ON SITE RECENTLY...

Some people must think that it is beautiful weather on site every day as the sun seems to shine all the time in the BLOG photos! Well, that's because we only use the bright clear ones.

Sometimes it has poured with rain for ages and then the building work has had to stop. Like just before the bio-roof volunteer week when Keir were trying to get the roof waterproof in time for the installation of the substrate. It was very wet and windy then and some days folks just couldn't do their job and on others the crane had to stop lifting things because it was windy and too dangerous. The weather delayed the start of the volunteer week by 2 weeks, but luckily lots of people could still make it to do all the work. PHEW!
Remember the ground source heating that is coming from the park? Well this is the trench being dug for the pipes that will go to the plant room, that's the boiler room, actually it's not a boiler room as there won't be any boilers...they're the things you usually have to heat up the water for your radiators to keep your building warm. we haven't got them as our heat comes from under the ground in the park. So we'd better call ours a 'plant room' I wonder why it's called a plant room? It hasn't got any plants in it??? We'll have to ask the engineer and let you know.

Anyway enough of that, here you can see some of the pipes that have come from the boreholes in the park. An underground chamber is being built for them and lots of small pipes will come together at a 'manifold' and then become just two big pipes that go to the plant room in the trench you see the digger digging above.

How does a heat pump work?A heat pump works by driving a working fluid around a refrigeration circuit containing four elements; (1) evaporator, (2) compressor, (3) condenser and (4) expansion valve.The working fluid changes from liquid to gas (evaporates) as heat is absorbed from the heat source (in our case under the park). Later in the cycle, the working fluid condenses to liquid as heat is released to where it is needed.A heat pump can be used for cooling with the addition of a reversing valve that reverses the direction of the working fluid and so the direction of the heat transfer. The central component of the heat pump is the compressor. This is usually driven by an electric motor, although gas engine driven compressors are also available. We will be run ours in reverse in the summer when it is hot and to take heat from the floors and to put it back under the park, clever eh!

ANDREW'S ORGANIC SCULPTURE

We said we'd show you the reception desk when we had a bit of time...well here it is.

This was one of the design drawings. The brown coloured bits are wood. More importantly they are beams from the hall of the old demolished infants school. They are 'glulam' beams made of smaller pieces of wood glued together in layers (laminated), this means you can make big beams from small pieces of wood, clever or what!

Andrew made this little model to show us how it would look. It's all FAB and curvy, we all really liked it and he's going to make a seat to go in the atrium. Andrew made the new seats that you can see around the Peace Gardens, how cool is that!!! The reception is going to be an open counter like in an hotel and we'll be able to see Denise, Shelagh and Lesley and they'll be able to keep an eye on all the comings and goings. It's meant to be nice and open and welcoming with no pokey little hatch, we hope they like it!Here it actually is...not a model but the real thing being made in Andrew's workshop. The beams have all been cut up into shorter lengths and stood on end and are being joined together before they are cut to all the yummy curvy shapes you can run your hands round and along. He says it's going to be be limewashed and look a bit like a big piece of driftwood. We can't wait to see it. Andrew is also doing the school gates and some other things in a space at the front of the school.