Solar Village 2010

Steps For Building a Solar Structure

Review of concept to date:

• CEB walls
• Straw bale infill between 2 wall cavities
• House-integrated CEB stove
• Thermaclear or Solexx glazing
• Structure similar to but solar cover extends from green roof
• Greenspace
• Green roof
• Trellis for solar shade in summer
  • Trellis is covered partly with roofing material with solar angle to allow for solar gain only in winter
  • Rest of trellis will be growing grapes
• Composting toilet
• CEB floor
• Side space covered for rooftop rainwater catchment and CEB water cistern
• Planter in front and sides - zone 0 plantings in planter
  • Keyhole garden

Steps

1. Site prep - flatten site with front loader and blade
   1. Build blade
   2. Build LifeTrac II
   3. Build sawmill
2. Building material prep
   1. Rollers
   2. Sawmilling in July
   3. Truss preparation
   4. Test stabilized bricks
   5. Test reject lime-cement bricks?#Initial experiments with
   6. Air-powered water pump

Summary: May will be heavy equipment building time, and June-July will be shakedown of all the building equipment, techniques, water system and site prep, and production of materials (lumber, brick, mortar). August 1 - house is going up.

Uniqueness summary: LifeTrac II, Sawmill, Air powered water pump, CEB stove, CEB floor, OS blade, PowerCube II, CEB-Straw Bale hybrid

Timeline

• April 15-30 - Dimensional Sawmill Prototype design
  • Assuming 1 CEB presss production
• May 1-31 - Build LifeTrac II, PowerCube II, build Sawmill, build leveling blade, build LifeTrac wheel tracks if budget allows
• June - July - Cut lumber, test stabilized and lime bricks, do the well pump and prepare water lines, site preparation, build trusses, prepare brick rollers
  • Test whether water-sraying between courses works (so called 'dry stacking'), or, prepare slurry mixing equipment (either 55 gal drum or 200 gal container)