GG Rainwater Rubber Ducky Derby - First Friday Rain
We have a great rainwater collection system on our future roof garden at the Green Garage. The system collects rainwater from the large, barrel roof with a small dam that directs the water to a collector, then sends it across the roof garden through a series of gutters where it ends up in a large storage tank on the lower flat roof. From the tank, the rainwater is piped down to our gardens, and with the tank being overhead, the water is under pressure down below so that we can just hook up a hose and water our plants when needed without using city water.
In order to study the rate of water collection and have some fun in the process, the Labs has decided to host a Rubber Ducky Derby the first Friday afternoon that we have rain at the garage during one of our normal Labs Sessions, which are Fridays from 1:30 p.m. to around 3:30 p.m. It’s really all in fun, but we are pretending to also get some data on how fast the water is flowing while we are having the fun, and in process, we may actually find some interesting observations on how fast our tanks fill up.
This video is a preliminary time trial for the Green Garage Rubber Ducky Derby where a couple of our MADD scientists brought their entries into the derby in to test the “track”. Take a look!
Part of our real rainwater experiment is to monitor how much water our plants take and to develop a sense of what really works in an urban environment like ours when we want to avoid using city water for any watering needs. The Labs are collaborating with the Garden Group to help figure this out. The Garden Group will then inform the Urban Sustainability Library so that we have information and hopefully some good recommendations when people inquire about what native Michigan plants are good in an urban area like Detroit.
For more information, visit www.greengaragedetroit.com.
(Source: youtube.com)
Filed under green sustainablity rainwater
Absorption chiller using solar down to 4.5 tons of cooling with commercial and residential applications mentioned.
Filed under Solar chiller
ventilation_filters by The Green Garage on Flickr.
GREEN GARAGE VENTILATION SYSTEM FILTERS
What a difference 2 weeks makes! The filter on the far left is a brand new, clean MERV 8 filter. The middle filter is from our exhaust air stream in our energy recovery unit (used to protect the energy recovery wheel from any dust and dirt that might be in the exhaust stream), and the far right filter is from our outside air intake air stream in the energy recovery unit, both after 2 weeks of operating 9.5 hours per day, Monday through Friday. In terms of typical filter cleanliness, these filters are really not too bad. But we found it rather surprising and a little disturbing at how dirty the outside air filter was after only 2 weeks of part time operation. After all, this is our source for “fresh” air for our indoor environment!
One of the largest sources of outside pollution is burning fuel; in automobiles, homes, and industry. While we have come a long way towards reducing emissions and improving our outside air quality, I think this photo is a good reminder that we still have much room for improvement. So whatever little (or big) things we can do to reduce our fuel burning impact, whether directly or indirectly, we can help make it better.
Click here to learn more about pollution sources, both indoors and outdoors.
Filed under IAQ sustainability
Green Garage Drifting Through End of Winter Temp Changes
The Chicago Tribune article linked to the title above speaks about the debate various people in charge of the comfort systems in buildings are having with the unseasonably warm end of winter/beginning of spring we had recently. They are having to decide if they should start up their cooling systems early and risk having to shut them down or protect them if we get a drop to freezing temps again or let people suffer through the record warm temps. It’s a tough call, and even the Farmer’s Almanac appears to be less helpful than perhaps a Magic 8 Ball at this point.
The cool thing that we learned about the Green Garage in Midtown Detroit during this time period, however, is that with our super insulation, tightly sealed exterior, and building volume and mass (long span bow truss roof with open interior), we appear to be able to just “drift” between these extreme temperature swings upward (at least so far!), keeping our thermal storage tanks in heating mode for now to provide heating on those cooler days and nights as we work our way towards summer and the full on cooling season.
Above is a chart showing the temperatures in the three main zones of the Green Garage floating up and down between the heating and cooling set points for our indoor comfort zones without any use of our radiant floor heating or cooling system between March 14th and 28th. We did have our ventilation system running during the occupied hours of this time period, but it only provides tempered air, not really suitable for contributing much to the heating and cooling of the building in its current mode of operation.
This illustrates yet one more reason why it is so beneficial to start with the exterior envelope and passive strategies (super insulation, great windows, minimize thermal bridging, seal and test against infiltration) when designing and constructing a new building or a major renovation as we strive for a more sustainable future.
The Green Garage features the following envelope parameters:
- Walls - R-45; cellulose & polyisocyanurate (polyiso)
- Roof - R-115; R-65 in Annex; cellulose & polyiso; structural panels of layered insulation; roof 18” thick
- Floor - R-10 under radiant floor portions; polyiso
- Windows - Cardinal Glass 366 put into Kelly Windows using FSC wood; 66% visible light is let through while blocking 73% heat gain of light spectrum
- Sealed cracks with spray foam insulation and inspected/tested for infiltration at various points of wall construction; final blower door result 0.10 air changes per hour natural ventilation
Filed under HVAC sustainability green
Thank you to all who attended Worm-A-Palooza 2012!! It was fun learning more about those little squirmy creatures that help us super compost. Click on the title of this blog entry to access the link to the presentation that Marsha Rosso provided to our Labs group for reference and use. Feel free to download from Google Docs, if you like. A big thank you to Marsha for making this available and for sharing her research and learning with the Labs. Please note: no worms were harmed during the Worm-A-Palooza 2012 activities.
We also did a bit more research on the question of what worms are causing harm to forests, and the short answer is that there appears to be research being done and reported now that should help clarify this issue in the very near future, but it is still a bit confusing, as we found during our Session. We hope to be able to summarize the issue in a future post once the dust settles a bit on the research being done in Minnesota. For now, the best advice we found in our review of literature available was to keep your composting (and fishing!) worms local to your own use, and do not put them in a place where they could spread to forests in the Great Lakes Region. Even though there appear to be only certain types of earthworms that are causing the decimation, until the research is clear, it may be better to err on the side of caution and refrain from spreading any worms to the Great Lakes Region forests. The University of Minnesota appears to be the “go to” source for the best compilation of information so far with their “Great Lakes Worm Watch”.
Go to http://www.nrri.umn.edu/worms/ for more information from the University of Minnesota.
Filed under composting worms sustainability green
