Today, the team worked to get all the supports in between the floor joists. After that came the exciting part; the team began to lay the boards for floor sheathing that arrived just in time! Once the project gets rolling, things move fast. Saturday work day will hopefully see the raising of the first wall framing.
The first board is laid down for the floor sheathing
On Saturday (November 15th) our student team worked two four-hour shifts framing the floors joists of the Ze-Row. The steel chassis is infilled with 2×10 treated pine joists that are bolted into place. Stahlman’s Lumber was able to deliver the joists by driving up to the site on the gravel driveway we laid earlier in the week (thanks, everyone!), and the Ze-Row is now ready for plywood floor sheathing to be installed next week.
See the full image gallery on Picasa:
The Ze-Row’s 3,500lb steel chassis arrived on November 14th by truck from Berger Ironworks. Alumni Drive was blocked off while the truck maneuvered to our construction site, RWS set up a 150-ft crane to lift the chassis off of the semi-truck bed and onto our temporary foundation piers. Soon after, the Workbox, a shipping container retrofitted as a wood shop, arrived from The Rice Building Workshop yard at Project Row Houses. The Workbox was also lifted into place by the crane, but we weren’t able to get it quite where we wanted it because it weighed too much for the crane - 11,000lbs!
Check out the full image galleries on our Picasa site:
Our second load of aggregate arrived for the construction site on November 12th, along with a rental skid load to move it all around. The work went much faster this time, and only took a team of three people. Looks like David enjoyed all the power!
Check out the full galleries on our Picasa site:
On November 11th, our team turned out in force to spread aggregate on the new Rice Solar Decathlon construction site. A contractor laid landscaping fabric, and soon after a our first load of aggregate arrived and was dumped on Alumni Drive. Using wheelbarrows and shovels, our student team spread all 16 tons of aggregate on the site, creating a road so trucks will be able to deliver construction materials to the site.
Check out the full image gallery of our progress on Picasa:
In a last-minute decision, with help from the School of Engineering and Provost Eugene Levy, Rice Solar Decathlon has been relocated to a more favorable construction site at the corner of Alumni Drive and Inner Loop Road. We will now have much better solar access for the house, as well as more visibility and we proceed with construction. Come visit our team at the new site!
We would like to invite all our students and collaborators to join us as we celebrate breaking ground on the Ze-Row Site. We will meet on-site in front of the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen for an all-team meeting from 4:00 PM, followed by our groundbreaking barbecue at 5:00 PM. Stop by and celebrate our team’s achievements thus far!
Click out the link below to view our invitation.
Welcome to the Rice Solar Decathlon blog, and the first of many construction updates. Our student team has been working hard this semester on our final construction documents, and we now have thirty architecture students and twenty engineering students involved in the project.
Thanks to the work of our student team, the Rice School of Engineering, and Rice’s Facilities, Engineering, and Planning department, our construction site has been chosen. We have been given permission to build the Ze-Row in front of the newly-renovated Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. Take a look at our site layout!
