Military Housing Ping
My wife was an AF brat at Ladd AFB (now Fort Wainwright) in Fairbanks, AK in the late 50’s/early 60’s in on-base housing, those two-story, long apartment building types. She said they were told it dated from WWII.
Her father was a Senior Master Sergeant so it was pretty nice, but she said they were responsible for repairs, painting, etc., though they were given the materials.
They were still in use when we visited in 1998, but were finally being replaced when we visited again in 2008.
Military housing is for those with higher rank and families.
Singles go to barracks for the most part unless they rent off base. We have 3 trailer parks most of the lower ranks rent there. 2-3 people depending on the size you want.
Barracks are old WW 2 era. And Nothing is cheap on the Navy base. You see more in Uniform at Walmart and Kroger’s.
An apartment complex in Southern CA near a Marine base tried to to rip me off on my deposit. I found out other complexes were doing this. Both unethical and illegal practices, particularly preying upon the Marines that moved frequently.
I called the base liaison officer and he basically said there was nothing he could do.
So nothing new, then. I recall the complaints and newspaper/TV stories about poor conditions in family housing on Fort Meade, MD ten years ago, when I lived nearby.
My company had just hired a retired Maj General (2 star) who was still living on Fort Meade. Even he complained about his quarters.
Major problem is code enforcement.
The civilian operated housing doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the military code enforcement any more, but since they are on military bases, they generally don;t fall under the jurisdiction of municipalities or county enforcement agencies.
Over time, regimentalism builds up when the civilian organizations and personnel outlast the military officer ranks overseeing their contracts.
Meanwhile, the contract oversight personnel aren’t architectural, engineering, nor construction oriented, so they don’t know what the codes require.
I’ve seen lots of construction actions by these housing contractors which would have had them removed from the industry by the state and OSHA for gross unsafe practice.
They also lack common sense.
Such as: Excavating with 24”dia auger, 10 ft deep, within 6” of underground Elec 12.47kV ductbanks and between secondary 480V UG conductors they threaded through existing irrigation handholes, only idetified by DigAlert, without drawings and only toning with over 12 different elec systems within a 20 ft swath of an utility easement. They hit one 4/0 UG conductor which had been buried in place and luckily had been abandoned and not energized at the time. Then they wanted to shift their excavation 6” to miss the conductor.
This was without any drawings, unapproved construction, digging in a utilities easement ROW without permission and even when denied. Utilities had been parked out, +/- 3to5 ft, and same Design-Build firm that now manages the housing failed to follow the design, didn’t mark underground utilities, was supposed to remove demo’d lines, but instead descoped the demolition and removal and abandoned the unmarked 12.47kV UG primary and 480V/208V secondary in place, skew to new 12.47kV primary conductors and 208V UG secondaries, then threaded the new UG elec through any handholes they found including irrigation control and CATV handholes along with their new adjacent Elec handholes.
So while the utility had to suit up in 40cal suits to test the circuit, to confirm the UG 4/0 conductor was de-energized, the contractor then simply buried the exposed conductor and back-bladed the site, then asked to shift his excavation 6” to 24” into 480V UG ductbanks.
Absolutely nuts. I’ve never seen anybody in construction so nonchalant regarding electrical safety hazards. Most people that stupid either avoid it altogether or become Darwin Award recipients.
Went through several tiers in a chain of command and it basically died out with no action since nobody was injured and nobody had funds to address.