In floor drains in the arc

Yesterday while I was in a meeting all day, Ben and Jay did a lot of experimenting and work on the drains in the arc. When we poured the floor we put in 1 1/2 inch pvc pipe just under the concrete. When we got around to cutting a groove into them, we ran into a few problems.

The pipe moved when the concrete was poured, which made the groove not line up with the pipe. Next time we'll fasten it down better. The first groove we cut had to be widened because of that making an ugly inch wide chasm of a drain. Luckily we won't be looking at that one since it's at the bottom of a covered trench. (see below)

The thin concrete on top of the pipe cracked a bunch. The second groove we tried to cut ended up throwing all sorts of chips up making an ugly mess. In addition, doing one long continuous groove allowed the pipe to vibrate, which allowed pebbles and grit to get between the pipe and the wall, which caused the groove in the pipe to get squeezed closed in some places.

To fix that, our boys stuck cardboard shims in the groove and then filled the rest with concrete patch. It was very difficult smoothing the concrete patch.

It worked, though, and when the cardboard was removed, the drain grooves looked like this.

This was better, but still wasn't smooth and pretty.

On the third drain, in the second trench, the just did plunge cuts into the pipe. This has the advantage of not allowing the pipe to flex and get pebbles behind it. It also looks better because you don't have the one long cut that inevitable isn't perfectly straight. If these short plunges aren't perfectly in line, it's harder to tell.

The fourth drain was one that had many cracks. This time they spackled the cracks up with concrete pat

ch first, let it dry, and then did the plunge cuts. That worked nicely.

They followed the same approach on the last one, too.

In the future we'd modify the approach in a few ways.

1. Put chicken wire or hardware cloth over the pipes to keep the concrete from cracking
2. Cut the grooves before the concrete fully sets - like the next day after pouring.

Now we'll see if the grooves work well for draining and not clogging too bad.

Craig Gilbertson

We met with Craig Gilbertson of Ayers and Associates about water processing. He is very experienced with sewer issues. Here Paul is showing him our latest solar panel design, too.

Web enabled logger and controller

Matthew is playing with a fun little web enabled controller that makes it really easy to controll things from a web interface.   Www.iobridge.com

Solar panel threaded fitting test

Wayne's Report:
Fitting test: The 10-32 threaded barb fitting will not seal properly in
the plastic without an o-ring. I tried increasing the torque to the
point where the fitting broke and the thread still leaked. With an o-ring
installed, the joint was leak free. However, the o-ring material that we
have seems too soft and may creep out over time. I am also worried that
the barb to hose interface will leak over time unless we provide an
additional hose clamp.
We will have to do more testing, but as of now, the procedure that uses
silicone to secure and seal the hose seems like the best solution.

End cap to twin wall seal: I cross-sectioned the test piece that we
constructed using the spreader tool technique. One end of the test panel
had both sides glued while the other had only one (that end must have been
the first one done). I examined the 11 test pieces and could not find any
joint where the glue did not spread across the entire sealing surface.
The interface looks very good. However, we do need to come up with a
tool or method of making a consistent glue bead.

Another pic

Safety presentation

We all attended a meeting/presentation by Stef and the safety committee

ARC-09 Meeting

*Priorities *

* -*** KEEP COST LOW***
* -On Campus
* -Small Foot prints
o Like Ikea
o 500 sq ft 1 bedroom
o 700 sq ft 2 bedroom
o 800 sq ft 3 bedroom
* Greenhouse -How much needed for growing

Dug's diagram
24X28 - 2 bedroom = 672 ft^2
4 foot greenhouse space=128 ft^2
Access by sliding doors into 4' greenhouse
Vertical wall VS. sloped greenhouse wall

1. Light in
2. Sealing
3. Heat Management
4. Storm resistance
5. Tendency to catch dirt, snow

-Moveable insulation on greenhouse

* Recycle water -How many sq ft
o Underfloor Tanks - under greenhouse
o Methane Tank 800 gallon methane digester - 100 cu ft =
4X4X8? - especially if heat storage 4 ft deep
o Fresh Water
o Greenhouse plants??
o Roughly 1500 gallons total system
* Thermal Plan
o High Passive House Standard
o Heat Storage
+ Underground wet sand - high performance
# Good Membrane
# Drain tile at bottom
# add water
# drain if it is too wet
# Area for root cellar
o Solar Capture
+ Solar Capture Area
# 4*28=128 sq ft on 60 degree front slope = 1/6
solar capture to floor space - more than arc-08
+ Solar Hot Water Panels
+ Hot Water Storage
* Air Handling
o

* Electrical Efficiency
o Solar PV?
o cook with methane
o PV&heat capture
o LED backup lighting
* Building Materials
o Foundation
+ Goes down 4 ft because of heat storage
+ ICFs or custom concrete forms
+ integrate water tanks under greenhouse
o Food Storage (root cellar)
+ near outside corner - or outside foot print
+ Need access from kitchen or pantry or garage
o Storm Shelter

So far: Lotsa' expense in the ground before any walls put up. How can
we do it cheaper?
Water bag under floor 1 foot deep = roughly 40 days of heat storage at
passive house
12 inches insulation underneath water bag
2 inches between bladder and house

Study for next time
Air handling
economical, trustworthy water tanks

What about making the ARC by scraping the ground flat and then building
up with foam, set in some water tanks, and then make a wood floor above it?
but, still buying tanks

Dug's arc sketch

See next post on arc discussion

Irrigation parts

Dug and Paul are playing with their new drip irrigation parts.

Movable insulation for windows

Brainstorming
Target:  R20  - 4 inches of foam
South Windows R5
Other Windows R10-15

two targets:  Future ARCs and Mani Greenhouse

Basic approaches:
Rigid - Rolltop desk/ garage door
Rigid, move like a door or moving wall
Rigid, Fanfold - vertical/horizontal
Rigid Bifold Hangar door
Shutters that track the sun so they don't make shadows
Shutters that open w/ reflective inside surface - horizontal or vertical

Compressible roll-up type - polyester hollow fill fibers -Outdoor fabrics
Multi-layers of film with springy spacers
Inflatable  -actuation and insulation - hard to get R values

Fluid type - blowing insulation beads, fibers, etc
Bubbles-



Inside VS Outside

Cold Glass is an issue - outside mounting is better
Thermal shock issue
Frost on cold glass if inside air can get to it
Weather on outside - wind, water, rain, ice, etc

Dark colored outside to help melt ice in tracks, etc


If whole surface is puffy, the whole surface is a gasket making it more tolerant of flaws

In between glazing?
Requires maintenance eventually.
"Fluid" type

Good outside one may apply to any window


Original Mani Greenhouse plan
-Pleated inflatable filled with polyester hollow fill
-Not touching the glazing
-Air tight joints and material
-Vacuum retracted
-Magnetic Gaskets



Points for:
-Partially openable
-Low maintenance - fewer mechanisms
-Any tracks should be hard to foul

Window glazing spacings

Great link

http://www.spectragases.com/content/upload/AssetMgmt/technical%20data/IP%20R-value%20(colour).pdf

Tensile Ring Keyhole Garden

Today I tried out two ideas that I've been excited about: Tensile ring ring raised bed garden and a Keyhole Garden.

The Tensile Ring part is that it is help up by a mesh or fence in a round shape. Almost nothing else is needed. This round raised bed should be small enough to reach the center from the edge.

Keyhole gardens are neat raised bed gardens with the following features:

• Layers of mulch and fertilizer under the soil to act as sponges for moisture and provide nutrients as they compost
• A compost basket right in the center - because of the spongy layers of mulch you can water the whole bed right from the center and the moisture easily wicks out. Then, as the compost breaks down the nutrients leach into the bed with the water.

Here is my tensile ring. I started with 6 stakes. I sat in the center of where I wanted it and placed the first two stakes at my arm's reach on both sides. Then rotated and did the next two, etc. Then I took 21 feet of 2 foot wide chicken wire, folded it in half to make it only one foot wide.
Then I just ran it around the stakes and bent the wires together where they overlapped.
Improvement: Use a square mesh fencing that won't stretch as easy.




To keep the dirt in, I stacked up flakes from rotten hay bales around the perimeter. I might also use straw, or landscaping fabric. Making a product out of 12" pieces of cedar screwed to 2 strips of galvanized steel may worth a try, too. Or silt fence material and stakes. But rotten hay is what I have lying around my yard at the moment, so that's what I experimented with.



Then I put the mulch/moisture sponge layer down. More rotten hay - about4 bales, then some highly rotten logs and the black soil from under them, and some leaves from our leaf pile and some leaves from the driveway. Over time these will break down and settle, but then we'll just have to add some more on top, I guess. I would have loved to get some manure for this job, too, but it wouldn't fit in the budget this time.



Then i started adding the black dirt (we happen to have a few yards of that in a pile from a the last raised beds we did). After adding a bit, I decided to fill in with another bale, too.



After many wheelbarrow loads, it started to look heaped like this. Note to self: next time place these beds where I can get at them with a bobcat. You can see the previous generation of raised bed gardens in this picture, too. I can say that the round one was much less expensive than the cedar ones.



In the following picture you can see where the compost will be dumped in the center. I don't know if it will be quite large enough, but there wil probably be a couple more of these along with some chickens and bunnies to split the compost amongst.



I needed something to make a basket for the compost so it didn't just sit in a dirt recess. The whole weaving a basket from grape vines didn't work out in time, so I went with an old standby - firewood. Below is the firewood lined compost pit.



And now, the same thing complete with compost. As I was raking the dirt smooth, it was very convenient to grab the roots and grass out of the dirt and through them right in the center. It'll make weeding nicer to be able to do that.



A thing of beauty to behold, it quickly attracts admirers. Rowdy hooligans.


This is to show the prifile of the side. The chicken wire is too easy to stretch, so we're getting some bulging except for where the straight wire runs through it. I will probably end up ringing the whole thing with square mesh soon, and maybe landscaping fabric, too, to give it a nicer look. If I was wealthy with rocks, I would build a dry stacked rock wall around it. At only 12" high, that could be quick and easy.


Components:

• 21 ft of 24" wide chicken wire - approx $5 worth
• 6 stakes - scraps from garage
• 5 rotten hay bales - siting around the yard
• leaf compost, rotten logs - perimeter of yard
• 1 to 2 yards black dirt, sitting in a pile from a few years ago
• 8 pieces of firewood - sitting around
  

Total cost: Approx $5 in materials
Total time: 3 hours

Seems easy and enjoyable. I'll keep you posted on how it is to use.

Arc floor drain notes

Made the first cuts for the floor drains today.  Some things we learned
1.  The pipes may not be straight, so remember to fasten them securely or put screws in as markers more often.
2.  The curf is pretty thin and the concrete cracks a lot.
Next time cut the curf before the concrete dries and cracks there.  Or make the groove in the pipe before hand with a rubber piece sticking up.

Range hood for old main

Temperature control experiments

I tried making a temp controlled box for yogurt making or egg incubating.  The goal is to come up with a cheap way to make a box hold about 100F.  I tried with a water heater thermostat and had some luck, but the temperature swing was about 80 to 125 F.  It would probably be better in a system with a longer time constant so the insides of the thermostat could stay closer to equilibrium with the box being controlled.
Then I tried the industrial controller.  It cost about $50 new and has a self tuning PID control algorithm.  It maintains the temp to within a degree or two.  However, the type K thermocouple seems to read different from the others.  In fact, all 3 seem to read a few degrees different.  So now we are trying to figure out how to get a real accurate temperature reference to calibrate to.

Plumb Crazy

The backbone of the garden irrigation system is in place and working.  The birdhouse went in place on Friday.  That piece of plumbing has many features:
  Extra hose spigot
  Check valve
  Valve to be air inlet for blowing out lines
  Vacuum breaker
  Main valve for turning off irrigation line
  1 1/2 inch line

Then we installed blazing saddle fittings on the pipe to run the hoses or drip lines from wherever they are needed.

Methane tanks

Putting the first two methane tanks next to eachother

Mongolia?

Matthew and Paul discussing a new project to explore what application or knowledge might have in Mongolia. 

Irrigation birdhouses

First birdhouse to shelter plumbing in the garden

Pictures

Latest projects

Birdhouses for irrigation timers

Better organization

Irrigation pipes and plumbing

Flashing around ARC08

Heavy duty plastic caps for methane generating tanks

And a computer model of a solar panel test jig

Pictures of siphon maintainer

From blueprint to hardware store to prototype.

Vacuum assisted siphon for small planting bins

We spent much of wednesday working on an idea to help make the plant beds out of individual, liftable sized tubs of water or soil. It would be convenient to leave the tubs unmodified and leak proof by connecting them via siphon. These siphons would need to be actively maintained, though. While we are still not sure if that makes sense int eh bigger picture, we are more confident that it is doable for about $10 in hardware store parts.

Methane tanks started

We started the methane tanks today.  Key features include:
-incoming pass through fitting to avoid spillage
-adjustable float level
-incoming line foot at the bottom with large openings.

Yet to be added is an additional 2 inch port for future use.

More destruction -minus the mayhem

We tested the gluing strength on the corner caps to see if the new geometry or techniques make any version noticeably better than another.
In the four tests we found that the first three failed very quickly at 57 l bs.  Then the fourth failed after about 45 minutes under 40 lbs load.  A fifth test with 20 lbs was still ongoing when I left.
There was little difference in strength, but the tapered ones still have better gluing coverage.

Paul.