Root Cellar Update

After school ended we finally got the city building inspector to come by and take a look at the basement space that we hope will host the root cellar. He said roughly what I expected him to say: No Students. We will only be permitted to build this thing if it’s faculty only. But then he said some things I did not expect him to say. Specifically, we were not permitted to build walls within the 70’x30’ space. What? There’s no way I can passively cool a space this large to temperatures low enough to preserve food. No way. We would need an air conditioner, and then it may as well be a walk-in refrigerator. Boo. Why? Because of the sprinkler system. Each space would need its own sprinkler head. Gr.

I thought this was the end.

By chance I ended up in Tom Wood’s office (he’s the head facilities coordinator, the only other person on the tour with the building inspect

or), and he seemed to have an entirely different impression. He’s an architect, so maybe he sees opportunity where I road blocks. Regardless, he said, “oh yea, we can just add another sprinkler head for like $100 easy.” Oh… ok. “And we may as well cut the foundation so that the bulkhead entrance from the outside is really a standard-sized means of egress.” Oh! Um… ok! And as long as we’re cutting the foundation we may as well do everything necessary to bring it up to code for children to be down there as well. (And suddenly the sun was shining and happy rainbows broke out over the capitol building... as seen from the high school parking lot)

Meanwhile Tom has put together a line-item in the budget for constructing such a space, totaling roughly $15,000. He said it was mainly put in because the administration would need something to reject some part of his proposed budget, but nonetheless, it was in there. So I told Tom that I could definitely write grants to allocate the $15,000.

It seems I have an unexpected ally in Tom Wood! WOO HOO!

This year I will write grants. And probably next year we will build it.

Word.

Root Cellar at the High School

As you may have read, Montpelier High School has a fantastic local food program, largely thanks to Tom Sabo, who has spearheaded the many facets of this work. Each biology class grows food at some point during the year in the school's greenhouse, which is then sold in the cafeteria. The Earth Group at the high school is in charge facilitating the composting program, so that food scraps are sent to Vermont Compost, who then gives us a deal on dirt to grow more food.

In the past my physics students did a study of renewable energy to supply the greenhouse its electrical needs, and so now we have a grid-tied photovoltaic system atop the greenhouse which provides more than the demand of the greenhouse.

And now ... the next layer of awesome: a root cellar!In case you're not familiar with the concept, root cellars are basically natural refrigerators. It turns out that the ground maintains a temperature between 50-55 degrees Farenheit, depending on where you are and how deep you go down, which is already pretty cool, but there's a way to get it to 35-45 degrees, which is more suitable for storing veggies. All that's necessary is having an air inlet (low to the ground) and air outlet (closer to the ceiling). Thus hot air will escape out to the outdoors and denser, cool air will come in through the bottom inlet. Thus keeping your veggies at a nice cold temperature.

But root cellars don't just have to be dug into the side of a hill, they can also simply be a part of one's existing basement. All you need is a window or bulkhead or some other way for air from the outside to come into the space. Enter Montpelier High School.

Of the limiting factors preventing us from growing our own and buying more local food is storage space. With the addition of a root cellar, we could grow more, and buy more food in bulk in season from local farmers to serve our students.

It turns out, that MHS has one bulk head that leads to a space underneath the stage. We've had local root cellar expert, Richard Czaplinski, come down there to check it out and he thinks it will work. The administration is on board and the students are pumped.

Benefits:My students get to use thermodynamics to model the heat flow using equations for equilibrium, insulation R-values, and Q=mC∆T. It's an open-ended problem with no right answer that means something to our community, so it's authentic. Indeed, I do not know what the "right" answer should be. So we'll see what they come up with.

Obstacles:
Mold & Asbestos. I spoke with the new facilities guy, Thom Wood, about the potential for mold and asbestos down there. So far the word is that he doesn't think that space was ever tested for asbestos. He and the principal are "pretty sure" it's safe, though I have another friend who is "pretty sure" there's asbestos down there. Hm. So we'll need to get it tested for both Mold and Asbestos by Crothers Environmental. So we'll see what they say.

Permitting. Thom also brought up that it's not technically a "habitable" space, but it probably doesn't need to meet the same codes as, say, a classroom (with natural light and ventilation), because basically it's like a large closet. Thom said he would speak with the fire marshal to figure what we would need to do to make it up to whatever code we need to meet.
*whew* I think it's going to happen. There are some nay-sayers, but I believe them to be under-informed.

My students are presently off and running with the project, we'll have some initial calculations soon I hope! :)

This is my physics class and I meeting with the Principal, Heat Custodian, the Service Learning Coordinator, a local grant writer: