We will be installing this batch solar water heater to provide hot water to a sink on the outside of the container.  This is a simple and effective system that requires no external storage tank for the heated water.  You can learn more here.   Here’s a picture of the unit lying on the deck before installation.

Next up:  The interior glass entry wall for the open end of the container.

What might a tolbunt Orpington look like?  We posed that question to renowned Dutch artist and chicken geneticist Sigrid van Dort who masterfully imagined and painted this pair of tolbunt Orpingtons.

We hasten to add that the tolbunt Orpington does not currently exist.  This is simply Sigrid’s excellent rendering of how such birds might appear.  If you want to see more of her writings about chicken genetics and her remarkable paintings, go here.  We are years away from producing a real tolbunt Orpington in the flesh, if at all.  And yet, the pieces of our tolbunt project are in motion.

As luck would have it Greenfire Farms imported the first gold laced and jubilee (“jubilee” is a catchier name for mille fleur) Orpingtons into the United States.  So, possessing the basic building blocks for the creation of the tolbunt color pattern in Orpingtons, we selected a couple of our best-patterned jubilee Orpington hens and an outstanding gold laced Orpington rooster.  These birds almost immediately began producing remarkably robust chicks.

We’re raising about 40 of these cross-bred chicks, and in the fall after they molt will select the best-patterned birds for breeding in 2013.  We hope –but are not certain—that after about four generations of breeding we can hatch at least a few birds that grow to look like the birds pictured here.  Only time will tell.  But, we will keep you in the loop as this multi-generational project plays out.  With any luck one day the images in this blog post will leap off the screen and turn into living, breathing chickens in your backyard.

The container was then completely insulated using Icynene spray foam, one of those wonder chemical concoctions that saves the environment, eliminates acne, and turns to water when a flame is applied.  (I’m not making this up.)  Even the inside of the swinging container doors were insulated with a thick layer of spray foam that looks like world’s most wasteful application of butter rum icing.

Icynene is claimed to have an R-20 insulation value at a depth of about 6″, and it was applied at this depth for much of the container.  That’s about twice the R value of a wall in a typical home, and in this case the major culprit in insulating inefficiency –windows– has been completely eliminated from the design.  You will see in a few days that we do have a design element that allows in natural sunlight, but at night the insulated doors are shut and the solar barn becomes in essence a giant Igloo cooler sealed off from the world.

The ceiling received an especially thick coat to block the thermal effects of overhead sun.

Next up:  Drywall.

A modern shipping container has a thick floor made of a composite plastic/wood compound.  To our original container floor we added blue insulation foam board and then covered the foam board with tongue and groove plywood sheets.  Eventually the plywood will be covered with bamboo laminate flooring.  These layers should go far to insulate the floor of the container.

Here you can see the blue insulating foam board being laid over the original composite floor.

And here you can see the plywood being layered over the foam board.

And here you can see the initial framing work.  The wooden framing cannot be nailed to the walls and ceiling of the container.  So, the studs are precisely cut for a press fit and then glued into place with Liquid Nails.  We don’t want to compromise the strength, insulating ability, or water repellent properties of the steel skin by creating hundreds of small nail holes in the 1/12″ (2mm) thick sheet metal that enshrouds the container. Penetrations of the outer metal are limited to the minimum necessary.  In this case, we hope to drill only one or two holes in the skin for the entire project.