Building a Fully Automated, Self Sustainable, Solar, Hydroponic, Micro Urban Farm - The Inside - Part 2 πŸ†βš’πŸšž

in sustainability β€’Β  7 years agoΒ  (edited)

Hello again dear Steemians,

This is the second part of my story about a new project I am currently building, If you haven’t read the first part make sure to check it out (Building a Fully Automated, Self Sustainable, Solar, Hydroponic, Micro Urban Farm - The Outside - Part 1 πŸŒΏβ™»πŸŽ).

So after renovating the β€œoutside layer” of the structure, we were ready to start planning the inside.

Now it's time to go indoors

It was probably a better idea to take out all of the garbage from inside before we close the walls but never mind that...the cleaning has begun…











Even after we took out the big old machines and the piles of garbage that were accumulated there after some time, it was still hard to imagine how we going to turn this place into something that resembles a place where people would want to come visit and learn.


The concrete floors, the grey walls, the very ugly roof...we still had quite a bit of work to do.





The first step was to give a fresh coat of paint to our new β€˜reclaimed wood’ walls, I decided to keep it black, as I think it will look nice with some Led lights once we assemble some hydroponic units.











So after finishing up with the paint, we have covered some of the the other iron walls with cement boards to allow us to straighten the wall and to cover it with some fresh white paint.








Now the place is starting to take shape, no more garbage, no more rusty walls...





We proceeded to the floor…


We had quite a few debates on what should we use for the floors, we thought of ceramics, linoleum and even wood, but in order to give the place a bit more natural look, but in the same time provide an easy cleaning and drainage (in case of unwanted floods) we decided to use Artificial turf (synthetic grass).

Retrospectively that was the right choice to make, as it really lighted up the place and stayed clean even after some rainy and muddy shoes walked all over it.

So I have purchased about 60 SQM of a nice quality turf, some glue and we were ready to start laying it down.






It is much heavier then it looks

It took some time, as we had to make sure everything was laid down properly to avoid any problems down the road (if the gluing is not done properly, people might stumble over it and get hurt).





We left some heavy boxes on top of the stitches for a few days just to let it stick properly to each other.





We had one more wall left to cover, we though quite a bit of what will allow us to completely cover the wall without too much hassle and without heavy expenses and hard work.

We decided to use a giant PVC tarp, it will allow us to easily cover the whole wall without even cleaning the dust behind it.

The bonus is that we could use any color, print whatever we want on it, and have a custom opening for the door leading to the storage room.














The ceiling was all messed up as well, the rusty metal profiles, the never ending dust...we had to find a way to cover it without rebuilding the whole thing.

I remembered that often when building our camp in music festivals, we used to tight a Spandex fabric to its four corners and use it as our shading.
It is easy to stretch and it is available in various colors…

So we decided to give it a try.

We used some left over wood to build a frame around the part of the ceiling we wanted to cover and then simply used a air compressor to shoot some carpenters staples all around it, while stretching the spandex fabric to give it a nice clean look.





As we still haven't connected the electricity before fixing out new ceiling, we made sure to run the cables for the intended lights right to the points where we wanted them, so when we were ready to connect the light fixtures everything was ready for us.






I don't have the pictures from the actual hanging process as everybody around were busy helping to hang it, so nobody was available to take those shots :)

But here are some photos during the process, and after we already hanged the 2 LED lights fixtures.





With that we have almost finished the inside, of course there were always going to be some small stuff to do here and there, but we were ready to proceed to the next step.






Even Zus was tired after all this work :)

In the next post I will share the next phase of our constructions…

We still have a lot of things to do, starting with installing the lights, the air conditioning, water systems, fixing up the toilet...and then installing hydroponic systems, water reservoirs, water purification systems using RO, automation for adjusting the water quality and so much more..and thats even before we have one seedling planted.
.

I hope it will not be long for my next post, I am trying to find the time between the work, my newborn child, my better half, myself...and having some time to share it all with you.

Meanwhile here are some teasers ;) from the next phase:





















Hope you like our progress so far…if you do make sure to comment and share your thought in the comments.

Stay tuned…trust me it is just the beginning

See ya Next time



For more stories and photographs, make sure to check out my profile and if you like some of the stuff then perhaps consider UPVOTING, FOLLOWING and RESTEEMING.

@carpedimus

β€œ Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

~ Albert Einstein

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Check out some of my latest posts:

Building a Fully Automated, Self Sustainable, Solar, Hydroponic, Micro Urban Farm - The Outside - Part 1 πŸŒΏβ™»πŸŽ

Sustainability Curation Digest #4 πŸ‘¨β€πŸŒΎπŸŒΌπŸ‘©β€πŸŒΎ by Carpedimus - MSP

An afternoon Jam Session with Friends from All Over the World - Penticton, BC Canada - Cute Baby Photo inside 😻😘😍

A few Crazy Stories from My Life that I have Never Shared Before - I am Pasha - #introduceyourself

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Exciting project, must be a good feeling seeing all that hard work come together! Great result

Yeah man very fulfilling indeed !! It all turned out much more then initially expected.

Its funny how everyone pitch in their own little idea and at the end it turns out to be something way different that any of us imagined by himself.

Man I love your energy. It makes me feel lazy, but to be honest I'm time poor and broke. But you make it seem achievable. Love your work and look forward to seeing everything in action..

Thanks brother, yeah I know what you mean, it takes the most effort to start something...but once you started and you see your imagination is taking shape in real life...well that all the motivation i need :)

Thanks for the compliments, I will make sure to keep on updating.

And remember...you can always start small...the secret is in baby steps :)

Totally. And its sister πŸ˜‰πŸ˜‰πŸ˜‰

Its a proper path in vegetable patch.first as winter is coming!

Opaaa , i sorry milady :)

The winter is coming indeed :)

Just had this today :

Crazy... a ceiling in the mall just crushed during a surprise hail storm...crazy :)

Oh no wwwwaaaaayyyy!!!! Classic. No one hurt I hope!!!

Β  Β· Β 7 years agoΒ (edited)

No it was ok in this case, just a bit of damage...
Unfortunately another incident (same day) ended more tragically, nature can be so unexpected.

Oh no!!!!! It can be... awful..

True that!

Β  Β· Β 7 years agoΒ 

great work !!!! really looking froward to the progress as im hoping to build something similar in the future

Thank you very much my friend, I guess the best work comes from the heart :)

If you need any help in the process I will be happy to assist!

Β  Β· Β 7 years agoΒ 

no problem, yes authenticity and congruence from the heart is always some of peoples best work :) I will definitely be scouring your posts for info when i start building my own space, much love in your direction.

Sorry for the late reply, been crazy busy in the past few weeks.

Thanks for the kind words, i wish you all the best as well and hope to stumble upon you in the future :)

Β  Β· Β 7 years agoΒ 

all good mate , much love

Β  Β· Β 7 years agoΒ 

Nice photos ❀️ @carpedimus

Thanks :)

wow, this is so great!!

Still work in progress my friend, wait till you see all those plants growing in there :)

This is an amazing project @carpedimus!
Where is the funding coming from to set this place up?

Thank you!

To be honest, currently I am mainly funding it my self..but we have monetization plan for the place, it actually generates money right now, and we still not even officially opened.

The best part is that it actually didn't cost that much to build...we tried to use recycled material as much as we could...anyhow I believe it will worth my investment down the road ;)
its not going to be a Non-profit, this place is all about how a shitty location in not so wealthy towns can be converted into a money generating businesses that happen to teach how to grow clean food in cities, provide the equipment and knowledge to do so...but being financially sustainable (as well) while doing so....at least that the plan ;)

We need more people who take action like you @carpedimus.

I give free talks within Malaysia about once a week to raise awareness about climate change and our options to live sustainably.

With your permission, I'd like to use material and images from your postings for my future write ups and talks. I will give a credit mention to you of course.

With your work example, it will open up peoples minds to possibilities they might have never known before.

I am really sorry for the late reply, my newborn daughter...and honestly life in general been keeping me really busy recently, so i didn't had as much time to check out steemit.

So first of all thanks for the kind words, they are really appreciated.

Regarding your request, you are more than welcome to use any material you find useful, I am all into "raising the awareness about climate change".

Will be happy to see what you came up with :)

Peace

Hey! Cool,story, love the process. Come and check out my posts about the building project my van was updated with, the process seems similar and very involved. I appriciate your hard work, come on down and send an Upvote if you can! Cheers, @ndbeledrifts
https://steemit.com/circleoffriends/@ndbeledrifts/original-photo-by-ndbeledrifts-wandering-angus-series-limited-edition-woodwork-van-photos

@carpedimus. This project is very interesting! What are you planning to grow? Where are you going to source out the nutrient solutions?

Or is it specified in ur previous post. Id read that ofcourse..
.upvoted and followed. Im excited how this project goes.

Β  Β· Β 7 years agoΒ (edited)

Thanks dear, I appreciate it!

To be honest there is no strict plan on what we are going to grow, it is not going to be a farm for production but rather to show the capabilities, so I guess we going to be growing all sorts of vegetables, fruits and herbs...perhaps even small trees...lets see...

regarding the fertilizer, we currently sourcing it from a local company, but I am planning to mix my own sooner then later.

Thanks for the compliments, stay tuned, the interesting part is still coming up :)

I saw a lot of successful hydrophonics system growing lettuce here in the philippines

yeah it works great, you should try to build one your self :)

Thats the goal 😍