Entry 31: Blog Break for Uganda

I will be leaving for Uganda on Monday and won't be writing any new entries until the school year starts. Duke Smart Home and Engineers Without Borders are teaming up to build a resource center that will educate the locals on sustainable living and farming technologies. The center is by a group called the Rural Agency for Sustainable Development (RASD) and their website is here. I'll be deploying a solar powered system with computers and a printer for the center and hopefully an internet connection.

Members of RASD

Check out the webcam for live images of Smart Home construction.

-Scott

Entry 30: Genie Ride to the Roof

Hello summer friends,

This will be my last entry this summer because tomorrow is my last day. It's been a great summer sharing construction news and planning for my trip to Uganda. Today, I rode the cherry picker (or boom lift) called the Genie S-60 up to the white metal roof to see the green roof sections, the 5 solar hot water panels and all the extra space for student projects.


Inside the house, construction workers finished drywalling the pocket doors and the other interior doors were piled in the common space. On the way up to the second floor, I noticed the glass brick style window was installed for the secondary staircase.

Outside the home, workers are installing the back deck and front decks . The most dramatic change in my opinion is the front decks because of the large steel support beams that were being put up today. See the photo below to see how it looks.

Another focus of being up on the Genie S-60 besides checking out the solar thermal panels was to see how the green roof actually is right now. Although there is a drought in the area, it rained here in Durham yesterday! As you can see below, the plants are growing even though they are spread out and fairly sparse. Time will only tell how the green roof will develop.

Lastly, don't ever look down (like in this picture below) if you are afraid of heights when riding a cherry picker. I was strapped in a full body harness so I didn't feel in any sort of danger.

Thanks for reading my blog on the construction and keep looking on the webcam for more updates and browsing the Picasa Photo Archive for all of the photos taken since last year. The project is scheduled to finish sometime in late October and it will open up to the Board of Visitors in November. More entries will likely follow after school starts and hopefully other projects and residents will use this blog to share interesting photos and stories.

Signing out,
-Scott

Entry 29: Kickin' on the AC

Hello summer friends,

On Tuesday, I made a visit to the site to give a tour to a reporter. The first thing to show you from the outside is the Cembonit is mostly complete. See a photo of the front face below.


The deck installation is next on the agenda for the outside. The exterior doors by Anderson are scheduled to come in next Tuesday. While the weather has been excruciatingly hot and humid, the home is cooling down as one of the two AC units was up and running Tuesday.


Inside, the pocket doors were being installed in each of the 2 upstairs bedrooms. This will allow both doubles to easily open up adjoining rooms. What you see below is the cavity for the doors, which will be covered with dry-wall.


Lastly, an unexpected visitor (Sundance) came by to install the solar thermal system on the roof. I took this picture below of the backside of the 5 panels before they go up.


This is my penultimate week here at Smart Home, so check in next week for my final entry of the summer and there will likely be a long hiatus as Tom and I will be in Uganda soon working on our project in collaboration with EWB.

-Scott

Entry 28: Man on Stilts!

Hey everyone,

Yesterday, I visited the site to take some more photos for you and inside I found a couple of workers smoothing out the drywall with putty. There isn't much to show you from this visit just that the back and 2 side walls are mostly finished with Cembonit and the front side began yesterday (see below).

Check out the webcam now as new panels will be installed in real time on the front (south) face. I also found a pile of steel that will be used for the decking on the site (shown below).

Be sure to visit next week,
-Scott

P.S. - See how much cleaner the 2nd floor workspace is in comparison to the first photo of Entry 27 below.