Friday, April 4, 2008

Showcase Showdown

Get closest to the total price without going over. Stephanie wins!!!

This afternoon we met as a group and presented our rough estimates for prices for our sections based on material takeoffs and other research. And the good news is we are only 40% over budget right now!! I know that might sound like a lot, but I was assuming it was going to be waaaaay worse. The steel, after lightening it up a lot during the redesign last night, came in at around 15 thousand for the North structure. That includes fasteners, tension cables and the steel for the greenhouse which hangs off of the main PV structure. So not that bad if you ask me.

The PV (including the steel that supports the array in the south) is going to be about 26k all together after NYSERDA rebates - we are hoping we'll get like $5/watt from NY and our cost is about $6.50/watt - pretty standard. A lot of money though so we'll have to see what we can do about reducing that. All in all though - not nearly as bad as I had thought. We'll get it under the limit - just you wait.

Revised Structural Steel Plan. I'm trying to keep all the heaviest members as low to the ground as I can to make construction easier. Still going to be tricky though.

In other news, Johnny and I get to become OSHA certified safety inspectors on the school's dime so that is super cool! I'm gonna order us whistles and arm bands and we've already decided to be really really annoying all summer long. :) Star is trying to hold us back by forcing us to use peach colored binders for our daily safety logs but I'm gonna get us some neon orange ones so that we'll look super tough. And maybe some clipboards too. Yeah . . . I can just see it now.

We're also looking into becoming Carlisle certified installers since we'll have to be disturbing the roof system quite a bit and it might be cheaper to just get certified and do the work ourselves than to pay some dude to come out and patch the membrane every time. We'll see - I like the idea of getting certified in as many things as possible though - what I'm really hoping is that at some point I can get Parsons to pay for me to get LEED accredited. That would really be something. Alright - I'm heading home to get some sleep. I gave this friend of mine my cold and I think she's returning the favor right now. Ugh.

Star and I built this kick-but material library shelf with shelves deep enough for the Binders. You'll notice - completely un-starved joints - even though some of us might have though I was being a bit liberal with the glue.

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