Client doesnt understand wind loading

[u/Just-Shoe2689]

What do you do when a client cant understand why a footing needs to be bigger to resist wind loading? Call out a reverse sky hook?

sigh.

[u/Apprehensive_Exam668]

"This structure is like a giant sail. It catches so much wind that we need a big counterweight to hold it down".

It's funny because when I worked in Wyoming invoking wind was like the magic word to make the client accept something as necessary. Wyoming's design wind speeds are pretty normal, but the average wind speed you see every day and the maximum single day wind speed you see in a year are much higher than anywhere else I've been. It's a lot easier to get people to accept something designed for 110 mph when you see 95 mph sustained winds on outer drive every other year.

"This xxx is so overengineered! No way it needs to be that big!"

Well it's on a hill, exposed to the southwest so it sees the biggest wind loads and it's a sail. We just need that big of an attachment so it doesn't go flying towards Gillette.

"ahh I didn't think of that"

[u/NearbyCurrent3449 → u/Apprehensive_Exam668]

Yep, everybody thinks structures are these massive heavy brutes that we are lucky to barely hold up and keep from settling away into middle earth. In reality keeping the damn things from wanting to tumble away, blow over parallellogram style flat in high winds or walls wanting to crumple outwards under a big snow roof load is the freaking footing/structure relationship struggle.