UK - Day 6

This morning, we get a detailed tour of CAT from Trish, who is a cheery lady in charge of the facilities in some way. She has the most interesting accent of all I've heard so far, and I find it takes a lot of concentration to understand some of her words. For instance, "oith walls" are really not some new technology I hadn't heard about before - they are simply earth walls! That one took me some time to decipher.

She explains the renewable energies on site, starting with the reservoir atop the mountain. As the water descends to the campus, it creates power and some is filtered for drinking water. Another portion runs the cliff tram - which is their very sustainable system to cart people up the steep mountainside from the car park to the heart of the campus. This would be what we could not take up our first day because we did not pack light enough!
The cars act as counterweights to pull each other up the hill. As people load into the car at the bottom, the bottom cavity of the top car is filled with water from the reservoir until it is heavier than the car filled with people and then the brakes are released and they slowly trade places.
We also learn about all the different materials used on campus - untreated wood on the exterior of buildings (tricky...), organically treated wood, recycled rubber roofs (which look like slate), turf roofs, straw bale (which is a challenge to have in a climate as wet as this!), and "oith" walls (the texture is great): In the information center, they have posters showing how things have evolved in a sustainable sense at CAT and around the world over the past 4 decades. Pat Borer, the main architect for the campus, gave a talk last night about the 35 years of building at CAT and how they have been testing new technologies long before it was the trend it is now. They installed their first underfloor radiant heating system in 1976!
Trish also explains how they handle their waste - all of it is treated in some way on site. They have a reed bed near the base of the mountain which handles all of the grey and black water (i.e. all that is flushed or goes down a drain), and they also have some composting toilets. The set up the system in a two-chamber way, so one side of the system is dormant (full and breaking down into compost) and the other side is active. That way they can be used continuously while allowing the necessary time to create compost - which is used on the flower beds. Fascinating, isn't it?
After this insightful tour, we watch some essay presentations by the CAT students and then divide back into our teams to work more on our experiments. In Corris, our test cells are all callibrated (data having been logged in each one simultaneously to test the accuracy of the data loggers), and we brainstorm some experments to do. We choose to test the effectiveness of thermal mass in different configurations - Exp 1) clumped in the center or lining the exterior, Exp 2) near the ceiling or near the floor, Exp 3) inside the insulation or outside the insulation. So, we set these up to run overnight and head back to CAT for dinner and a talk from Tom Woolley.

Once again, we end the night with a walk to the pub. This time, in order to play in the darts game, the Americans must speak in an English accent and the English/Welsh must speak in an American accent. Despite my groggy head from the Benadryl I had to take for my midge bites, it was very entertaining!