NorCal Tremors

Well your exactly right. I'm a building inspector and see it first hand every day. Politicians make claims about their affordable housing projects... There's no such thing as affordable housing here anymore, period. You couldn't build a legal affordable house here if your life depended on it. Nobody is permitted to build basic shelter anymore. You have to have an engineer prove that the dirt will hold your house up. Another engineer proves that the house won't fall down. Yet another engineer shows where the stormwater will go, and by the way it better be clean. An energy consultant has to determine how to insulate the home, and a third party tells you if you put it in correctly (because local inspectors can't?) The house has to have fire sprinklers, so another consultant has to design those. The building dept is trained to review the design and inspect those, but the fire dept needs more money so they've decided to take control of that and charge additional for it. And if there isn't a fire hydrant nearby, you'll need to put in at least 5k gallons of water storage and a drafting hydrant. Don't forget to sign the release allowing them to come take the water to fight a fire somewhere else. You'll need solar panels too, mandatory. We'll need a landscape design by a licensed professional too, assuring that you won't plant too thirsty of plants. If you thought you were going to get started on that this year, forget about it. It will take at least 6 months of reviews and plan corrections to get a permit, at which time DOT will also collect a fee for infrastructure in your neighborhood. And even if you don't have kids, the school district will have a fee too. Somehow the Sheriff's Dept gets left out, because crime is not criminal anymore, so no need to support them. ?

And you thought you had a rant, I could go on and on...

I should go on the record for all that I have the utmost respect for firefighters and the important work that they do. But building inspectors are actually quite good at enforcing fire and life safety codes.

As I've posted before, I actually very much enjoy my life in CA. I'm lucky to be able to live a simple life on a nice piece of property thanks to the hard work of my parents and grandparents, as well as my wife's parents and grandparents. We're lucky. Fingers crossed that we won't get burned out.
Funny thing is we (firefighters) would rarely rely on those storage tanks for fighting a fire. I have seen maybe 1 in 100 that I would use. Most people don't keep them full because the water goes bad. Hell the city doesn't even keep their water storage tanks full unless the fire department forces them to (found that out the hard way).

Also when we had our fire in 2017 all 7000 homes lost needed to be rebuilt with sprinklers. A good portion of the water system wasn't large enough to support the sprinkler systems. So the city had to replace it all too.

To make matters worse we lost so many homes because the hydrants all went dry. Hydrants went dry because every house that burned down was the equivalent of free flowing every faucet in their house times 7000. Include another 200 commercial properties burning and some of them the size of Kmart with 8 inch risers, all free flowing water. Now that each property can flow more water, the loss of each home is more taxing on the water system if the situation was to happen again. This making it harder to put out.

The sprinkler is great to keep your stove fire in check. It's useless to prevent the massive lost of homes in a wildland fire. In fact they can be counter productive to saving homes in that situation.
 
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Funny thing is we (firefighters) would rarely rely on those storage tanks for fighting a fire. I have seen maybe 1 in 100 that I would use. Most people don't keep them full because the water goes bad. Hell the city doesn't even keep their water storage tanks full unless the fire department forces them to (found that out the hard way).

Also when we had our fire in 2017 all 7000 homes lost needed to be rebuilt with sprinklers. A good portion of the water system wasn't large enough to support the sprinkler systems. So the city had to replace it all too.

To make matters worse we lost so many homes because the hydrants all went dry. Hydrants went dry because every house that burned down was the equivalent of free flowing every faucet in their house times 7000. Include another 200 commercial properties burning and some of them the size of Kmart with 8 inch risers, all free flowing water. Now that each property can flow more water, the loss of each home is more taxing on the water system if the situation was to happen again. This making it harder to put out.

The sprinkler is great to keep your stove fire in check. It's useless to prevent the massive lost of homes in a wildland fire. In fact they can be counter productive to saving homes in that situation.
You always bring solid knowledge, thoughts, and facts to a discussion. Always great when you chime in. ?
 
Funny thing is we (firefighters) would rarely rely on those storage tanks for fighting a fire. I have seen maybe 1 in 100 that I would use. Most people don't keep them full because the water goes bad. Hell the city doesn't even keep their water storage tanks full unless the fire department forces them to (found that out the hard way).

Also when we had our fire in 2017 all 7000 homes lost needed to be rebuilt with sprinklers. A good portion of the water system wasn't large enough to support the sprinkler systems. So the city had to replace it all too.

To make matters worse we lost so many homes because the hydrants all went dry. Hydrants went dry because every house that burned down was the equivalent of free flowing every faucet in their house times 7000. Include another 200 commercial properties burning and some of them the size of Kmart with 8 inch risers, all free flowing water. Now that each property can flow more water, the loss of each home is more taxing on the water system if the situation was to happen again. This making it harder to put out.

The sprinkler is great to keep your stove fire in check. It's useless to prevent the massive lost of homes in a wildland fire. In fact they can be counter productive to saving homes in that situation.
I think the home sprinkler issue, if you were to dig deep was probably driven by lobbyist for the sprinkler companies. Follow the money and find out who stands to profit if these things are passed. Sac Metro fire told me that it saves lives! I told them, I thought that's what smoke detectors and windows were for. The last number I knew said that it added roughly seven grand to the cost of a new build. Such bullshit.
It's kind of like the whole plastic shopping bag fiasco. I'm sure if you follow that money trail it was actually the grocery stores who put the lobbyist up to get that passed to save money on their bags. We still have plastic bags, you just have to pay for them now.
 
To expand on the sprinkler issue further, 3 years ago I did an addition that was more than 50% of the square footage of my house. Going over the 50% threshold required me to sprinkle the original part of the house and the new construction portion. I told the fire department there's got to be a way around it. After pressing them several times they said there was. I had to have a water company do a hydrant flow test. The hydrant based on their calculations had to flow more than 2,000 gallons a minute in order for me to get an exemption from sprinklers. So the fee for the flow test was $393 to SAC Metro fire and $500 to Cal American water. The lady at SAC Metro fire said the hydrant had to flow at a rate of 2,000 gallons of minutes sustained for 2 hours. I said wait a minute, I'm going to pay the water department to come out and open a hydrant for 2 hours and let the water run? She said that's how they have to figure it out. I said do you understand that is 240,000 gallons of water out in the ditch just to flow to waste. Again she said that's how they have to test it. I said that's crazy and paid her my fees. When I contacted Cal American water to pay them their fee and set up a time to have them run the test I told them to let me know so I could be there to watch it. Guy says we don't necessarily know when it's going to be so we can't tell you. Interestingly enough on their application for the flow test it asked how much the hydrant needed to flow in order to make the fire department happy. I wrote down 2,000 gallons a minute sustained for 2 hours. I was in the area around the time that the test supposedly took place. I never saw the test or the remnants of 240,000 gallons of water in the ditches around my house. When the report came back though interestingly enough they said the hydrant flowed at 2050 gallons a minute. Wow just 50 gallons more than what I needed. Shocking. What a scam.
 
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To expand on the sprinkler issue further, 3 years ago I did an addition that was more than 50% of the square footage of my house. Going over the 50% threshold required me to sprinkle the original part of the house and the new construction portion. I told the fire department there's got to be a way around it. After pressing them several times they said there was. I had to have a water company do a hydrant flow test. The hydrant based on their calculations had to flow more than 2,000 gallons a minute in order for me to get an exemption from sprinklers. So the fee for the flow test was $393 to SAC Metro fire and $500 to Cal American water. The lady at SAC Metro fire said the hydrant had to flow at a rate of 2,000 gallons of minutes sustained for 2 hours. I said wait a minute, I'm going to pay the water department to come out and open a hydrant for 2 hours and let the water run? She said that's how they have to figure it out. I said do you understand that is 240,000 gallons of water out in the ditch just to flow to waste. Again she said that's how they have to test it. I said that's crazy and paid her my fees. When I contacted Cal American water to pay them their fee and set up a time to have them run the test I told them to let me know so I could be there to watch it. Guy says we don't necessarily know when it's going to be so we can't tell you. Interestingly enough on their application for the flow test it asked how much the hydrant needed to flow in order to make the fire department happy. I wrote down 2,000 gallons a minute sustained for 2 hours. I was in the area around the time that the test supposedly took place. I never saw the test or the remnants of 240,000 gallons of water in the ditches around my house. When the report came back though interestingly enough they said the hydrant flowed at 2050 gallons a minute. Wow just 50 gallons more than what I needed. Shocking. What a scam.
I have no good answers for you other than to say I have never seen or done a flow test that free flows that much water. All of the tests use math to determine flow based on pressure (static and dynamic) and orifice size.

I know for a fact that even if your hydrant could sustain that flow the Sac Metro engine couldn't actually pump that much. I do our pump testing and from a draft they probably flow a bit over 1500gpm and off a hydrant I can usually flow in the 1800-1900 range before it cavitates.

Also you can't free flow that much water into a storm drain if it's chlorinated. Fish and game would be pissed.

The fire prevention kick got started after a 1973 report called "America's Burning" and what came of it was sprinklers and detectors specifically for large occupancy buildings. This change reduced civilian fire deaths by 50% and firefighter deaths by 25%. From there it got legs and now everything has sprinklers and alarms.

People are so used to alarms now that they ignore them. I went to a 14 story building for an alarm the other day. After taking the stairs to the 10th floor (alarm indicated smoke detector activation on that floor) I found half the people still in their apartments. Fortunately it was a false alarm, 99% of these calls are malfunctions or false alarms (cooking, steam, someone decided to clean a detector).

On the flip side for residential we get called all the time because their smoke detector single beeping once every 30 seconds. The directions on the back indicate that this means it has a dying battery.....

I can go on and on......
 
I have no good answers for you other than to say I have never seen or done a flow test that free flows that much water. All of the tests use math to determine flow based on pressure (static and dynamic) and orifice size.

I know for a fact that even if your hydrant could sustain that flow the Sac Metro engine couldn't actually pump that much. I do our pump testing and from a draft they probably flow a bit over 1500gpm and off a hydrant I can usually flow in the 1800-1900 range before it cavitates.

Also you can't free flow that much water into a storm drain if it's chlorinated. Fish and game would be pissed.

The fire prevention kick got started after a 1973 report called "America's Burning" and what came of it was sprinklers and detectors specifically for large occupancy buildings. This change reduced civilian fire deaths by 50% and firefighter deaths by 25%. From there it got legs and now everything has sprinklers and alarms.

People are so used to alarms now that they ignore them. I went to a 14 story building for an alarm the other day. After taking the stairs to the 10th floor (alarm indicated smoke detector activation on that floor) I found half the people still in their apartments. Fortunately it was a false alarm, 99% of these calls are malfunctions or false alarms (cooking, steam, someone decided to clean a detector).

On the flip side for residential we get called all the time because their smoke detector single beeping once every 30 seconds. The directions on the back indicate that this means it has a dying battery.....

I can go on and on......
One of the worst things about modern houses is that they're built and furnished with materials that burn like pine pitch wood, fast and hot! Change that, and there's more time for people to get out.

As I understand it, residential sprinklers were driven by insurance companies. It'll be interesting to see where they stand after so many water damage claims. From improper pipe fitting, kids throwing the football around and breaking a head, freezing, there's a lot of ways plastic sprinkler systems can fail. Time will tell.

I've seen commercial systems do some real good. Especially in the case of completely saving a historical building from certain destruction.

Of course wildfire is an entirely different animal. I never considered the loss of the entire municipal water system due to all the quickly melted risers. What a full-on grand scale failure.

Were we talking about trucks or something? ?
 
What’s up gents? I’m in Auburn. My truck “should” be here next month.
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For those of you who think that Potato is exaggerating, he's not. Every single thing he said in his post is exactly true. I've done several big building additions to my different homes over the years in California and they make it impossible. If you try to do it yourself and you're not a licensed contractor, they give you an extra hard time, such as myself. I have all the knowledge and skills to do it but they want to make life difficult for you. Sacramento county building department is the worst. The things like he has posted in this post and the liberal politics that have ruined this state are reasons that I moved to Missouri. I'm currently building a 50x80 shop, then a new house on my 40 acre parcel. There is no building department, so therefore there is no building permit required. No inspections, no fire sprinklers, no cool roofs, and no storm water catch basins required. I am fortunate that I was able to get out before they started taxing my exit. I could go on and on and on, but I won't. I just look out everyday at my lush green view and my pond, while thinking to myself how fortunate my wife and I are to leave at a relatively young age. When I'm not building, I'm fishing and shooting. I can walk right out of my temporary home (travel trailer) and start shooting, no cops come and I can basically own whatever guns I want. LOVE it here!
I've heard a lot of good things about Missouri lately.
 
Anyone have a suspension shop they'd trust to install a Carli system in the North Bay?

We seem to be in a Carli-desert up here. This is their map of installers:

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Has anyone worked with Devil Mountain Diesel or Extreme Motorsports in East Bay?
 
Three NorCal Tremor sightings in less than 30 minutes!
All three in Brentwood as I was driving thru town making a few stops.
1. Medium Grey Tremor parked next to a boat at a converted gas station turned into a tire/wheel shop on Brentwood Blvd.
2. Silver Tremor on traveling Brentwood Blvd.
3. Black Tremor waiting to make a left turn from Balfour Rd onto Walnut.

All three were awesome looking trucks! It’s nice to see more of them in the area these days!

Any of them members here? Residents of the area?

As a side-note:
I’ve been an aluminum can recycler (and of course, plastic bottles since they came into existence) my whole life since I was a Cub Scout. Our area Cubs had an aluminum can recycling contest to raise funds in which the winner won an official Boy Scout knife. I was determined to get that knife! My grandfather, who was a Marine in WWII and Korea as well as becoming my “father” by taking me in at 6 months old and raised me into adulthood, was a plumbing contractor for 42 years and that Christmas was given a commercial grade dishwasher as an extra bonus from the owner of the company and we still had the box for it, so I set a goal to fill that box on my own in an attempt to win that knife! Well, I not only filled that dishwasher with crushed cans, but two additional Medium size boxes as well! I still remember that morning when we all met at the school parking lot prior to taking them to the recycling center to see who won the knife. When we pulled in and everyone there saw that huge dishwasher box full of cans in the back of my grandfathers plumbing truck, they couldn’t believe their eyes! Most of the Cubs had a few paper bags full of cans. There might have been a half dozen with a medium size box or two, but no one else had anything close to what I had! Needless to say, I won that knife!

The moral of that story is that Scouting put the bug Into my head and what started out as a simple fund raising contest turned into a lifetime of can and bottle recycling! I find it hard to toss a can or bottle in the trash and even to this day, when we are traveling in our vehicle our motorhome and even the boat, every can or bottle that we start the trip with gets returned with us and eventually makes its way to the recycling center.
I use to always use my commuter Ranger to take the cans and bottles to recycling, but since I retired, I now use the Tremor to take them. You should see the looks that I get driving it into the recycling facility, which is always full of people with a few garbage bags and/or boxes. Most people laugh, and even a few sneer! 😳 At times, I feel bad when I see parents with their kids there that obviously look like they need the recycling money to put food on the table. I don’t recycle for the money and I’m not a tree-hugger. I recycle because thanks to Scouting, it has become a part of me. Quite often, when I see folks, especially with kids, instead of cashing in with my Tremor full (Literally) of cans and bottles, I give folks most of my bags of cans and bottles and I just turn In what I have in my four rolling Rubbermaid trash bins that have never seen any trash in them.
Just cans and bottles... 😉
 
Anyone have a suspension shop they'd trust to install a Carli system in the North Bay?

We seem to be in a Carli-desert up here. This is their map of installers:

View attachment 29808

Has anyone worked with Devil Mountain Diesel or Extreme Motorsports in East Bay?
I have not used any of these places but this is what I know of:

They probably won't be cheap but they have to be the most technically proficient in town.

There is a west coast diesel that just opened on sebastopol road in Santa Rosa. No idea if they even do the work but almost every truck that comes out of their is lifted. I think you get a free flat bill hat with every truck.

There is a 4wheel parts on Santa Rosa Ave but I have had bad experiences with the one in Sacramento so I have always steered clear of them.

Let me know what you find.
 
Three NorCal Tremor sightings in less than 30 minutes!
All three in Brentwood as I was driving thru town making a few stops.
1. Medium Grey Tremor parked next to a boat at a converted gas station turned into a tire/wheel shop on Brentwood Blvd.
2. Silver Tremor on traveling Brentwood Blvd.
3. Black Tremor waiting to make a left turn from Balfour Rd onto Walnut.

All three were awesome looking trucks! It’s nice to see more of them in the area these days!

Any of them members here? Residents of the area?

As a side-note:
I’ve been an aluminum can recycler (and of course, plastic bottles since they came into existence) my whole life since I was a Cub Scout. Our area Cubs had an aluminum can recycling contest to raise funds in which the winner won an official Boy Scout knife. I was determined to get that knife! My grandfather, who was a Marine in WWII and Korea as well as becoming my “father” by taking me in at 6 months old and raised me into adulthood, was a plumbing contractor for 42 years and that Christmas was given a commercial grade dishwasher as an extra bonus from the owner of the company and we still had the box for it, so I set a goal to fill that box on my own in an attempt to win that knife! Well, I not only filled that dishwasher with crushed cans, but two additional Medium size boxes as well! I still remember that morning when we all met at the school parking lot prior to taking them to the recycling center to see who won the knife. When we pulled in and everyone there saw that huge dishwasher box full of cans in the back of my grandfathers plumbing truck, they couldn’t believe their eyes! Most of the Cubs had a few paper bags full of cans. There might have been a half dozen with a medium size box or two, but no one else had anything close to what I had! Needless to say, I won that knife!

The moral of that story is that Scouting put the bug Into my head and what started out as a simple fund raising contest turned into a lifetime of can and bottle recycling! I find it hard to toss a can or bottle in the trash and even to this day, when we are traveling in our vehicle our motorhome and even the boat, every can or bottle that we start the trip with gets returned with us and eventually makes its way to the recycling center.
I use to always use my commuter Ranger to take the cans and bottles to recycling, but since I retired, I now use the Tremor to take them. You should see the looks that I get driving it into the recycling facility, which is always full of people with a few garbage bags and/or boxes. Most people laugh, and even a few sneer! 😳 At times, I feel bad when I see parents with their kids there that obviously look like they need the recycling money to put food on the table. I don’t recycle for the money and I’m not a tree-hugger. I recycle because thanks to Scouting, it has become a part of me. Quite often, when I see folks, especially with kids, instead of cashing in with my Tremor full (Literally) of cans and bottles, I give folks most of my bags of cans and bottles and I just turn In what I have in my four rolling Rubbermaid trash bins that have never seen any trash in them.
Just cans and bottles... 😉
I'm in the neighboring town of Mountain House... :)
 
I'm in the neighboring town of Mountain House... :)
Nice!👍

I was one of the voters that voted to approve the developments there in Mtn House back in the early 80’s.

It’s nice to see the road construction on J-4 finishing up what was started there years ago!

We have quite a few friends and former co-workers (we’re now retired) that make the commute into the Bay Area along 205/580 each day. Those are some really nice homes there!
 
new member here, I have got a 2021 F250 Tremor Lariat, out of the Fresno area. Also drive a 2019 GT350R. Any one close to me?
 
Three NorCal Tremor sightings in less than 30 minutes!
All three in Brentwood as I was driving thru town making a few stops.
1. Medium Grey Tremor parked next to a boat at a converted gas station turned into a tire/wheel shop on Brentwood Blvd.
2. Silver Tremor on traveling Brentwood Blvd.
3. Black Tremor waiting to make a left turn from Balfour Rd onto Walnut.

All three were awesome looking trucks! It’s nice to see more of them in the area these days!

Any of them members here? Residents of the area?

As a side-note:
I’ve been an aluminum can recycler (and of course, plastic bottles since they came into existence) my whole life since I was a Cub Scout. Our area Cubs had an aluminum can recycling contest to raise funds in which the winner won an official Boy Scout knife. I was determined to get that knife! My grandfather, who was a Marine in WWII and Korea as well as becoming my “father” by taking me in at 6 months old and raised me into adulthood, was a plumbing contractor for 42 years and that Christmas was given a commercial grade dishwasher as an extra bonus from the owner of the company and we still had the box for it, so I set a goal to fill that box on my own in an attempt to win that knife! Well, I not only filled that dishwasher with crushed cans, but two additional Medium size boxes as well! I still remember that morning when we all met at the school parking lot prior to taking them to the recycling center to see who won the knife. When we pulled in and everyone there saw that huge dishwasher box full of cans in the back of my grandfathers plumbing truck, they couldn’t believe their eyes! Most of the Cubs had a few paper bags full of cans. There might have been a half dozen with a medium size box or two, but no one else had anything close to what I had! Needless to say, I won that knife!

The moral of that story is that Scouting put the bug Into my head and what started out as a simple fund raising contest turned into a lifetime of can and bottle recycling! I find it hard to toss a can or bottle in the trash and even to this day, when we are traveling in our vehicle our motorhome and even the boat, every can or bottle that we start the trip with gets returned with us and eventually makes its way to the recycling center.
I use to always use my commuter Ranger to take the cans and bottles to recycling, but since I retired, I now use the Tremor to take them. You should see the looks that I get driving it into the recycling facility, which is always full of people with a few garbage bags and/or boxes. Most people laugh, and even a few sneer! 😳 At times, I feel bad when I see parents with their kids there that obviously look like they need the recycling money to put food on the table. I don’t recycle for the money and I’m not a tree-hugger. I recycle because thanks to Scouting, it has become a part of me. Quite often, when I see folks, especially with kids, instead of cashing in with my Tremor full (Literally) of cans and bottles, I give folks most of my bags of cans and bottles and I just turn In what I have in my four rolling Rubbermaid trash bins that have never seen any trash in them.
Just cans and bottles... 😉
don’t have mine just yet but will soon be driving it around BrentHood!
 
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