Renewables in MN

Well, it's been a busy year in the world of renewable energy systems in the government market here in Minnesota. I've designed and bid almost 200 kW of projects, with most of it came online in the last quarter. I have been hearing some about some poor decisions being made by other design professionals in this area including the design of a solar thermal system without the use of glycol to protect the piping and system. We had successful bids on a 25 kW system for Three Rivers Park and a 30 panel solar thermal system for the Audubon Nature Center in Sandstone MN.

Ottawa NWR 80 kW PV HD version

GPVC dedication

Attended the dedication of the new Grand Portage Visitors Center at the US Canadian border on  Sept 25th. It's a cooperative project by MN DNR, MnDOT, and the Grand Portage Band. LHB folks provided MEP services including LED site lighting and geothermal HVAC systems. MN DNR, Peter Paulson was the architect and MnDOT did the site design. Soon to come, a 10 kW LHB design ground mount solar PV array.

Autodesk features three LHB projects within Revit

Autodesk features three LHB projects during a slideshow when anyone in the world is installing Revit Structure 2011. See the three images below; two of which are Kevin Holm's projects and one by Bruce Cornwall.

Out with the Old Bridge!

Big mess at the coumpound as the county is removing the old bridge over the Schmidt creek. They needed a lattice boom to break it down and remove the concrete pieces. Finished with the increek portion of the work just in time as the creek opened up for the season a day or so after they were done with that phase. The rain and heavy clay are really making a mess right now, can't wait until it's done.

Spring is coming!

Warm this spring, some small green shoots in the hoop house, hoping they will turn into spinach. Got the starts going inside, peppers, cabbage, green onions, snap peas, putting them out in a week or so.

Fall work

Getting the turkey gravy ready today, I use the NYT recipe from last year to get a head start on it: use 6 pounds of dark turkey meat (legs and thighs), brown in oven to create a nice fond (deglazed with sherry), then boil for 6 hours with carrots onions and celery. This makes a great flavorful broth to create gravy. I used to do the Cook's illustrated method, probably only a 3 or 4 hour task, but you need the bird thawed out for that and I don't want to work that hard on Thanksgiving.

Aliceon and I also worked on the woodshed. Our cut and split wood from two years ago is about 2 inches too long so we end up cutting it all in half. Al worked on that and I kept her supplied with long wood while moving this years pile into the shed. We sawed and moved about a firepalce cord into the house and about 1-1/2 full cords into the wood shed. I might mention that we added another chain saw to the arsenal, a Stihl 180 with easy start to our older 025. The easy start was a must for Aliceon and I have to say it's great. Just a slow steady pull and it kind of builds up and then spins. It's a little wierd at first as you are used to that jerk/pull of a regular saw.

Then I added 2 inches of foam to the roof of my root cellar. The cellar was already part of the house, about a 8 by 6 space next to the basement, but I've have it sealed off until this year. A bit too exposed to the ourdoors I think with freezing just about assured, so the foam shold help with that. I suppose I should have added a thermal barrier, but it is it's own little blockhouse.

Vegatable canning

I really didn't blog the canning and food preservation through the fall, but I can report on a number of the successes.

The frozen vegetables are great, we did cabbage, carrots, peppers, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, some home grown, some not.

The Ball Zesty Salsa made with Cherry Bomb peppers is wonderful, could have used a double batch as we are down 3 pints already (of 10).

The dill relish is good, but we aren't using it so fast. Probably true of all the pickled cucs.

The chow chow and Singaphore chili sauce are fine, the chili sure could have been hotter. I suppose it's the whole northern pepper growing thing. I had thought perhaps the cherry bombs were not hot enough, but they are rated quite hot on Johnny's heat scale. Searching for

Haven't tried the Cherry bombs in oil, tomatoes.

We did start canning the saurkraut today, it's been fermenting since the begining of September in the basement, I thought it was done , but when I removed the lid I could still see bubbles.

Cooking Apples

It's been a couple of days of work, but we've turned about 20 pounds of Haralson apples we got from Nancy Mount into Apple Jelly and Apple Butter. A few oops along the way, we added too much water to the jelly and then had to cook it a bit longer to reduce the water, and I slightly charred the apple butter (also I don't think I reduced it enough). Next time we'll do better. a few firsts, first time with liquid pectin, first time using a jelly bag, first time making both products.

Right now making good 'ol chicken and dumplin's using a 1997 recipe from Cooks Illustrated. We are having the kids come over for dinner so we are getting some of it ahead.

Gardening stuff in zone 4

I been colder than usual for us. Last week in the 50's, but finally today some heat. In some ways it's sad, we've had a great crop of lettuce and spinach on the deck - but maybe the other stuff will get going. I try and keep a journal of gardening ideas and progress, but I'm thinking about doing this on line along with the engineering work. We are working on a few of the 200 hours above 78 degrees that we get in our climate.

MN 2030

I was done to the Twin Cities today for a meeting discussing how Minnesota might impliment the 2030 challenge. At this point I think we are looking at a energy model based benchmark so that more building type can be benchmarked. More on this later.

Joining the HighTunnelers

I got tired of the cool growing weather. It happens and you and grin and bear it, quit or use technology to help. There are those that call the whole system plasticulture, plactic greenhouse, plastic mulches, and plastic irrigation systems, but as long as they work who cares? I put up the hoops last fall and filmed it in April.









First plants late in late April, most in May, 30 days eariler than usual. So far no heat needed. I think if I had put the film on eariler, I could have started even eariler. The plants look good and in 40 degree weather I have had 75 degrees under the plastic. I am using red plastic under the tomatoes, green under the cucumbers, and brown under the peppers. All are supposed to be matched to the preferences of the plants. Since this photo Aliceon and I have installed more weed control fabric and shredded pine bark mulch to control weeds between the raised beds.

With plastic over the beds, irrrigation becomes important. I 've installed a 500 gallon rain barrel up by the house to collect the roof water. The elevation is enough to operate a drip tape irrigation system, which I run 2 hours per day. I'm going through about 250 gallons a week this way, so I'll have to use some well water too.













Here is photo of last weeks tomatoes, when my outside plants may have well stayed in their 3 inch cell pot - (virtually no growth as of yet for my outside plants).

Windowless Building Don't Make Sense except to Bomb

This is an award winner in southern Minnesota that I drove by, yikkes! It won an ASHRAE award due to it's low energy consumption. That kind of thinking, where a building is valued without considering it's occupants, makes me crazy. I suppose we'll be seeing this in low budget Sci-fi movies. In the same area of the state, just south of Rochester, there is a large, 67 turbine wind farm. Really cool to see so many and you can see them from this school (or could if there were windows).

I've been remiss in posting. I intend to correct this. Relaunch during Greenbuild. Today I'm attending the monthly meeting of the MN chapter of ASHRAE. The subject is radiant cooling and the speaker is from Uponor. I am most interested in the case studies but I did hear of another low mass radient cooling system called capillary radient cooling. Interesting.

Lots of professional graphics. Good presentation for newbies.

Thursday will be speaking at the MN AIA convention on our work with building benchmarking.

Food thought or at least for lunch

April's Gourmet magazine brought a recipe I wanted to try. (BTW - I only get this because I got it free with some purchase at Amazon) It was actually in an advertisement for a new food show and it was for a 6 minuite pizza dough. I was intrigued and hungry at lunch time so I thought I would try it. First since it was for only me I halved the ingredients - 7/8 cup of flour some salt sugar olive oil and a teaspoon of rapid rise yeast mixed with water to make a wet dough in the food processor, the wetness mixes everything up well. Then add in a bit of flour to make it workable.Roll out really thin, brush with more olive oil and put on a preheated gas grill for a couple of minuites. Flip and put some toppings on and you have a super thin crisp crust pizza, sort of Neopolitian style. Good and fast.




















I have been sick the last two weeks with the flu - I had hoped to keep it off as I was sick in January, but no such luck. This also seems to be the busiest time in my business life in a few months, it weems I'm on the run for the next month. Off to Omaha with Steve McNeill this week. Then prep for a couple speaking engagments next week. I'm really excited about trying to use some new style no bullet point presentation techiques but it's going to take me awhile to get the style integrated into the existing presentations.

Warm?

It's been cold this week. Twenty below zero most mornings warming up to zero or so during the day. It's been beautiful though, super blue sky and water, clear sunny skys, with the big Lake calm with ice chunks floating by. It's funny how you get kind of used to the cold though. Gloves, scarf, hat where ever you go. Hit the seat warmers just as soon as the car is started. Keep a fire going in the wood stove. Throw on a jacket just to take the dog out before bed.


Yesterday morning it was only zero when I woke up. I laughed at my self out at the end of the driveway getting the paper. There I was, no hat, no scarf, no gloves, not even a zipped up jacket. It felt so warm! Later in the day the sun really warmed things up and we saw 20 above. Some of the snow along the sidewalks was even softening up.

It was a beautiful sunrise this morning. I find that I am driven a bit by the sun. I much prefer it when I can wake with the sun. Having it light in the sky when I'm walking out to my car at the end of the work day is great, too. We were out to one of our local watering holes last night to celebrate Aliceon's birthday with some friends - what a fun time - tomorrow we are off to Lutsen's Sea Villas to hang out for a few days as a continuation of the celebration.

Tuna begone

It is a sad thing, but I have come to the conclusion that I have to reduce or eliminate most sushi grade tuna from my life. Its so good and yummy, but the cost to the environment for much of the blue fin tuna has risen to the level (or is it that the cost has always been there, I just wasn't aware of it) where I feel I must change my behavior. There have been a number of articles and pieces about this issue so for some time I have been a bit nervious about this. On Valentine's Day, Aliceon and I were talking about a wonderful tuna taco she had enjoyed at the Scenic Cafe. She said my face just turned so serious she knew something was up. We had a discussion into my thoughts about this issue and my getting a bit more nervous about eating tuna.

Then on Friday I heard the portion of Science Friday (NPR) that discussed ocean health. One of the speakers thinks there should be a moratorium on bluefin fishing. I guess that enough for me, so now I'm on a quest to find a sustainable sushi choice.

Time passes and the cold is back.

Yesterday morning was a great day to be out in Zone 3, in the 20's with a little light snow falling. Aliceon and I took the dogs out into the woods and the Schmidt Creek for a short walk. It was just a great time. You can hear water running under the ice, but it's not deep enough to be dangerous.

BUT THEN: yesterday afternoon an arctic front can through and burr - wind chill in the -40 belows - just fridgid. This morning -18 or so and the thermometer, but the wind continues. We just hunkered down in front of the fire and stayed indoors.


I installed the electric floor warming mat and Jeff is about to start installing tile in our TV/game room. Wonderful Italian porcelain tile in a 16X16 format with stone like veins running through it, StoneTech-StoneBeige 3.0.


I found on the camera a food photo I forgot to post. A Cuban Sandwich made on our Christmas gift sandwich press: seasoned roast pork, ham, dill pickles, swiss cheese, and yellow mustard - yum.

Just a lttle politics

I was riding back from Minneapolis and heard an interview on NPR about supporter created and viral new media works being created to support political candidates. One of the mentioned videos is the following put together by will.i.am:

Is it February already?

I looked back at January while I was doing my expense reports and I was on the road alot. The majority of the trips were fruitful, but still it does get you tired, especially when you are trying to get rid of a cold. Next week is no exception, a trip on Monday to look at the Target Center, we are working with those folk to assist with an evaluation of the building for a "green" roof and LEED-EB, and Wednesday down to St. Peter for a Medical Office Building Project Interview. A highlight of the last few weeks and one of those road trips was a report back from the Northwest Professional Center in Sartell, MN that my revised morning warmup scheme did the trick and additional perimeter radiation will most likely not be required. The Control contractor had decided to use the average of the exterior rooms to determine the length of time the warm-up should occur, one or two of the high glass percentage rooms never got warmed up, so I had the contractor watch for minimum temperatures instead of average and that seems to have worked. (Also, not only were the rooms high glass percentage, but it looks like there is some problem with the storefront glass system allowing way too much air into the rooms which made the problem worse)


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In the last week I have been working on parts of a very large multi-use project in Wayzata Minnesota. We are in the preliminary stages, but at this time we are trying to consider a large geothermal heat pump heating and cooling system to save site energy and operating cost along with snow melting throughout the paved areas to reduce the use of salt and sand during the winter. Additionally, all storm water falling on the site at a level less than a 100 year event, will be kept on the site and not sent to the city storm system. Due to the size of the heating and cooling plant, the geothermal well field will cost in the area of $5,000,000, but should pay back in about ten years. since the project is being designed for a 100 year life, this is a pretty good payback. The high performance pieces allowed the city and developer to work towards a bit higher density and building height than would otherwise be allowed - part of trend in city planning and zones where green features are incentivised using the free market instead of mandated.

Today I'm out to the local home improvement store to pick up materials needed to install ceramic tile in our TV/game room. The room is located above our tuck-under unheated garage and has a patio door in it so during the winter it can be a cold place. We will install floor warming system with tile to make the room more usable. This room used to be a bedroom, but we installed a Murphy bed kit so we could use the room for something else unless needed for the rare guests we have. The tiling is part of our 10 year plan to hard surface every room in the house, we have the Master bed and bath along with the upstairs hall remaining after this project.