zHome in France

July 29th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

We were in France on vacation this year, and I was interested to see a growing deep green orientation there.  In the past, it has always felt like France was lagging behind Germany, Sweden, and the UK in addressing climate change on the ground.  I could feel a difference this year though – in the street art, growing bio street markets, and green initiatives. 

In Paris, a year long planning process resulted last year in “le Grand Paris“, sponsored by President Sarkozy as a way to reshape the capitol to have a smaller footprint in the coming centuries.  Several new deep green skyscrapers, such as Hypergreen, have been proposed in the last several years.  Just in the last two years, Paris has started a dedicated effort to promote bicycling, and there was a new bike rental program called Velib which was used by lots of folks, including commuters – in a short amount of time it has become a great success. 

Out in the countryside, PV panels were showing up on roofs.  Folks said the big controversy was the local planning authorities were concerned about the aesthetic integration of the panels on the historic tile roofs.   All in all, really positive signs – you could feel the change in the air.

7-26-2010

July 28th, 2010 - Posted By: admin

7-26-2010 from zHome.

Monthly walkthrough – 3:30 – 4:30pm onsite

July 28th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

We will have our next monthly walk through next Thursday.  It will be an interesting class as we have a ton of things going on in the ground utility-wise (ground source manifolds, etc.), and we’ve left it exposed for folks to see.  We will specifically be discussing the manifold tie-together of the ground source wells with the mechanical contractor (Northwest Mechanical).  We’re also gearing up to pour our slabs which have a fairly complicated subgrade due to additional penetrations for ground source, photovoltaic conduit, and rainwater plumbing.  We will be going onto the site this time so will be asking folks to sign a liability waiver.  We will also do a brief project overview for those of you who haven’t been out before.

Here is a link for directions.  We are in east of the High Street/Highlands Drive intersection on High Street – look for the group on the sidewalk.

For those of you coming from downtown Seattle, the site is only 200 feet from the Issaquah Highlands Park and Ride, which is served by Metro Route 218 and Sound Transit Route 554 (the 554 only has a return bus to Seattle).

We’ve been having a great turnout of 20-30 folks to the classes, so please come and join in the fun!

Tubes, tubes, and more tubes!

July 12th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

What’s up with all these tubes?

The tubes are conduit runs through the foundation.  This is a photo of the concrete forms.  Concrete will be poured into the forms to create the foundation walls.  The tubes provide a chase for things to be run up into the unit – wires, pipes, etc.

Seems like a lot of tubes, right?  We have a lot going on in these units – regular stuff like water pipes and electricity, but in our case ground source piping, extra wires for the solar panels…and who knows what else?  So we have a lot of tubes.

Wall drain board made out of recycled pipe

July 7th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

This is an interesting video of Nick talking about the recycled content of our drain board. The left over scrap from our ground source well pipe was 100% recycled into materials such as the drain board.

Who are these guys?

July 2nd, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

This is Nick Nied of Ichijo USA, and Clint Hamilton of Howland Homes.  These are our joint venture partners building the project.  Nick is project manager for construction, and Clint is the site superintendant.  I will do more extensive profiles on both of them in the future.

July 1 monthly site visit, 3:30 – 4:30 pm onsite

June 22nd, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

We will have our monthly site visit (always the first Thursday of the month from 3:30-4:30) on Thursday, July 1st. Since last month, we have completed most site utilities, poured foundation footings, and completed the main site retaining wall. This month, we will be discussing the complicated three dimensional underground construction we’ve had to do with site utilities, the ground source wells and manifolds, foundations, all in an incredibly tight site. We will also talk about our use of McDonald’s fryer oil for concrete form release (and even let you smell it!), as well as several recycled materials like drainage board we’re using in the project. If you missed last month, we’ll also do an overview of how the ground source well field system works. Click here for directions to the site.

zHome is hosting Eastside GreenDrinks in Issaquah Highlands

June 20th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

Join Eastside Greendrinks on July 15th at 5:PM at Vista Park, located on 10th Avenue NE within Issaquah Highlands. Come and connect with green people, green businesses and events in your community. Jobsite tour of zHome will be included. Come check out the progress!

This is a FREE event but a $5.00 donation is suggested. Beer, wine and light appetizers will be served.

zHome’s concrete form release oil is recycled from McDonald’s!!

June 19th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

Concrete forms are typically sprayed with diesel oil to allow the form boards to come easily away from the forms once the concrete has dried.  Check out this short video of Nick Nied of Ichijo USA discussing the recycled fry oil we used instead!

zHomepeople: Dennis Rominger of Puget Sound Energy

June 12th, 2010 - Posted By: Brad Liljequist

Dennis Rominger is Puget Sound Energy’s representative on zHome.  He’s been heavily involved in the project for years now, and has been a very important person in its life.  Right now Dennis is taking the lead on college and youth zHome education and has been doing a terrific job.  He recently did a class for Shoreline Community College’s zero energy class and it was great to hear another perspective on our design process and the importance of the project.

Dennis is a great guy, and a ton of fun to work with.  He is a very hard worker and a project manager par excellence.  He is very passionate about energy efficiency and getting real change on the ground.  There are a lot of dreamers involved in zHome, and even though Dennis dreams with the best of us, he is also pragmatic and always thinking about getting the job actually done.  We are very lucky to have him involved in the project!