October 29th, 2011

It seems like the weather is always mentioned in our blog, so why not keep to that theme and say it was pretty cold this Saturday, and was in fact the first October snow in Maryland since my birth year in 1979 (you do the math if you want to know how old that makes me, lol). Although Baltimore did not get a lot of snow, the cold temperatures and lack of windows in our houses made getting work done a bit challenging. The Habitat staff was surprised we even showed up, as most groups canceled after learning the Saturday forecast. But us Northrop Grumman folk come from strong stock and committed to working the whole day in the cold. Hot coffee and hot pizza were big attractions during the day, and a hot shower left pretty sweet after the day was complete.
Our crew focused on 1630 for the whole day in part because it was slightly behind 1632 in receiving its subfloor for the second floor, and in part because we had just enough people for one house. Kurt made an appearance after missing several weeks, and although it was great to have him back, he had to work out a few kinks. Namely, he forgot that subfloor most all be laid in a straight line and be laid with the grove facing the next row to be laid. Subfloor plywood has a tongue on one side and a grove on the other along the length of the plywood, so that adjacent sheets can be tucked into one another to lock the floor in place as a single unit. If the sheets are out of alignment or if the tongue and grove doesn't line up, the floor isn't as stable and is prone to lots of squeaking. Kurt remembered to place a line down the length of the house to keep the first row of subfloor lines up, but on the second sheet flipped the grove with the tongue end. Result: we had to ply up the second sheet of plywood and flip it around, which is not an easy task, especially when the sheet was nailed in place along all the joists it rested on. After we managed to ply it up and flip it, it got nailed down again but was off the line. Result, we had to ply it up a second time and correct it. Needless to say it was a slow start, but we all make mistakes and found out Kurt was far better at prying up nailed down plywood than the rest of us. So we at least had some good laughs. Once we got into the flow of things, our crew managed to lay the entire subfloor over the course of the day for 1630 N Gilmor. Boo yah! I did not take any pictures though because of the snow and the eagerness of everyone to get home to warm up, watch football, and celebrate the Halloween weekend. So you will have to wait until the next blog to see our handy work, or better yet come on up and see it for yourself.