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This is the blog of group 6 in section 067 of Freshman Design Lab in the spring quarter of 2018. The theme of this section is Increasing Sustainability in the Built Environment. Our group has chosen to focus on water efficiency. The goal of this design lab is to create of retrofit for an existing building to decrease water usage by 50%. This blog will primarily serve as a track of our weekly progress with the project, but can serve as a source of information and inspiration for those seeking to increase the sustainability of water as well. Thank you for visiting our site! If you have any inquiries, feel free to contact any of our members. Our contact information is listed on the Biographies page.
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Week 3(04/18/2018)

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Week 3 consisted mostly of looking for parts for our theoretical model. We were able to find a variety of water collection tanks, gutters, pipes, etc. For our specific building, we need to figure out which type of each component fits best. We are still deciding on which building we could best improve on. We can't decide between a flat roof vs a sloped roof. A flat roof would include a drain connected to the collection tank while, a sloped roof would include gutters that concatenate into the collection. We also figured out the construction specifications on how to hang gutters, slope the gutters for drainage, and figured out the length of gutter per downspout. 
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Week 8

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Title presentation slide During week 8, the group was in the final stretch. The group received feedback from the final report draft, so we continued to finalize and touch up the final report to submit in week 10. The group started to work on the final oral presentation which will be presented week 10. It is important to keep the presentation time constraint in mind so that we do not go over. In order to stay within the time constraint, the group must rehearse what will be said and who will say it. Therefore, parts of the presentation should be divided up properly and equally. Another thing that we have to keep in mind for the presentation is that the slides should not be filled with words. We have to try our best to adjust to the 6-by-6 rule, which is 6 bullets max and 6 words max per bullet. This method avoids overwhelming the audience and prevents the group members from plainly and blatantly reading directly off from the presentation slide. The presentation slides should ju...
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Building reveal

Philadelphia house to receive retrofit
Our group has currently decided on using a single family house as the building to receive our proposed retrofit. Housing at least 4 people (4 bedrooms) with the addition of 3 baths, a lot of water is bound to get used, so we thought this building would greatly benefit from our design. This house was also built in 1868, so the appliances are probably less efficient than they could be.

To approximate how much water is used, the group thought of multiplying the number of possible residents living in this house (1 per bedroom) by the average number of gallons of water used by a person a day (87). And then, that number would get multiplied by 365 for a rough estimate of yearly water usage.

As shown in the photo, the house has an angled roof, so our idea of using gutters to collect rainfall is still viable. However, the house already has gutters. On the plus side for us, the gutters lead into the ground and the water ends up getting wasted. Our group plans on redoing the gutters in our design so that the water is collected instead. One of the uses for the rainwater harvest will be to water the vegetation growing in the backyard (pictured below).

Backyard to benefit from rainwater harvesting




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Week 3(04/18/2018)

Image
Week 3 consisted mostly of looking for parts for our theoretical model. We were able to find a variety of water collection tanks, gutters, pipes, etc. For our specific building, we need to figure out which type of each component fits best. We are still deciding on which building we could best improve on. We can't decide between a flat roof vs a sloped roof. A flat roof would include a drain connected to the collection tank while, a sloped roof would include gutters that concatenate into the collection. We also figured out the construction specifications on how to hang gutters, slope the gutters for drainage, and figured out the length of gutter per downspout. 
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Week 2 (04/11/2018)

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This week we spent a majority our time researching the parts for the type of model we needed to design. Not only were the parts a factor but we also had to decide on which building to implement them onto. While choosing our building we wanted something with a large roof area to increase the amount of rainfall it was able to catch. We also began thinking of how we could filter the gray water into potable water. We decided we were going to use a large water storage bin to collect the rain water, which would be placed underground or on the ground near the roof. While researching the gutters we found it is possible to place foam like material inside the gutter to reduce sediments in the water. Another solution would be a diverter to sort the water. After a long period of time without rain, sediments will build up on the roof. This includes leaves, branches, seeds, etc. By installing a diverter it is possible to sort the sediment filled water until the...
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Week 4

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Week 4 This week consisted mostly of interpreting the roof and plumbing plan and trying to determine the square footage. After we calculated the square footage we were able to determine the amount of water that was able to be captured per year. We also figured that in order to reduce the water intake by  a noticeable amount we would need to implement low flow water restriction on most of the spouts. Using the water restrictors we can reduce the usage of water per output by more than 50%. We began to calculate the number of rainwater tanks we would need for our system to run sufficiently. We decided in order to reduce the amount of water used, we would need to make the collected water potable. We have been looking at various styles of industrial water purification systems, to determine which one will fit our situation best.We would also need a pump from the purifier to the water main line. Our flow of parts can be represented by gutters > collection tank > purifier > p...
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