone just fell out why did it break off the supports?

[petronius]

24. I think it's upside down, resting on a lower balcony with the front rail

facing back toward the building. My guess is that as it failed it rotated down and out, scattering people outward toward the street...

[winstars]

27. Yikes, its fucking upside down....

[jberryhill]

80. Yeah, it peeled over and dumped them

[geek tragedy]

19. It should be able to hold that many people, and then some. nt

[winstars]

20. Since its CA, they will figure out how many people should be on any balcony and require signs...

Like elevators. And they can take into account poor design practices to get whatever number is safe.

If they try to retrofit existing balconies, decks etc. they will need to take them all down because they all probably are not strong enough TO HOLD THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY COULD FIT ON THEM. Didn't someones wooden deck give way on a backyard or something "short" and people were hurt.

[olddots]

21. thats not a balcony thats frosting

On a crappy building trying to look classy.You can maybe safely put a plant on one of those .

[enough]

22. Yes. If that's too difficult a standard, don't put a balcony on the building. (nt)

[Beringia]

23. This happened at an apartment building in Chicago

The balcony was packed and collapsed. My sister has a big balcony and I looked at the support and told her it was not strong enough for a lot of people, and she just laughed at me.

[daredtowork]

25. The issues are more complex than that

But one of things the city is going to be looking very closely at is whether the developers take shortcuts to extract more money of the project. This building was fairly new.

There is a big civic struggle over these new shoebox apartment/condo buildings already going on. Featured issues include:
*How tall buildings should be in Berkeley.
*Affordable housing vs. expensive luxury condos
*International speculators parking their money in real estate - contributing to the speculation bubble here
*Developers contributing to Housing Trust Fund vs. building affordable units. And will developers follow through on promises?
*How much money for the Housing Trust Fund?
*What "significant community benefits" can the community demand in exchange for giving the developers a project?
*Is the developer using local/union labor?
*Are these green buildings? Do their very construction create horrible environmental impacts?
*Is "Smart Growth" innately dumb for this type of town or is resisting it NIMBYism?

The questions go on and on and on. But there has been a great deal of resistance to such buildings, and I believe at least one went into bankruptcy soon after being built. So if a "shortcut" was taken, there would be plenty of motive for it. It will be interesting to see how the blame for this pans out.

One last note: the whole reason the students were staying in that cheap shoebox is that University has routinely refused to use it's land and abundant money to house its student - thus exacerbating the terrible housing crisis in the city. They prefer to rent their facilities out to private interests. Shame on you, UC Berkeley! This is where your irresponsibility led!

RIP to the students. International students are part of what bring the flavor to Berkeley.

[FSogol]

39. That's a lot of nonsense. Buildings are build according to building codes, in this case,

probably the IBC. In addition, the city had inspectors who inspected the building during construction. If the developer took short cuts, the county or city plan reviewers did not catch them during the review process and the county/city did not notice during the inspection process. Given that a licensed structural engineer designed it and reviewed the shop drawing before it was allowed to be built, a whole lot of stuff had to go wrong to make it the developer's fault. Also, Green building had nothing to do with balcony design or structure.

Who is to blame? Two realistic possibilities, imo.

1. Stupidity. Too many people on a tiny balcony exceeded the design requirements.
2. The balcony was damaged somehow by wind, water, or rot and was no longer safe.

[olddots]

55. The only standards in L.A. for buildings is net return on investment

these "luxury " apartments are built to last as long as they return building costs . This real estate Flipping mentality is what the whole country is about .

[FSogol]

57. Not true. n/t

[daredtowork]

59. The article I just read says inadequate waterproofing led to dry rot. nt

[FSogol]

60. Not surprised. Very sad. n/t

[SickOfTheOnePct]

44. From what I've seen, these weren't Berkeley students

Why would UC-Berkeley have a responsibility to provide them with housing?

[daredtowork]

58. Even if these weren't particularly in UC Berkeley programs

The vast majority of students being driven into these shoebox apartment situations are. And the University has not taken responsibility for its role in creating that situation for decades.

[guillaumeb]

26. There is a difference between dynamic load and static load.

But I think there was a definite stupidity overload here.

[leveymg]

28. The attachment material looks rotten/rusted. That may have something to do with it.

Some undersupport buttressing also might have saved it, longer. Doesn't look like it's designed to last or take much of a load.

[HereSince1628]

37. something...failing after just 8 years is pretty surprising

if the materials that weren't correct for the application that'd be a problem.

I'm biased to think the architect and the plan isn't the problem but rather some change or substitution that occurred during construction.

[hunter]

41. Yep, like the Kansas City Hyat Regency Walkway collapse...

Investigators found that changes to
the design of the walkway's steel tie
rods were the cause of its failure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse

[Liberal_in_LA]

46. Dry rot could be factor in Berkeley balcony collapse, engineer says

Dry rot could be factor in Berkeley balcony collapse, engineer says

Water seeping into the horizontal beams supporting a balcony could have caused dry rot, contributing to a balcony collapse that killed six students in Berkeley, an engineer who examined photos of the damage said Tuesday.

“It appears to be a classic case of dry rot, meaning water intruded into the building [and] rotted the wood” that supported the balcony, said Gene St. Onge, a civil and structural engineer in Oakland. With more than a dozen people on the balcony, “it gave way. It didn’t have enough residual strength, and it failed.”

St. Onge said photos that he reviewed Tuesday morning, showing the broken wooden beams protruding from the building that once held up the balcony, show what looks like signs of dry rot.

“It appeared to be shredded and darkened and had all the appearance of wood that had been totally compromised by dry rot,” he said.

A structural failure without any dry rot would have looked different, St. Onge said.

The balcony itself should have been able to support the weight of 13 or 14 people, he said.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-dry-rot-berkeley-balcony-collapse-20150616-story.html

[LuvLoogie]

78. That was my immediate take on seeing the photo.

Perhaps water pooled on the floor of the balcony during rain. Improper caulking at the seams?

But definately dry rotted wood.

[Renew Deal]

29. People are people

So the assumption has to be the worst case scenario. A bunch of college kids squeezed on it jumping up and down.

[newfie11]

30. Yes, people don't even think about it

There should be a weight limit posted.

[former9thward]

32. And drunks are going to pay attention to that sign?

[SoCalMusicLover]

33. Lawyers Gonna Have A Field Day

You can bet EVERYBODY is going to get sued.

The building owners. The company that built the building and balcony. The school. The person whose apartment it was with the party. Probably the city of Berkeley too.

Not sure how it will turn out, but there will be lots and lots of lawsuits and certainly court cases for years to come. Maybe some large out of court settlements as well.

Lawyers really don't care about who is right and who is wrong. They will pick a side based on who pays for their representation, and then go with it assigning blame to those with the funds, or without the funds, to pay any judgement.

Looking at the balcony, does not appear to be enough room for 14 people, but that may be a high estimate, and the actual # on the balcony was lower. Certainly the balcony was not built to withstand that many people, which would on the surface seem to be an out for the builder, who will say that high a number was not reasonably forseen.

[Logical]

36. Lawyers are scum IMO. nt

[jberryhill]

52. What do you do for a living?

[Logical]

63. I don't chase ambulances. nt

[jberryhill]

65. So, both Obamas and Clintons are scum

Got it.

[Logical]

67. They are still practicing? I had no idea. nt

[jberryhill]

84. Oh, so "practicing" lawyers are scum

Like the lawyers who have represented same sex couples in all of those cases overturning marriage inequality. That sort of scum.

[hunter]

38. Something went wrong in the construction of that.

The balcony flipped entirely over onto the balcony below.

Perhaps it's a pre-fabricated unit and the metal railing are meant to be structural and attached to the building at the top?

Another possibility is water damage and wood rot in the structure.

But speculation is useless. Leave that to the investigators.

Everything about those multi-story wood framed apartment and hotel buildings makes me nervous. Any wood structure over two or three stories makes me nervous. The only building scarier to me are old unreinforced brick, and "reinforced" concrete buildings in places with inadequate codes and inspections.

This was a horrible accident. I'm not going to blame the party goers. Of course a balcony ought to be able to take that load.

[NutmegYankee]

42. I once witnessed the gross overloading of an elevator.

22 college student crammed into a 2200 lb capacity elevator to see the max they could fit. It was sort of like what people did with VW beetles, except they got on 6 stories above the ground. Thankfully, the elevator went down safely, but went past the first floor by a foot and burned out the motor. They got stuck for nearly 2 hours till the fire dept broke one of the doors and slid it open to create half an opening.

I was an RA at the time and 3 friends of those stuck found me on the fifth and told me that a lot of people were stuck on an elevator. I called dispatch and got the rescue rolling. Other students on the first floor were trying to pry the doors open, but only got the doors to separate by about 3/4 inch. The police officer was the first on scene, who just bust out laughing at the wave of misery that had befallen the 22 stupid souls in the elevator. Next was the fire dept who tried to use a tool to open the door release, but couldn't get it to work. Finally the fire dept came in with 6' crowbars and busted the door half open.


It was fun to write up... The elevator was busted for 2 months...

[Prism]

50. It looks bigger in pics

I was over there this morning (had business a block away), and I could not fathom how they managed to squeeze 13 people onto that thing.

It's really heart-breaking. Every summer, Irish students come here on an exchange visa. They treat it like a big Spring Break. I've had friends and work subjects complain when, "the Irish are here", because you have kids up til all hours, running around the halls, packing tiny apartments, drinking their heads off. But they're generally nice kids, life-loving, just out for a good time. For that to end in this. Ugh. Their poor families.

Right now, people are asking about dry rot from water seepage. Apparently, that side of the building has no weather overhang. Even though we're in drought right now, we have had some extremely wet winters since that building was built. (When I moved here in 2009, two or three winters in a row seemed like it was raining every day).

I think someone's about to get their asses sued. If it is rot, I'd not be surprised to see criminal negligence charges somewhere down the line.

[malaise]

53. They're saying weight was not the problem

Looks like the wood was rotten - had not been cured.

[Warpy]

54. 6 dead and 7 hurt means 13 people were on it when it fell

Preliminary examination has mentioned dry rot as a possible cause and it does look like joists sheared off.

It's a little soon to blame the victims.

[joshcryer]

61. Yes.

[madokie]

68. I would think so

If I was building I would want it to withstand more than the weight of as many people who could squeeze on it

[uncle ray]

71. should the upstairs level of a home hold as many people as you can cram up there?

should a bridge hold as many trucks as can possibly be crammed on it?

maybe every truck should be built like a military 5 ton unit, so we can use it to haul ginormous loads, just because.

as an engineer, i often wonder, why do we have to solve all the problems others people's lack of common sense creates?

[MisterP]

73. you don't think a bridge should have to stay up if it's full of vehicles?

can I have a list of everything you worked on?
like, right NOW?!

[jberryhill]

81. That one was a head scratcher

One assumes a bridge would be designed to accommodate a worst case traffic jam.

[uncle ray]

87. worst case traffic jam is not the same as what i said.n/t.

[jberryhill]

88. Okay....

Do earthquakes occur in places where you plan to build bridges?

[uncle ray]

86. it depends on what those vehicles are.

i said trucks, didn't i? bridges are not usually engineered to hold a convoy of cement trucks.

sure an engineer could build a stronger bridge, but it's his/her job to build a bridge or whatever within a budget set by someone else. 60psf live load is typical and sufficient for floors of residential structures, why should a balcony support more weight than the rest of the floor?

[Stinky The Clown]

74. Short answer: NO

It should be able to hold three times the weight of the maximum number of people that could fit on it.

Get 14 people on a small balcony like that and have them all bouncing in time to some music. They could set up enough concentrated stress to end in failure.

The code needs to account for that.

[hedda_foil]

77. My cousin's fiancee was killed in a balcony/deck collapse in Chicago several years ago. She was 23.

Similar situation, a party on a pleasant evening. He walked from the deck into the kitchen to get more snacks for their guests. In that moment, the whole structure collapsed from the second floor onto the ground. Many injuries and deaths among a group of 20-something friends. These are horrific tragedies that ripple through many layers of friends, families and coworkers. Her bridesmaids were her pallbearers.

[Liberal_in_LA]

91. that is so sad

[LiberalElite]

82. On ABC news just now they're speculating it was dry rot nt

[Starry Messenger]

83. Yes.

[Vinca]

85. Yes . . . obviously.

Building a heavy duty balcony would be cheaper than the ensuing lawsuits. While it's true this was a group of young, probably-stewed partiers, unless there is a neon warning sign on the door to the balcony - "Four People Only" - I'm betting this is going to cost a whole lot more than a steel-reinforced balcony.

[One_Life_To_Give]

89. How about floor period

Do you thing the typical building is designed to support the maximum number of people one could sardine into the structure? Or do you think there is an engineering standard that assumes a maximum overload? Something more than reasonable but less than possible. An d how much are you willing to spend for a home that can withstand such a load?

[dembotoz]

90. Hard to engineer for stupid...college campus??? Should expect the unexpected

[frogmarch]

92. Yes, and

the Titanic should have had enough lifeboats for everyone on board.

[MineralMan]

93. Yes, and it could meet that demand.

However, that's not how they're built in many cases. A through-bolted installation with full-width steel backing plates on both sides of the wall would prevent this kind of thing from happening. However, that's rarely how they are built. Instead most small balconies use lag bolts into the studs. When new, they're engineered to handle any conceivable loads the balcony might face, but deterioration begins almost immediately. A small flaw in drainage can wick water back into the studs, promoting dry rot, which weakens the hold the lag bold threads have in the wood.

In some cases, contractors cut corners even further, using easily corroded lag bolts. Again, moisture can allow those to corrode and lose strength. Errors in flashing, siding and gaps anywhere can allow water to penetrate.

That's why I simply never go out onto any such balcony. If I can't see the construction, I don't trust it.

Full width backing plates and through bolts, preferable stainless steel or hot-dipped galvanized can virtually eliminate any risk for such a collapse. But you'll be hard pressed to find any small balcony designed and installed that way. I've built a couple of those for people, and I added a steel framework to brace the cantilevered design, along with the full width plates and stainless steel bolts. I guarantee that you can't load the ones I've built with people and cause any problem. I'd never build a balcony that could collapse unless the building fell down.