We’ve once again turned to recycling on our construction project, this time to protect our main area from wind and rain. Being situated by the lake there’s a strong breeze which blows through the main area. An absolute delight on those hot afternoons but it can get a bit much sometimes (especially if you’re trying to play a card game!). Add rain to that wind and the main area doesn’t afford much protection against the elements. We debated for a long while what material to use and how to make sure that, even when the flaps were down, there would still be enough light coming through.
One of our volunteers, after seeing our use already of old billboards, suggested also using that to make our flaps. It’s a material made for being out in the elements, we can get our hands on enough of it and we’ll be recycling as we go. Genius.
So we set to the task (when I say we, volunteers Isla and Timo did most of the grunt work here) of measuring out our flaps, cutting windows, sewing the edges and getting them prepped for hanging.
There in lay our next dilemma, how to hang them. We wanted them to roll up out of the way so they didn’t impede the view but that takes them to a height few can reach. Together with two other volunteers, Nuria & Aurelian, we made a homemade pulley system for the front and one side where we don’t have a half wall to help aid our rolling.
There were many design trials and fails until we reached our final product. Again, reusing, recycling and a lot of imagination were employed using leftover off cuts of piping from our plumbing and wood off cuts from construction.
We even got inventive with how to fix the grommets as we lacked the proper equipment. After many trials and many mangled grommets we perfected the method using a stack of washers and an old hammer head.
We’ve deployed the flaps a few times since their installation and they’ve been very effective. A few little tweaks here and there and it’ll be perfect. So, with a little (or a lot) of imagination we’ve reached our goal with minimal cost and environmental impact. A win-win in our books!
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