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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:11 pm
by cm233lh
May I say what a helpful and useful site you have here. And may I congratulate you on your consistent use of metric measurements throughout. In a country where you can be sold 2 metres of 9 inch hollow blocks; and where you have to order a 6 yard skip to remove 4.5 cubic metres of waste its really refreshing to see a single, coherent measurement system used throughout your highly informative pages. Great work.
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:30 pm
by lutonlagerlout
your not a retired engineer? by any chance are you cm233lh??
just a feeling
LLL
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:07 pm
by Dave_L
Are you onto something Tone?? 
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:16 pm
by Stuarty
My mate has a habit of saying things like "Its 4 inch and 10 mil" or "6 and a half quarter inch". Quite humourous, although i have seen myself asking for 3.6m legnths of 3x2 rails heh
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:18 pm
by flowjoe
Typical of the guys on here to go the extra mile to help out :;):
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:53 pm
by andpartington
what joe meant to say was
Typical of the guys on here to go the extra 1.609 344 kilometer to help out 
andy
Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:45 am
by Rich H
Timber is still the odd one, I'm sure most of us order 10 3.6m lengths of 4x2 (who's going to say 100x50!?) or 5x2 or 6x2. Likewise deckboards; 50 lengths of 6.0m in 6"!
And slabs, isn't it easier to say 2x1 instead of 600x300?
An 8' fence post is easier to order than 2.4m. A 6x6 panel is always going to be preferred to a 1.83x1.83m panel!
Dense blocks at the builders' merchants are either 4" or 6" thick, not 100 or 150.
I'm of the generation that was taught both systems together at school (when we joined the common market) but my Polish lads struggle a bit with it.
Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:16 am
by Tony McC
I've been a metric kind of guy since the 1970s - it's just so much easier and logical. I can work in imperial, and things like 4x2 timber or 2x2 flags are easy enough, but if someone tells me it's 400 yards, I have to mentally multiply by 0.9 to understand it's around 360 metres, but when we get up to miles, I'm OK again.
My Sat-Nav (which is NEVER left in the car, Mr Theiving Bastard, if you're reading this) is set to metric because it gives distance to junction in metres (which I understand) rather than yards.
I'm sure I've mentioned before the architect I used to work with who consistently sent plans scaled at 1 inch = 1 yard. When I told him ALL civil engineering work was quantified in metric and it would be better for me if he sent drawings in metric scale, I started to receive plans drawn at 1 inch = 1 metre. Some people just never get it!
Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:03 pm
by danensis
I knew the guy who designed the metrication of the timber industry - he was in Mensa believe it or not, and still managed to come up with the 2400mm x 4ft schema.
Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 2:27 pm
by cm233lh
andpartington wrote:what joe meant to say was
Typical of the guys on here to go the extra 1.609 344 kilometer to help out
andy
Thanks, but there's no need to go that far. An extra 1 km is plenty. 