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The Chesamisi School Well – Major Workover and Pump & Wellhead Installation

A Christian based school established for the poorer families and orphans.

They currently have a non-functioning well so on most days they are walking varying distances to different sources to gather their daily water.

The current well at the school is literally just an open hole in the ground with an aging concrete deck around the open hole. A piece of wood covers the hole.

This has several difficulties:

- the water, when available, is brought up by a rope and a bucket (one gallon at a time) … usually by the women and children.

- the rope and bucket method causes turbulence in the water down hole therefore supplying dirty water.

- the open hole is a safety issue.

- the open hole also is more subject to contaminates getting in the well.

We will clean the entire well and shore the walls down hole. We will also dig out the bottom depth of the well to develop a proper “reservoir” area to insure the greatest continuous use of the well. Following that step, we’ll install a new properly designed concrete work area at the surface, including a mounting position for the well head and pump handle assembly.

A pump will be installed at the bottom of the well, a tubing string for the water to get to the surface, and a series of rods to operate the pump from the surface well head.

Fabrication of Mold and First Pour

The first step is to build a well-constructed multi-use mold for the structural foam panels. It will take 12 panels to build the 8ft x 12ft prototype house.

The lumber from the timber yard was neither consistent in size nor true to a line so it took additional work to plane the 2” x 4” members to insure alignment. It was wood though and fit the bill. They were also not typical 2” x 4” measurements which affected the volume of the mold, hence made our first pour a bit of a guesstimation. It’s necessary to pour the right amount of mixture into the mold to accommodate for the 40 to 1 expansion ratio of the IADDIC chemicals, filling the mold completely, creating the structural foam panel.

The advantages of the structural foam fabrication are multiple, versus the traditional grass huts, twigs & plastic "igloos", and mud & timber houses. The foam is more durable, more fire resistant, completely damaging-bugs proof, easier (lighter weight) transportation to construction sites, less maintenance, better insulation, cost effective, and more timber-conservation efficient.

Form Fabrication

Wrapping the wood pieces keeps the foam from sticking. 

(Supervisor checking my work)

After vigorous stirring two component mixture for 30 seconds ...Filling the form and covering (foam expands and hardens in less than an hour.)

For more pictures, please visit album Structual Foam House on Foundation Facebook https://www.facebook.com/windandwaterfoundation

Fuel for Generator

Need to get fuel for the generator to run power drill / driver for form assembly ...
For some reason they wouldn't take my Texaco Credit Card.



Not sure we'll see this brand station in the States any time soon.

searching / shopping / scrounging

The challenge at hand is to gather all the materials to construct the form(s), and other tasks to build the Structural Foam House.
After 6 different store visits all around town (Home Depot, Lowe's where are you when I need you), we completed the list.



Multiple stores ... one for nails, one for screws, one for tacks ...



Yes, one in the same but I think they were here before Lion King ...

and now to the Timber Yard to pick up some made-to-order 2" by 4"s




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Last portion of journey; Nairobi to Kitale

From the Nairobi Domestic Airport (Wilson Airport), an hour and a half flight to Kitale - in the Rift Valley, western Kenya - which will be our base for the three projects (the house and the 2 wells) for this trip.
An early morning flight and a smooth ride provided for a wonderful aerial tour of this region.


Boarding Safari Air Express flight to Kitale

The volcanic marked of the terrain of the Rift Valley.

Back to Kenya ...12 Sept 2013

Headed back to Kenya to continue to work to provide accessible water to those in most need; orphanages and schools. As well as the two water projects, we will also be building the prototype structural foam house, designed to serve the needs of peoples in extreme poverty situations, and also potential use in refugee encampments.

Sunrise over the Atlantic ...

Nairobi International Terminal Operations now in tent buildings since main terminal building fire several weeks ago. Immigration and Customs working very well considering.

http://windandwaterfoundation.org