May 16th, 2009

Saturday was another successful day at the house. The weather looked like it could rain on us heavily at any moment, but it managed to hold out for the whole day. The sun even came out for a few minutes, but we were glad to see it cloud over again, because the sunshine and humidity weren't all that pleasing.

Our jobs for the day were to get more joists added to the second level, to begin adding subfloor onto those joists, and to seal up any old brick pockets on the first and second floors to pass fire code. by sealing the floors smoke from one floor can't simply rise up into the next floor, making containing a fire much easier, and less deadly.

Here Craig is sealing one the brick pockets with brick and mortar. We got all the floors sealed by the end of the day. We also got the joists in over the stairs part. We had to hang some hangers by the stairs to hold up the joists. We had some issues securing the 2" beams into the 2.5" hangers, but some engineering took care of the problem. We cut some 1/2" plywood to fill the gap and nailed everything in place.

Here is Kurt hanging around the joists, which are pretty wobbly without any subfloor connecting them. Being safe requires walking cautiously and keeping your center of gravity low.

This is a picture of the second floor while standing on some of the subfloor (a much easier thing to do than what Kurt was doing). We covered up the nice floor and good subfloor sheets with a tarp since there is no roof. We lost several sheets of plywood to warping and mold by not covering them up the past several weeks, so we learned our lesson.

May 2nd, 2009

Work on 1606 N. Gilmor continues very steadily, despite still not having a roof over our heads. Thankfully, the rainy month of May granted clear enough skies on Saturday to not work in the rain. Framing of the first floor continued, and as the framing advanced we could begin adding joists of the second floor. Things got a little hairy around the stairs, since double joists had to be made and lifted into place, and one framed section of the wall had to be moved by 6 inches. Although that seems like a small amount, the wall had to be pried up from the floor, cut, moved, and nailed back to the floor. So it was a lot of work, but for structural support, we have to align the studs of the wall with the joists, since the joists sit on top of the frame.

This is a new method for Sandtown Habitat, as we used to chissel out the brick walls to make room for the joists, which was a messy and slow process. Below is a picture of us getting ready to add a new joist. To the right is a picture of the whole crew. Great job guys and gals, we got a lot done. Thanks for your help, and thanks for checking out the blog.

-Rob