This week, 24 brand-new 175-watt BP solar panels arrived on site, and until the racking supports are ready they will have to sit in dark, dark storage. Fortunately for two of the panels, this weekend the ZE-Row will be featured in the Rice Design Alliance’s annual home tour. To show off the active systems of the house-in-progress, a team of handy engineers put together a wooden display rack for the panels. Along the way we discovered that a Subaru Forester is perfectly designed to transport solar panels (see the Picasa album for proof)

There are lots of people rushing around site preparing for our first large influx of visitors, put house is really starting to shape up. Bonus: check out the freshly-installed metal siding in the background of the photos. Many thanks to the metalworking team!

More photos on Picasa:

3/27/2009 Prepping for the RDA Tour

Who’s that man standing in the doorway he just helped to install? That’s Professor Brent Houchens, mechanical engineering, who is the faculty engineering sponsor of our team. Besides having actual construction experience, he helps us refine our engineering designs as the house is constructed. Professor Houchens also happens to be the RA at Wiess college (a short hop from the ZE-Row construction site). You can spot him on site on the weekends sporting some sort of Illinois garb, with a pencil behind his ear and a well-worn carpenter’s belt in his hand.

More momentous photography:

3/24/2009 Brent Houchens is Manly

The skin for the ZE-Row has arrived. The siding, manufactured by MBCI Metal Roof and Wall Systems, arrived from San Antonio this morning on a flatbed semi-truck. The metal panels, some as long as 50 feet, had to unloaded and stacked is a certain order to correspond to their location on the house. With a strong crew, the work took no time at all, and the ZE-Row will soon have a shiny, low-maintenance, recyclable finish.

Eric Rogers began work today on the refrigerant lines for the ductless air conditioning system. It will be great to have air conditioning before the Houston summer arrives!

More shiny pictures on out Picasa site:

3/19/2009 Siding Arrives, HVAC Work Begins

After a bizarrely-early spring break, our team returned rejuvenated and ready to take on anything that Houston’s weather patterns could produce. Generally, this weather comes as prodigious amounts of rain. We have been lucky to have worked in dry weather thus far, but today we had to work through a drizzle ( a warm-up for things to come). The solar hot water storage tank arrived today, although you’ll have to check the Picasa album for pictures because it isn’t too photogenic. Basically, it is an 80-gallon thermos, and when it is full the water temperature inside will only drop by one degree F every house. Summary: hot showers for all!

See the giant thermos on the Picasa site.

3/14/2009 Solar Storage Tank Arrives

[This is a retrospective blog entry] Today the very professional roofing crew from JR Roofing was out on site installing the TPO membrane roof. TPO stands for ThermoPlastic Olefin, which basically means it is a plastic that can be shaped and welded by heat. The Plastic comes in wide rolls and is glued to the plywood roof deck. In the few places where there are seams, the plastic it welded with a heat gun (read: a souped-up blow dryer) to create watertight seals. The white color of the plastic also helps to reflect sunlight and reduce the urban heat island effect.

See more images in out Picasa album:

2/25/2009 Installing the Roofing

[Roque is writing this post from the future. In retrospect!] Finally, the tyranny of the tarpaper roof has come to an end! Soon after we installed the plywood roof decking, a temporary tarpaper roof was installed to protect the house until the final roof could be added. Unfortunately, the tarpaper has been up for a few months too long, and now it only helps to funnel huge streams of water into the ZE-Row’s interior. JR Roofing has donated the installation of the roof membrane, so we have to clear the roof to let them do their work. The tarpaper was removed in no time and the roof is ready to be waterproofed.

Whoa! Did you know there are more great photos on our Picasa site?

2/24/2009 Removing the Temporary Roof

[Roque Sanchez is writing this post from the the relative future. Sometime in April 2009.] The silver Tyvek house-wrap that was installed during the week needed a tad of touch-up work to make sure that the ZE-Row can repel water in all forms. The workbox got a little TLC as well, and by the look on Kimo’s face in the Picasa gallery, he enjoyed the work as well. With the house wrapped tightly, some of the engineers started drilling away to run some wiring under Naoki’s watchful eye.

Take a look at some great images from the day in our Picasa album:

2/21/2009 Housewrap

For those of you wondering whether Rice Solar Decathlon has fallen off the face of the earth: have no fear! After a very eventful semester, we are ready to show off our creation to the world. To make sure no one is left out of the loop, I’ll make sure to provide after-the-fact updates on our progress! I promise lots of pictures to distract you!