Construction Director

Introduction

We are looking for a director of the construction and infrastructure aspects of Factor e Farm. This role involves construction, utility infrastructure, site planning, site maintenance, and furnishing of Factor e Farm.

Basic Terms

• Must live on-site at Factor e Farm (accommodations are provided, applicant covers their own food)
• Full time commitment (no outside jobs or telecommuting unless specifically negotiated)
• Applicant covers travel to and from FeF
• Applicant covers their own insurance needs
• Semi-monthly blog posting on the Factor e Farm Blog according to FeF Blogging Standards
• Financial compensation based on experience and culture fit
• Alignment with open source culture
• Openness to lifelong learning

Experience

Required Experience

• Professional (or equivalent) carpentry experience at the virtuoso or master level
• Experience with water utility infrastructure, plumbing
• Electrical and plumbing systems design and installation
• General contracting
• Pouring foundations
• Septic system and irrigation system installation
• Construction equipment operation and maintenance - tractors, skid steers, backhoe, etc.
• Ability to read architectural blueprints
• Surveying and leveling

Desired Experience

• Passive solar design
• Natural building methods
• CEB or adobe construction experience
• House design
• Steel construction
• Site design
• Architectural drafting
• Interior design
• Experience in heavy machine operation
• Pattern Language recognition
• Basic working proficiency in technical drafting or CAD
  • Reading fabrication drawings
• Basic mechanical design/machine design skills
• Teaching experience
• Pond design and digging

Duties

• Designs and builds a wide range of structures within the built environment - including living, working, agriculture, energy, space heating and other infrastructures
• Installs electrical and water system infrastructure.
• Works with Floyd Hagerman on technology transfer of CEB Contrstruction methods
• Assists FeF documentation team in producing instructional materials
• Writes scripts for construction instructionals

Details

Planned construction includes:

• 350 square foot microhouse on a week time-scale and $3000-5000 budget for shell structure including kitchen and bathroom
• Gains proficiency in Sawmill and forestry operations
• Works with GVCS equipment and provides feedback to related Product Directors on usability/development needs
• Experience in standard construction techniques is a baseline, but should be complemented with quick learning ability of nonstandard and natural building techniques
• Basic familiarity with equipment maintenance, repair, torching and welding is also desirable
• Construction management skills are required
• Required to cross train in basic fabrication/repair and other Core Cross-Training Tompetencies
• Documents progress openly with a daily log and vlog on the wiki using an automatic upload platform such as an Android smart phone.
• Interior house design using Sweet Home 3D
• Produces house design in Sketchup
• Rooftop water catchment cisterns and shallow well construction
• Digs and develops deep water wells
• Cross trains in Core Cross-Training Competencies

Long Term

Long term goals for the construction aspect of the GVCS includes ability to:

• Build a limestone firing kiln to produce hydrated lime.
• Demonstrate optimized CEB construction technique workflow for on-demand housing construction.
• Demonstrate state of art rainwater catchment using ozonation as key component of purification process
• Demonstrate greenwood gasification process at 98% efficiency for combined heat power purposes
• Demonstrate green roofs as an effective eco-roofing technique
• Include solar concentrator as part of combined heat and power system at under $1 per peak watt installed cost
• Demonstrate 50 kW wind turbine with open source tower technology
• Demonstrate arched, timbrel vault, Nubian vault, and corbeled arch construction for earthen roofs
• Demonstrate septic fertigation technique for wastewater treatment, and rooftop/well hybrid for freshwater
• Demonstrate open source well rig, open source cement mixer, and open source rebar production
• Demonstrate super-insulated homes with bioplastic glazing from onsite resources, including glass block from cullet
• Demonstrate biomass pellet-fueled construction machinery
• Demonstrate construction material costs at $1 per square foot by using $13k of equipment (starting from metal melting):
  • $2k bulldozer
  • $2k for two tractors/skid loaders
  • $1k CEB press
  • $1k sawmill
  • $500 cement mixer
  • $500 limestone kiln
  • $2k bioplastic extruder
  • $1k well rig
  • $500 soil pulverizer
  • $500 trencher
  • $1k wind turbine
  • $1k solar concentrator