Welcome to Germany!

So I made it to Germany with no problems what so ever....
Internet at the apartment is far and wide so I will put pics up as I can when I can get the "Internet Cafe"
From my apartment with three other cool guys from Norwich there is alotta graffiti which is commen in Berlin, we have a graffiti monster eating graffiti on the facade of a house across the street from us which is pretty cool.  I do miss everyone at home a lot and I do now have an International Cell from Germany that is slightly cheaper than my Verizon one from home so all I have to do is load it up it looks like once a week or  use the Verizon one and make the $ go up on that... IF I can get internet set up that would be a big $ saver but we will see in the coming days.

From my house there is a  mini horse petting zoo down the road (random yes!) and quite a few random little convenience stores along with a few bars and alotta places to eat out, which is nice, everything from burgers to weird German stuff to Chinese.

In the last few days we visited popular sites where the Berlin wall was and how it has changed since then and today we visited "Museum Island" of Berlin where there are multiple museums from different times from one that was half destroyed in WWII to an I.M.Pei Museum.  Right beside there we checked out what was called Alexander Platz where it is the hub of all cool and interesting things in the city along with a few other landmarks around that area.

Well signing off hopefully i will be able to post pics next time!

End of the Summer Work

The summer is pretty much up and I'll be heading off to Germany where I'll be showing you where Ill be visiting there... To finish up the summer here are some final posters and 3D renderings I did in this last week or so:


Pavilion Park Poster for PAREI in Plymouth, NH:

Site Plan for where Post for Information
Poster Would Go

Actual Final Poster - Click on it to be able to see a larger image

Solar Thermal Diagram Poster for Cardigan Mtn Lodge (essentially same poster as the Pinecrest one but the diagram has been modified a bit):

Finally, All Summer I have been working with someone (Studio House) to design a low cost 2 story timberframe house, all under 1100 square feet! Check out my rendering of the design:

Comment on what you think of all the images!

Awesome in Middle of NoWhere Land

Towards the middle of July we did this project on this custom built stonewall house a husband and wife built in the 70's.  The houses walls were literally just concrete and stone laid atop one another and a carpenter gave the house a sort of 70's modern timberframe roof to top it off.

 Anyways we had to install this 30 tube collector on a roof that at the bottom was cut at an angle which was really weird and the rafters were installed at an angle compared to the last rafter on the edge of the roof.... Right next to where we installed the collector was a "Radiation Vent" which freaked me out just a little and thankfully nothing came out as we were up there.  All in all in went well and it was way out in Alexandria NH if anyone knows where that is.... pretty much a half an hour from anything remotely populated.
Another cool thiing was I guess a few years ago PAREI helped install a huge 4 KW solar panel system that follows the sun and has a storm mode that makes it so it doesnt get hit.  Here are some  more pictures.

I helped bring in that tank and pretty much sweat all the joints and installed that piece to the left of it.

Pretty Cool PV system that Follows the Sun

The PineCrest Project - 180 Solar Collector Tubes Strong

One of the biggest projects we did this summer was the Pinecrest Apartments in Meredith NH.  The housing units are considered low cost housing made for those who aren't doing so well in todays market.  With PAREI (Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative) I helped install two collectors (30 tubes) on three of the four buildings.  The project itself was interesting and a challenge at points when we had to bring the collector supply and return through walls above the apartment shared laundry room ceiling to through the wall into someones apartment then up to the roof, all balancing on joists that you could barely see in a blown in cellulose insulation "cold roof" attic.  Check out the photos below to see how it went:

Balancing on the Joists you couldn't see because they were covered in cellulose is tricky if you don't want to fall into someones apartment haha.

Before we started installing

As we were installing

Finished Apartment 1

Finished Apartment 2

Finished Apartment 3

I also designed a poster that is now up in all 3 laundry rooms that explains how a solar thermal system works, here is the poster in its digital format:

My Summer So Far

This summer has pretty much ended up being the summer I have been hoping for, filled with tons of good times with Hilary and Friends, and also getting to know and experience something new and exciting in "Green Design" pretty much every week.  I will be posting soon what the various projects I have done and what they were about but for now, Heres what I've been up to through a few photos: