Isolation chamber

[sagiXsagi]

OK, I see.. I am mushrooms hunter myself. It seems I should read the Stamets book I bought a long time ago sometime. I have read about how myceliums could be used in construction, but I never got to read whats it about. 

[FerdieJ]

I have read growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms back to back and the sections about specific mushrooms a few time over per mushroom.

Stamets really knows his stuff.

A lot of the idea of using mycelium comes from the melting pot of ideas that my brain has been working on for years for all sorts of other projects, there is lots of people using mycelium for lots of different things, some of which this project covers.

People use myc for art, to build furniture. They use it as insulation, both for sound and heat insulation, and it is fireproof, so it has applications to do with that.

Mushrooms are used for mycoremediation, part of the idea of the substrate that I will play with deals with breaking down waste as the myc food, still working on that.

 

I have basically mashed half a millions ideas into this one project, hence the very fluid nature of the design and implementation so far.

This is a prototype design and so once I have an idea of how to do it, I can work on improvements for next time, and the point of the posting here and on other social media is to help to encourage others to learn about just what mycelium can do, and this project helps to make it a fun learning curve with hopefully a wicked outcome, that will help encourage others to just try things and experiment because they saw how fun this project was.

 

And that’s my plan for how to change the world... well, that’s really a whole nother post...

[sagiXsagi]

thanks for the insight and for sharing your novel cause with the world   

 

[FerdieJ]

Started the TARDiS, need to get more materials to keep going but, you get the picture.

I get the tank on Monday, confirmed that this morning, so then I can start finalising the curved frame size and getting this thing really rolling along.

But the task for the week is to get the TARDiS bit finished, what I can anyway.

 

[FerdieJ]

Finally some new works.

The structure is temporarily in place while I sort out the roof.

It is starting to look pretty good!

I will have some more pictures hopefully by the end of the day if I get my skittles on, hopefully I can get the roof finished.

[FerdieJ]

I was way longer than I expected finishing, and it’s still not quite there but I need a break.

The roof is nearly complete so I can almost start on levelling the ground around the tank, and the tank itself.

There is a long way to go, but it is looking better everyday.

[rottenjonny]

what are you using for a tank?

[FerdieJ]

I got a sheep watering trough, 2280mm in diameter at 370mm deep.

Big enough for me at 193 cms to be able to almost not touch the sides at full stretch, which is pretty important, don’t want to ruin the moment by connecting to reality!

 

I am not sure how well it will work for the project, I was thinking a few different ways round about the tank, but this seemed an easy option.

  

Hopefully it does the job well, but time will tell.

[Tøn]

Absolutely incredible Ferdie, thanks for sharing this! I've had a similar idea in the past but absolutely nothing like this. Love the extent to which you're planning it out, and it seems like a solid idea on paper. I think the mycelium will definitely want to consume the structure but it should last years before it becomes an issue, if it ever does at all.

Very much looking for further updates.

Are you planning on a heating system for the water? Sourcing massive bags of epsom salts for the floatation aspect? I'm reminded of an outdoor bath setup on a farm I WWOOFED at, basically a rocket stove into a series of pipes under a bathtub which resulted in an obnoxiously gleeful bathing experience, looking out at the mountains in the distance in what must have been 50-60 degree water heated with a handful of twigs sitting next to the tub.

[FerdieJ]

Thanks Ton, I have dreamed about this for so many years it is so awesome it is now finally coming to life.

 

I have taken a bit of a break the last few weeks, I am up to leveling out the area and digging pipework in where it needs to be, and wet weather is not helping the motivation, but it is a big project and I want it done right so I don’t mind waiting a little more.

 

The salt I will order from a business that runs float tanks, they import direct from germany and have given me a good price to start with when I eventually order some, since I need about half a tonne of it.

 

The water temperature is a bit tricky.

Once it reaches temp and I add the salt it sort of has to stay warm forever because it is at saturation point at temp, so when it cools the salt crashes out of solution, causing issues with pumps and filters.

This is my biggest concern.

I think I will use a hydroponics waterbed heater for the most part, and turn it off while I float, hopefully the insulation will keep it at temp for the duration, but this will be one of those things that I will have to adjust as I use it and work the kinks out.

 

An old farm I lived on had a firebath, light a fire underneath and an hour later human soup!

 

I did think about trying to use a rocket stove somehow for this, but I will keep that for another project, or maybe the next one? This is only a prototype after all...

[ZooL]

Any updates on this?

[XavierDass]

Hope you're keeping well Ferdie, keen to see how this is coming along!

[FerdieJ]

Oops, forgot I put this here.

 

yep, things happened, life got in the way.

 

lucky though that it did, because I would have made a right mess of the original plan with all this water we’ve had over the last few months.

 

So the project as it stands, is a hole in the ground half full of water.. the hole has a roof over it, but I am a long way to go yet.

I have changed tack with a few of the original ideas, some things will end up being a little easier to accomplish, others require a lot of digging but which will ultimately mean a longer lifetime.

one of those is about 10k worth of concrete I wasn’t planning on, but it will mean the whole lot won’t flood as it will be higher and the drainage will be in place to remove the rains from the area.

 

if someone find me the cheat codes for ‘stacks of money’ and ‘loads of time’ that would be great.. oh and while your at it the code for ‘stop getting sidetracked’ would be good to.

 

I will get back to it, but it will take me a few years now to complete, rather than the few months I was originally dreaming.