Today's task was to finalize the purchase of the building materials for Sunday's test build. The following are the supplies purchased. With the exception of the hinges all items were purchased at the N. Huntsville Lowe's home improvement store.

Supplies:
Qty: 23 7/16" OSB 4x8 sheets
Qty: 24 2x4"x8' pressure treated studs
Qty: 2 2x4"x16' pressure treated stud
Qty: 2 cans Dow Great Stuff inflatable insulation/waterproof barrier
Qty: 90 3.5" Brass hinges (either Stanley or an off brand) rounded
Qty: 540+ Hinge screws
Qty: 5 gallons Exterior Paint

Habitat Restore: $48.60
Lowe's: $218.38
Total cost: $266.98

Other stuff hanging around:
OSB boards, boards of various lengths and sizes, nails, screws, miter saw, circular saw, saw hours, circular saw cutting guide, paint sprayer, ladders, nail gun, clamps, string, ground stakes, screwdrivers, hammers, miter box and saw

A few random notes:
1. There was a wonderful guy named Ed at Lowe's that loaded ALL the lumber onto the trailer!
2. We had a collective effort to unload the material at Shekinah Farm from Devonne, Christie, Satch, Desiree, Shelly, Symonne and myself. So basically seven of us did the work of unloading what one person, Ed, did by himself
3. A 10% Lowes coupon is in the "change of address" packets that are available from the United States Postal Service! Hint...hint! The discount almost paid for the paint for this build!

We off-loaded a trailer load of building materials today from a local builder. It will offset our lumber costs for this budget by about 20-30%. We have also found a local supply of used hinges that will be used for the build from the local Habitat Restore in Huntsville, Alabama. They have an abundant supply of Stanley brass hinges that we will be sorting and selecting tomorrow (storm today slowed us down). We will be using the standard 3.5" size, standard in most home supply retailers.

We will upload additional photos tomorrow and work to chop up the video footage from the ground clearing that was too long to properly upload into youtube on our attempt yesterday.

Look for more details as we lead up to Sunday's test build. Also additional donations would allow us to complete the waterproofing and insulation on this build date. Insulation (Reflectix or radiant barrier paint would be the choice for this test build. The cost implications for the Reflectix is approximately an additional $200 to the build and the thermal/radiant barrier paint would be an additional $100 cost to the project). Donations can be submitted through our blog page link to "chip in" or directly
CHIP IN FOR THIS PROJECT BY CLICKING THIS LINK

The work today was to level the build site and safely bury the water/sewer lines and rope a rough outline of the build site. The approximate work time was 1 hour 15 minutes.

The hexayurt has progressed from its brilliant beginnings in the hands of Vinay Gupta. This design was initially a solution for third world countries and burning man participants. The Factor E Farm group decided last fall to attempt a plywood build and after looking at the cost implications of that build I began work on redesigning the original construction design into a semi-permanent cabin style hexayurt.

The following links will provide you with background and development history and pictures.

The Hexayurt Project

Factor E Farm Plywood Hexayurt