A lot has happened behind the scenes to get this new house, first Jim Pitts and Ted Imes informed us that Northrop would sponser another house at the dedication. We then sat down with Habitat to decide which house would be a good candidate for us. The city sold the house to Sandtown Habitat, and an architect drew up the refurbish plans for the house. Permits were acquired for the plans, and the Habitat staff gutted the house which was in aweful shape due to lead paint in the house, and just lots of rotting wood.
By the time Kurt, myself and our newest team leader Andrew got there on 4/08/2010 the house looked like this:
.jpg)
There is no roof, no back wall, and nothing but dirt in the basement, not so good. But, with a little love, a lot of hard work, some paint, and before you know it, it will be a home.
We got started on adding the love and the hard work on Saturday April 10th with a large turn out. That was essential because the goal for the day was to dig a pit around the basement to add a drainage ditch. Here we are digging away.
.jpg)
After the 12 inch deep and 12 inch wide ditch was dug, we laid in pipe all around the ditch and filled it with gravel. The pipe has holes in it where water can seep into and if the ground is fully saturated, like after a large rain, the water will run into a sump-pump collection hole and be pumped out. It was a grueling amount of work, but we managed to find time to dig out the concrete pad in the backyard, fill in the big holes in the backyard and mortar up a bunch of joist holes along the walls. Great job everybody!
Here is what the finished product looked like. Habitat and professionals are now in the process of cementing the basement over this gravel and drainage system.
.jpg)
Here is the happy crew, walking back to the warehouse to drop off all the tools we used. (Happy to go home and take a nap after all that shoveling.)
.jpg)
