We went to a house-warming today. At some point in the evening, Mike found a small instruction booklet for a stud-finder, and asked, "What's this?"
The Canadians were amazed. "You mean you've never seen one of these before?"
And so, the host dug out his stud-finder for Mike to play with.
For the Singaporeans, a stud finder is a handheld device used to determine the location of framing studs used in light-frame (wood) construction after the walls have been installed. The houses in Canada tend to be made of wood, and so, if you want to hang something heavy, you would need to drill right into those studs for adequate support. Most of the interior walls are gypsum boards and a hole drilled into those boards can't hold too much weight.
I found it particularly funny because at that point, everyone was standing around in the basement, talking about their own stud-finder and differences in house architecture between various countries.
In Singapore, most people stay in flats (apartments) and those are made from concrete. Even houses are built with concrete. Mostly. Adequate support for hanging up stuff is not the problem -- an adequate drill is, especially with the newer, taller flats that have many reinforced concrete pillars. Mike knows from personal experience that most consumer-level drills are not enough for reinforced concrete; you'd need a professional grade pneumatic hammer drill for that. However, concrete is too cold for Canada's weather, and wood is a better choice for building material. The host, who was from Australia, commented that most houses there are made from bricks and a wooden house is generally considered of poorer quality.
Googling online, wood is five times more insulating than brick, and 12.5 times more than concrete. R-value is a measure of heat conductivity, and wood has an R value of 1. Brick has an R-value of 0.2, and concrete 0.08.
Thus, we learned something new tonight.
The Canadians were amazed. "You mean you've never seen one of these before?"
And so, the host dug out his stud-finder for Mike to play with.
For the Singaporeans, a stud finder is a handheld device used to determine the location of framing studs used in light-frame (wood) construction after the walls have been installed. The houses in Canada tend to be made of wood, and so, if you want to hang something heavy, you would need to drill right into those studs for adequate support. Most of the interior walls are gypsum boards and a hole drilled into those boards can't hold too much weight.
I found it particularly funny because at that point, everyone was standing around in the basement, talking about their own stud-finder and differences in house architecture between various countries.
In Singapore, most people stay in flats (apartments) and those are made from concrete. Even houses are built with concrete. Mostly. Adequate support for hanging up stuff is not the problem -- an adequate drill is, especially with the newer, taller flats that have many reinforced concrete pillars. Mike knows from personal experience that most consumer-level drills are not enough for reinforced concrete; you'd need a professional grade pneumatic hammer drill for that. However, concrete is too cold for Canada's weather, and wood is a better choice for building material. The host, who was from Australia, commented that most houses there are made from bricks and a wooden house is generally considered of poorer quality.
Googling online, wood is five times more insulating than brick, and 12.5 times more than concrete. R-value is a measure of heat conductivity, and wood has an R value of 1. Brick has an R-value of 0.2, and concrete 0.08.
Thus, we learned something new tonight.
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