ECHO in California: rebuilding the Solar Decathlon house

A team comprised of students from three Ontario institutions is one of only 20 collegiate teams to earn a place in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2013 Solar Decathlon Competition. Team Ontario is a partnership of Carleton University, Algonquin College and Queen’s University and brings together students from a variety of disciplines, including engineering, architecture, advanced housing construction and business.

The competition challenges teams from around the world to design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive. Team Ontario spent 18-months refining and building its home, then disassembled the structure and shipped it to the competition site in Irvine, California. The house will be judged on architecture, market appeal, engineering, affordability, comfort, hot water, appliances, home entertainment and energy balance. Last year’s competition homes were visited more than 350,000 times in 10 days.

Dispatches from the field

September 25

• ECHO arrived safely on Sunday (September 22) and has all been put back together now! We had two 20-hour days and will now be onto regular 12-hour shifts to get the deck, solar panels, and finishing touches done for next Monday. We feel like we are on track, despite running into a few problems with the crane the first day.
• About 16 other teams have their house up already and it’s starting to look like there will be some tough competition, but everyone is very friendly and seems to just enjoy viewing other people’s houses as much as we do.
•  Yesterday it hit 34 degrees on the asphalt, so if you are coming anytime in the next few weeks, keep that in mind! There are beautiful views of the mountains from the site, but not a hint of shade in sight.

September 26

• We have the house modules installed and connected together securely attached to the foundation.
• We have reconnected all of the services across the two modules except the fire suppression line which will be completed today. Electrical has been hooked up and we will be ready to connect to the grid when it becomes available tomorrow afternoon. The exostructure has been completely reassembled and the roof sheets have been reinstalled. We are just about to install the PV racking and the goal is to have at least all the racking and inverters up by the end of today with the PV installed tomorrow and hooked up while Andy is still here.
• South and north deck have been framed out and the deck topping will be installed by the end of today. Mech system has been unpacked, reconnected and pressure tested with all components installed–so far experiencing no leaks. We are hoping to install the solar thermal collectors and heat dump in the next day so we can pressure test those before we get water on Sunday so we can proceed with testing immediately after receiving water.