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:

Weatherization Training in Physics Class

The Ken Jones-led "Weatherization Training at School" was a total success. I definitely need to write him a thank you note. Students learned about how thermodynamics principles connected to home heating, and got to see weather stripping and where on a door/window it goes. We did some experiments with tin foil boxes and ice cubes - it was great. Specifically we built two boxes out of tin foil. One went over in a corner away from everything. One went on the vent, which was spewing room-temperature air. So which melted first? The one on the vent. Why? Convection. BAM! Students learned that convection is just as important as conduction to account for the heat loss in a house.

Some interesting nuggets:

• A 1/8" gap around a door (which is typical) is the same area as a 4" hole in your wall. Seal that up!
• Frequently the holes that are cut for cable to enter a house are not sufficiently sealed up/insulated.
• The "pink stuff" is not as awesome as people once thought. Apparently it's good for preventing conduction, but is quite awful at preventing convection. You can blow air right through it, and so if there's a way for air to get into the outside part of your wall, and there's an opening to the outside somewhere higher up, it can create a heat pump through the walls of your house!
• The best windows ever made (for insulation purposes) have an R of 3.5. Whereas regular 1" foam insulation (with tin-foil on the sides) is R: 7.5

Ok that's it for now :)