The Soule Homestead Education center
Expansion project
The Soule Homestead education center has begun work on it's new facility, with a mission of building green. The project involves adding a new composting toilet facility and kitchen area as well a 2 new classroom spaces.
The foundation and concrete floors have been poured and the framing should begin shortly. The new toilets will be state of the art composting toilets. What is a composting toilet? These composting toilets use no water and will save thousands of gallons of water annually. They reduce the size needed for the leaching field area and reduce the overall impact on the environment.
In the new classroom area there is radiant heating installed on the new concrete floor. Radiant heat is the most efficient method of heating and is also the most comfortable. Another reason for employing the slab heating is to enable the future expansion of a solar hot water system to help heat the building. Radiant heat placed in a concrete slab only requires 85-95F water temperatures to heat a building, while most conventional systems require a temperature of at least 160F or more making this the most compatible with solar heating systems.
