The weather in Calgary has been a concern of the building team since the first technical proposal for Team Alberta's bid to the Solar Decathlon. Our winters can be brutally cold or deceptively mild or a mixture of both.
These photographs are from February 9 2009. David and Turc are laying out the rail system for the house to sit on while it is in Washington before the tent arrives to see what other site preparations are required.
Our house is designed to sit on a rolling rail system. This means we won't have to use a crane on the Washington Mall. Our modules (four in all) will be unloaded at one end of the rails, rolled to the next module and then prepped for connecting before being linked in place.
The rails are solid enough to take the weight of the house, and will be linked together to provide support along their length.
During the construction process the house will be supported by a series of pillars made of 2x4's. This lets us set the right height for the house while we are working it. We will have reset the rails four times during the construction phase to find the best way to set them up.
Setting things up before the tent arrives also shows us what we will have to remove from the site to begin construction. The house is being built on a parking lot at the SAIT campus, with the Transcanada Highway running right beside it. The location is also convenient for most students to get to the construction site.
While Turc checks the drawings for the house and site...
David shovels snow out of the way of where the tent will go. It's an exercise in futility, though. In the two days between now and when the tent arrives we will have temperatures drop ten degrees and recieve foot of snow.