7/24/2010

Well I may have stated in the past how hot our workdays were this year, but as the ol' saying goes, we hadn't seen nothing yet. Temperatures this workday topped 107 degrees! Despite the heat, a dedicated crew including the home owner wanted to work.
Since the last time we were in the house, which was back during Summer Build Week, the habitat staff added the landing for the stairs in the house. This made it slightly easier to get up to the third floor were most of the work needed to be done at this point. The rain two weeks before had not done too much damage thanks to our new system of shellacking the subfloor once it is nailed down to the floor joists.

So work kicked off on the third floor by our small crew. Despite the heat and the smaller number of people, we managed to build several exterior walls, including the front wall which is probably one of the most important. That is because it supports the 100 year old ornamental roof work that is irreplacable. Once this wall was in place we could finish removing the last old roof rafters to get ready to build a new roof. We also got a large portion of the back wall up, complete with plywood exterior. Not a bad work day for packing up early to avoid heat exhaustion. Thankfully no one got sick or even sun burnt thanks to sunscreen and lots of cold water.

The first picture is of our working day sans Kurt, Rob, and Randy (who served as our photographer as well as a volunteer)


This picture is looking down from the third floor at the landings for the stairs:


Here is the crew placing the front wall to hold the ornamental wood work which is not pictured:


Finally a view of the back of the house with exterior plywood on the third floor.

Our 7/10/2010 workday

For those of you in Maryland and the general area, you know that things have been a little hot lately. Our summer build week was during a major heat wave and following week included another heat wave with temperatures breaking 100 degrees for three days. Despite the heat and near 100% humidity in the air, we had no rain in the Baltimore area. We were actually approaching drought conditions, so it was with mixed feelings when we awoke to a rain storm on Saturday. On one hand, we really needed the rain, and it would keep the nasty temperatures down during our workday. But, with no roof on our house yet, we knew it was going to be a soggy day - wet floors, wet lumber, wet workers. After arriving at the warehouse, though, the Habitat staff informed us that they had a magical plan to keep us dry . . . move us into a house with a roof! So we left our roof-less house and headed over to 1412 Mount Street - another house in the Sandtown area sponsored by T Rowe Price. They were short on volunteers for the day, so our crew of 15 headed over there and found an interesting house. Here are a pictures of the house, with Dan and Jess posing in the front "window".



The house is so interesting because it is a row home, like so many others in Baltimore, but its neighboring row homes are missing. It's large window areas also are unique to the area - signifying that this house had a make-over since it was first built in the late 1800's. Unfortunately for us, it is also unique because some mistakes were made in the floor plan of this rehab. So a large portion of our crew spent the day ripping out a portion of the first floor and entrance landing to fix the entrance into the house, which was too steep. We had to make the entrance area larger in area, so more steps could be added to cover the vertical distance without each step being too steep. This meant cutting floor joists, removing the landing, and creating a potentially not-so-safe environment. So we whipped up a temporary wall for support for the joists, and were very careful and cautious in working on that part of the house. The rest of crew tackled laying new joists and subfloor on the second floor. The rain kept the temperature in the house in the mid 70's which made working much more pleasant, but we look forward to working on our own house again soon.

Here are some more pictures of us in action:

Summer Build Week - Part Two

Despite the increasing heat as the week continued on so did progress. Wednesday we had a small crew come out but were joined by our homeowner and her family, and a few other independent volunteers. The day started of with a bit of re-work but we were able to make significant progress in laying down the sub floor on the third level. After a short post lunch hiatus due to a lack of generator fuel, we were able to get most of the framing re-work completed.

Wednesday's Crew




Thursday we had a huge crew including a dozen Northrop folks plus a group from Erickson's IT department joined in. We were able to complete the second floor exterior walls and finish laying all of the sub floor on the third floor. A team started constructing the third floor walls.



We were also able to get the stairwell on the second floor framed in, helping to eliminate the un-obstructed three story drop.



Thursday's Team



Friday we had another good turnout of Northrop folks. Picture taking was kept at a minimum, but framing progressed well. We started to frame and sheath the back walls on the third floor including working the logistics of moving the required plywood and gypsum sheathing to the third floor. A landing was built between the second and third floors which will ultimately accept a set of switchback stairs. A brave crew was able to cut back the roofs on the adjacent houses allowing our house to have a higher roof line to meet an 8 foot ceiling height throughout the third floor.

Friday's Group