Matthew Schwabauer Log
Contents
Saturday July 07, 2012
Thursday July 05, 2012
I got some planning done on the ceiling install. You can view the workplan google doc HERE I had to take a break from installing ceiling because we were having quality issues. It mostly arose from having different expectations for the work, and I will end up taking down some of the ceiling. These are mistakes and my fault, but Marcin and I were able to come to understanding why I went awry. I also researched and prepared to purchase a set of turbo shears which attach to a drill and make it easy to cut sheet metal. View them HERE
I did some plastering with Graham today -- 2 hours at 10SF/HR to mix and place.
Wednesday July 04, 2012
Afternoon Update: 1504
HabLab Ceiling
Got 2 Panels (14 ' x 4 ' x 2 ea = 112 SF) put up and insulated with Graham and some Greek help. We started at 1000, were done with the panels by the 1200 scrum and then got 112 CF of insulation installed in an hour. So today we did 112 SF / 7 PH = 16 SF / PH, twice our production of yesterday. It helped just having three hands to get the first two screws in, then two people could do the rest. We used the farm pickup to move a bunch of hay quickly from the pile to the East of the HabLab for quick access. It's 1500 and I plan to use the rest of my day to research the sawmill, with a chance of putting up another panel and installing insulation. At this rate, with our focus on the ceiling, it doesn't look like we'll have a room habitable by Friday, but we're still on course to have all four rooms done by July 21, chances are good we'll beat that schedule. I watched all the SAWMILL VIDEOS, now I need to see what's on the wiki and learn more. Also, the SawMill needs a lot of brush cleared from it, I might do that since I haven't run the weed wacker yet.
Personal Notes
I'm going to learn how to milk GoodCow tonight, which is pretty exciting and very practical cross-training. The local cat left a bunny in my room for breakfast this morning, I felt like being vegetarian and returned the carcass to the woods. It's hot as usual. I've been washing my laundry in the sink with Bronners, just rocking the merino shirts.
Vlog: 0800
Tuesday July 03, 2012
HabLab Ceiling
Graham and I, with some help from the Greeks installed 100SF (3 ea 17'x2') metal ceiling panels. This also included stuffing the annular space with straw and a sprinkling of borax to deter critters. This took about 13 person*hours. This makes almost 8SF/PH, we'll see if we can improve upon this. It takes three people to get the panels up, they're long, heavy, and awkward especially from a ladder. The straw stuffing was relatively easy work. We also stapled straw up prior to installing the metal. We're using some pretty light yet powerful Milwaukee cordless hand-drills. These drive the screws well, but it seems an important detail is to predrill holes through the metal. It was frustrating trying to drive the screws through the metal, it seems we would wobble and drop the screw three times for every successful penetration.
Personal Notes
Another very good day. It was nice getting some work done. Installing the ceiling panels was tough, and I was very tired by the time we got around to stuffing straw, but working with Graham was very pleasant. I also enjoyed a thorough conversation with the Greeks and it was nice getting to know them better, it's too bad for us they'll only be here for a month, they are good hands and minds. I made some sweet potatoes for dinner and continued on my PB Sandwich binge. I was working by 0800 again today, so that felt pretty good, it would be extremely pleasant to start earlier based on the lower temperatures, but it's tough to get to bed with so much awesome conversation drifting on till midnight typically in the HabLab. It was also super awesome getting GoodCow yesterday, she's a beauty and her milk is divine. I also learned about the medicinal uses of bentonite clay today.
Monday July 02, 2012
Takeaways from Meeting with Marcin
It was a very exciting meeting. We discussed my roles currently, my proposal, and my vision for long term developments including bootstrapping and distributed enterprise, most notably some sort of green building Chataqua. I am responsible not only for building a microhouse, but also managing the existing and future site infrastructure, this includes water, power, and housing. Priority one is still getting these four additional rooms built-out on the HabLab, but I also need to download from Brianna information regarding the power distrobution and water filtration. It's exciting. I will be regularly utilizing Flashy XM and the status log form to keep Marcin informed of my activities and progress. My schedule and to do list will also be integrated into the control panel so he can track progress of activities.
I was working by 0800 this morning, prior to my meeting with Marcin I got quite a bit of organizing done of construction materials including palletizing all our lumber and sheet metal. Graham and one of our new arrivals from the American Farm School helped and the rooms which we need to be working in are clearing up nicely. Graham is organizing some of the tools and materials in one of the rooms and using some extra CEBs to build a shelf to store extra gear.
I'm meeting at 1400 with Marcin and Gabi to discuss the survey operation. I had discussed a construction and material laydown yard with Graham this morning, perhaps that could be our first survey operation, creating a smooth pad with 2% slope to properly drain and give us space to store all of our materials which are currently being overrun by weeds in miscellaneous places around the HabLab. Just a thought, more long term we will need covered storage for what will hopefully be a nice stockpile of materials for many exciting building projects.
Other items from the meeting with Marcin include the fact that I need a cell-phone with video capabilities, I'm eyeing the Samsung Galaxy S III. I want an android phone with video and whatever other awesome features are out there these days. I'm meeting with Marcin at 0900 tomorrow, hopefully I'll have a solid plan for HabLab East construction to present. As we plan the microhouse I need to co-ordinate with Marshall to make sure the CEB press is ready to go.
I can also creating an into to survey wiki from the videos Marcin took in Texas. That's it for now, it's almost 1400. I'll try and get some pictures up of our construction materials organization. I had my 7th peanut butter sandwich in 48 hours, I can't wait for this land to start producing some food, Marcin and I also discussed money a bit and the idea of a chef. Anyways, everything is generally great, and I love this place!
Sunday July 01, 2012
This place is great! I am really glad to be here. I arrived yesterday afternoon and have done a combination of work and settling in. Today I did planning work for the ongoing HabLab construction. I've drafted up a drawing of the first room to be completed and have a pretty good handle on what we'll need to do. You can see the plan and profile i created for room one, dimensioning and sketches for window framing, and an inventory of building materials we currently have on site. My biggest unknown right now is the doors. We don't have any, they will probably be expensive to buy, and I'm pretty tempted to fab them ourselves. These doors will be between bedrooms and the outdoors so they need to be pretty insulated and heavy duty, also well sealed around the frame. We'll probably need to buy some hardware included hinges and gasket material.
I need to update my schedule. I'm meeting with Marcin tomorrow to discuss everything. Our conversation will involve this project a bit, but I think it will generally be on my shoulders and I don't need to bother him with questions like, "what should we do about the doors?" I can and should be making these decisions. On that specific note I'll do a pricing comparison between purchasing doors and fabbing them ourselves. I wonder if there is a salvaged building material store in KC? So back on track...I think the conversation between Marcin and I tomorrow will relate more to defining my role as "Construction Director". Per the job description "Construction Director - manages creation and maintenance of the built environment. Manages fiber crop planting. Directs natural building workshops. Experiments with building innovation." There was also another job description here which said...
- Works with Floyd Hagerman on technology transfer of CEB Contrstruction methods
- Utilizes assistance from FeF Documentor to produce related instructionals
- Writes scripts for construction instructionals
- Develops a process for building a 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
Anywhooooo, it's 12:22 am on Monday July 01, 2012, and at this point I better hit the hay so I can wake up early and get back at it. Much love ya'll :)
| Sheet Metal | |
| Size | QTY |
| 14'x3' | 2 |
| 17'x2' | 2 |
| 17'x3' | 6 |
| 18'x3' | 1 |
| DBL Pane Storm Windows | |
| 6'4" x 2'10" | 5 |
| 6'4" x 2'4" | 2 |
| Framed Windows | |
| 2'3" x 3'8" | 1 |
| Lexan | |
| 3'x4' | 8 |
| 2'x3' | 10 |
| DBL Lexan with Ribs | |
| 2'x3' | 8 |
| Carpet | |
| 18"x18" | 180 |
| Felt Board | |
| 8'x4' | 3 |
Monday June 25, 2012
I worked on a revised construction plan and schedule for the Four East Rooms of HabLab. This is a public google document available here. I've revised my thinking from working on all rooms simultaneously, and completing them all at the same time before July 21, it will be advantageous to work on the rooms one at a time, so that after the first week a room will become available every three days, and all will still be completed by the 21st. This will also let us perform all operations simultaneously and we can revise our methods and hopefully improve our performance on each room. Tracking our production rates will be an important part of developing effective plans and estimates for future construction work on Factor e Farm and elsewhere, so I'm setting up sheets on that spreadsheet linked above which will be ready to plug in the numbers for each day.
I also researched window framing a bit since that is something I don't have much experience with. It seems we will be able to make an effective "rough n ready" frame, even with hinges, without too much trouble out of 2x4s, some silicone, and some smaller wood strips and wood screws. The doors seem to be more of an open issue, the cheaper they can be acquired, the better. Perhaps there are construction salvaged yards in St. Joe or KC where doors can be had cheap. There's a Habitat for Humanity ReStore here in Lawrence which is quite useful for bargain construction materials.
I've gotten my gear mostly sorted and my personal obligations in order here in Lawrence. I've mostly worked out transfer of my current garden plots to new care and I've arranged the sale of my beehive for a reasonable deal for all involved. It was a good day and a good weekend.
Tomorrow I'm going to work on a farm and then Wednesday I'll be at the same farm observing some lumber milling. As part of my preparation for establishing the forestry program at Factor e Farm I hope to glean some best practices for harvesting and processing timber. The sawmill I will be observing is not exactly the same (the biggest difference seems to be that I'll be observing a band saw running on an ICE, whereas the sawmill at Factor e Farm is a circular saw and runs on hydraulics. I need to do more research on the Factor e Farm saw design and current status.
So that's about it, I'm still on schedule to depart Lawrence Saturday morning and start work at Factor e Farm on Saturday/Sunday.
Friday June 22, 2012
Worked on Matthew_Schwabauer_Schedule
Worked on Matthew_Schwabauer_Proposal
