Habitat Tutorial – Part 4 Roofing

This is the fourth part of a multi-part outline of what is involved in buildings a Habitat house.  This article covers the steps in installing roofing – felt and shingles and a few other roof line details such as building a “bird box”, installing the drip edge and vents.   The first part is Habitat Tutorial – Prepration for Build which covers some of the pre-build steps the Site Project Manger (SPM) and selected volunteers  go though just to get ready for the volunteers, the second is Habitat Tutorial – Part 2 which covers the first day where the walls go up and the third is Habitat Tutoial – Part 3 which covers raising the roof structure.    In addition, there are four sets of pictures with slide shows that have already been published that you may be interested in as they concentrate on people on the job site – volunteers.   The first is Habitat for Humanity – 2008 Dinner on the Slab consisting of 25 pictures including our future homeowner Nicole Combs and her son Elijah.  The second includes 115 pictures of the first day of the build – Habitat Build 2008 – First Day – Walls Go UP .  The third is: Habitat Build 2008 Second Day – Roof Goes On which has pictures and blog on the installation of the roof trusses and decking the roof.   The fourth is Habitat Build 2008 – roofing and siding.   If you want access to any of the tutorial pictures they are all in one place for all the tutorials to date.   Tutorial Slide Show – 146 pictures so far, including many not in this article.

Note: If you came here looking for the homeless veterans site, this is it!   If you came here looking for the homeless youth site, this is it!.   I’m just taking a break to help out on a Habitat House and once a year I post what I saw, experienced and learned.  Click on either of the two links in this paragraph or go to the side bar and select a category or search for what you want.  Also look above the banner or to the right for popular articles on Homeless Veterans.

Tutorial – installing roofing shingles

Roof Ready For Shingles

This is the way Habitat volunteers see the house when they arrive on the scene on roofing day.  Soon the roof will be covered front and back with volunteers.  It is essential that the roofing be done early in the day and that there is plenty of water available.  The felt and starter shingles are already in place.

 

 We need to start this tutorial a little earlier than that.

 

Drip Edge Installation

This drawing illustrates drip edge installation.  The drip edge must be installed in the order shown.  The drip edge is a metal extrusion that goes along the horizontal edge (eave) of the roof under the roofing felt and along the sloping edge (rake) of the roof above the felt.   Install the drip edge for the eave before the roofing felt is installed.  Install the drip edge for the rake after the roofing felt is installed.   Attach the edge using 7/8 ” roofing nails on 24″ centers.  Unlike shown in the drawing, the rake edge goes all the way down and overlaps the eave edge.   Trim the rake edge to match the eave using tin snips.   When two pieces of drip edge meet in a joint, overlap the joint by 1 to 2 inches by trimming the top of one as needed to allow them to overlap.   Joints on the rake drip edge should should have the upper one overlapping the lower one.

Also shown in this illustration is something called the “bird box”.  

Click here for the rest of this tutorial:

Habitat Build 2008 Third Day – Roofing and Siding

Saturday, May 31 was the third day of the Presbyterian Coalition, Cobb Habitat for Humanity build in 2008.  This is the seventh  article in this series, the first covering the Traditional Dinner on the Slab which includes a slide show of 25 pictures and introduces the future homeowner, Nicole Combs and her son Elijah.   The second article is the beginning of a tutorial “ Habitat Tutorial, Preparation for Build“ which covers some of the intense preparation that goes on behind the scenes before the volunteers show up.   The third article covers the actual first day of build: Habitat Build 2008 First Day – Walls Go Up .  The fourth article is the second part of the tutorial, Habitat Tutorial – Part 2 .  Look to the right hand column of this page and find Oldtimer’s recent posts for the rest of them or to put them in order for reading.

For those of you looking for the homeless veterans or homeless youth, this is also it. Click on one the links above the banner or on either of the two links in this paragraph, or maybe check out the right sidebar.

This article covers the installation of the roof shingles, Hardi Plank siding, and various other 3d day activities.   From any slide show you can access various sizes of the prints for free download (instructions further down – “Getting Copies”).

Link to slide show – 170 pictures Click on picture or here

Link to a collection of all Habitat pictures (2007 and 2008) organized one set per day!

Getting Copies

The pictures shown here and in the slide show do not have the resolution you can get if you download them from the Flickr site.   If you are viewing a slide show containing the picture you want, click on the link at the top left of the slide show to get to the full set at high resolution, or click on any picture in the slide show and then click on “View Main Page”.    If you are looking at the mosaic of of a set for a particular day, you can click on the picture you want.    Once there, you can click on the button above the picture “All Sizes”.   It will open in the large size, but you can download any picture in any size free, or can order prints through the site that will be delivered in about an hour to your nearest Target store.  It’s not obvious how to get to the Target option. First put a print in your shopping cart.  When ready for checkout, you can send your prints to Target for printing for about 15 cents per copy or have them mailed to your home. 

In addition, you can go to “Zassle” and have T-shirts, coffee mugs etc. made with your favorite print.  Enjoy.  Below are selected prints but only a small sample of what is available for free download.

The Third Day

It’s amazing what has been accomplished in the first two days!   Not only are the walls up, but the walls are all up, the roof is decked and dried in, the exterior walls are covered with OSB, the windows are in all in and all but one door has been installed.   Today the plan is to put the shingles on and get a good start on the siding.  

The day, as always, starts with an orientation for new volunteers, a pep talk, then a safety talk and an introduction of the homeowner by our SPM (Site Project Manager), Jeff Vanderlip.   If you peek through the tent above the person in the white tee-shirt, that is Jeff in the orange tee-shirt and floppy hat facing us.  You can see that a couple of workers are already on the roof even before the rest of us get started.  They are laying “starter” courses for us to work from.   More about starter courses later.

Nicole Combs is the future homeowner and also in the picture.   To the left of the tent is a man with a purple cap.  Nicole is on the far side of the picture just to the right of him.  She is also in the top picture right in front of the wheelbarrow (yellow shirt).  

And this is Elijah.  He is the son of of our future homeowner.  He has a keen interest in what is going on as he will be living here, but he is too young to work on the site.  When around, he is confined to the food tent or visiting inside after the work is done and helping clean up the property or just playing nearby.  A great kid.

Shingles!

This is essentually the way we found the roof this morning.  The starter edge courses are alrady in place and the bundles of shingles are on the peak of the roof.   The shingles you see along the edges were put there by the Gray Ghosts that I’ve mentioned a number of times in my earlier posts.    

The two people on the roof are putting on starter courses that run up the centerline of the roof in such a way that volunteers can work off each side of the centerline toward each edge of the house.  That way at least four crews of workers can work at any one time.  They’ve also started the porch roof and valley so that the valley shingles can be put in as a “weave” for good looks on the front.

To see the rest of this article and some great pictures, click here:

Habitat Tutorial – Part 3

This is the third part of a multi-part outline of what is involved in buildings a Habitat house.  This article covers the steps in raising the roof and drying in the house and a myrid of little details going on at the same time.   The first part is Habitat Tutorial – Prepration for Build which covers some of the pre-build steps the Site Project Manger (SPM) and selected volunteers  go though just to get ready for the volunteers, and the second is Habitat Tutorial – Part 2 which covers the first day where the walls go up.    In addition, there are three sets of pictures with slide shows that have already been published that you may be interested in as they concentrate on people on the job site – volunteers.   The first is Habitat for Humanity – 2008 Dinner on the Slab consisting of 25 pictures including our future homeowner Nicole Combs and her son Elijah.  The second includes 115 pictures of the first day of the build – Habitat Build 2008 – First Day – Walls Go UP .  The third was released earlier yesterday: Habitat Build 2008 Second Day – Roof Goes On which has pictures and blog on the installation of the roof trusses and decking the roof.  If you want access to any of the tutorial pictures they are all in one place for all the tutorials to date.   Tutorial Slide Show – 146 pictures so far, including many not in this article.

Note: If you came here looking for the homeless veterans site, this is it!   If you came here looking for the homeless youth site, this is it!.   I’m just taking a break to help out on a Habitat House and once a year I post what I saw, experienced and learned.  Click on either of the two links in this paragraph or go to the side bar and select a category or search for what you want.  Also look above the banner or to the right for popular articles on Homeless Veterans.

This is a a drawing I made of a generic roof truss, not too unlike what is actually installed.  At least most of the parts are here.  Below are pictures of the trusses we actually installed and you may note some minor differences.  The major difference is the end trusses which have more vertical 2×4’s in the web so that there are places to nail OSB and siding.  None of the ones we put up have a King Post.

The trusses are marked with alignment marks while still on the ground. Each truss is marked 14″ from one end (only), that end being the end that goes on the longest wall, (in our case the back wall).   A line is snapped along the back wall exactly 2″ from the back edge of the cap plate.  The corresponding 14 inch mark on the roof truss allows for a 12 inch overhang and the 2 inch offset in the snapped line.   When the roof truss is slid into place a volunteer aligns the truss mark with the snapped line on the cap plate.   If one end is right, then both ends will be right on these manufactured trusses.

I was one of the two marking the trusses.  The other was Max, son of our SPM, Jeff Vanderlip.  Each truss also receives a mark along the top plate/top rail at 47 1/4 inches and at 9 feet.   These marks go on both ends of each truss.   The 47 1/4 inch mark is the top edge of the beginning course of the OSB deck (which allows for a 3/4 inch overhang over the end of the truss.   3/4 inch fascia board stretched across the ends of the trusses will take up this overhang.  The 9 foot mark is the location of the 1×4 boards used to tie the tops of the trusses together while the trusses are going up.  9 ft is chosen so that two courses of OSB panels can be installed below the 1×4 boards.  

To read the rest of this tutorial, click here:

Habitat Build 2008 First Day – Walls Go Up

Saturday, May 10 was the official start of the Presbyterian Coalition, Cobb Habitat for Humanity build in 2008.  This is the third article in this series, the first covering the Traditional Dinner on the Slab which includes a slide show of 25 pictures and introduces the future homeowner, Nicole Combs and her son Elijah.   The second article is the first in a series of a sort of Habitat Tutorial, Preparation for Build which covers some of the intense preparation that goes on behind the scenes before the volunteers show up.  I say “sort of” because I am not an expert, but willing to discuss the various Jobs assigned to me and/or learned over the years.  Hopefully most of it is close to right.

This article covers the first day the volunteers show up, and includes a slide show for the entire day with 115 photos, almost all including the volunteers.  My photo is hopefully the only one not included, as I am behind the camera.  To see the slide show of 115 pictures click here or on any picture below!

This is the start of work, 8:23 AM.  Safety instructions and a pep talk have already been given by our SPM (Site Project Manager), Jeff Vanderlip.   That’s Jeff in the middle of the site with the orange shirt and big floppy hat.  The various top and bottom plates are still tacked together and strewn hap-hazardly all over the site.

The top and bottom plates are numbered and well marked so it doesn’t matter what order the walls are built or if anyone knows exactly what they are building.  Grab a set, pull it apart, remove the tack nails, lay them about 8 feet apart and start adding studs, T’s, doors and windows.   See the tutorial for good examples.

A half hour later, the walls are well on their way.  many of them are completed, including the addition of a sill seal foam tape (blue) on the bottom plate.   Some of the build is taking place in the driveway of the house in the background.   Often we take to the street.  To do a good job we do need a flat area so the components line up properly.  

Measure it twice, cut once!   The gentleman on the left is our “cut man” for the day.  The one on the right is “Pretty Boy” Miller, also known as “9 fingers”.   He is our grand master of carpenters and a super-volunteer.

Getting Copies

The pictures shown here and in the slide show do not have the resolution you can get if you download them from the Flikr site.   Go to the slide show and click on the link at the top left of the slide show to get to the full set at high resolution, or click on any picture in the slide show and then click on View Main Page.  Once there, you can click on the button above the picture “All Sizes”.   It will open in the large size, but you can download any picture in any size free, or can order prints through the site that will be delivered in about an hour to your nearest Target store.  It’s not obvious how to get to the Target option. First put a print in your shopping cart.  When ready for checkout, you can send your prints to Target for printing for about 15 cents per copy or have them mailed to your home. 

In addition, you can go to “Zassle” and have T-shirts, coffee mugs etc. made with your favorite print.  Enjoy.  Below are selected prints but only a small sample of what is available for free download.

First Wall

Nicole installs the first wall to go up!  This is always a photo opportunity and can’t be missed.  There are several other shots of this in the slide show.  The time is 9:09 AM, barely 46 minutes after we started!  The all important wall brace is being wrestled into place on the far left.   All the walls are braced by long 2×4’s to hold the walls vertical and to make sure they don’t get pushed over by loose walls stacked against them or a tired soul leaning heavily in the wrong place.  Long stakes are driven into the ground and the brace is poked through the top of a window or doorway, if available, and nailed at each end when the wall is perfectly vertical.

The second wall.  It includes a window unit and a couple of T’s.  This is the back of the house and includes the utility room and a bedroom.   Notice the brace at the left.  Another is being readied off camera for this wall.  There was no window or door in the first wall so the brace is through the wall itself.  The reason for using window and doors for the braces is so that later much of the outside sheathing can proceed without removing the braces.   

Neat Suspenders. 

Time for a break.  Picture windows make good seats.   Don’t worry, I have front views of all these people in the slide show, including this one.  Hmmm, more suspenders.

 

OK, these oldtimer’s deserve more respect.  They are both Gray Ghosts and SPM’s as well.  The Gray Ghosts are generally expert carpenters and woodworkers that have retired but like to stay busy helping the Habitat cause move along.  When things don’t go right or don’t get finished, the SPM puts in a request for Gray Ghost help.  They slip in after the volunteers are gone, review the work and fix any problems or complete any incomplete work so that the job stays on schedule.  The volunteers may notice that someone finished the roof or fixed a window or completed a porch and wonder who did it.  The answer is always “a gray ghost”.  Unsung heroes to me.  There is no telling how many houses they have led and how many more they have worked on as ghosts.

Hmm.  Looks like Debbie found her job!    Debbie is also an SPM and has already completed her house on this same street.  She has lead many houses for her local high school and now that she is retired, continues on.

Every body is busy. Except for me, of course.  I put the camera down from time to time to pick up my hammer, but to tell the truth, at my age, I can’t do that much anymore.   I did plaster a few OSB walls with nails pretty well however.  I’m trying to document the progress with the intention of keeping a working tutorial of the build.   Wish me luck.

I believe the 5 people nearest the center of this picture are all board members or past members of the Presbyterian Coalition, 6 counting the guy behind the camera.  There are many more on the site today.  Everybody works.

Food on the way.  Hamburgers and Hot Dogs.   Each week a church has volunteered to fix the meal and serve drinks.   The assigned church also provides the opening prayer and the food blessing and often a devotional at lunch time.  First Presbyterian always provides the meal on the first day of build and Macland Presbyterian provides the meal for the last build day.   Often the meals are donated by local restaurants.  For example sometimes Papa John’s will provide free pizza dinners or perhaps Williams Brothers Bar-B-Que or Subway.   Others are home cooked or maybe sandwiches.  It doesn’t matter, we are so hungry you could serve worn out shoe leather and no one would complain.

This young lady is cutting insulation into strips to insulate the T’s.  All of the outside walls must be insulated and no exceptions are made for small gaps.  You may be able to see an insulted T in the far wall above her head.  The T’s and corner posts must be insulated now because the OSB sheathing will cover much of it before the day is over.   Another area to be insulated early will be the areas behind the tub enclosure before the tub goes in.   Insulation can be a problem if the various inspections delay us from getting other things done.  So very often a special day is set aside for a midweek day to insulate the walls.  It has to be done after the house is dried in and plumbing and electrical done,  but before the drywall goes up.

This is our leader, our SPM.  Jeff Vanderlip, a tireless worker and hard task master.  Always urging us to “have fun” then assigns us the most dreadful tasks.

This picture may look a little fuzzy but that is sawdust sprinkling down in front of Terry Barton’s face.  It is particularly fine sawdust because he is using a metal cutting blade to cut a window opening – it was all he could find.  I had a proper blade in my truck as did probably 5 others.   Terry is our finance officer and past president of the Coalition.   He is also a Master Gardner and does genetic family research on the side (or something like that).  Anyway he can tell you if you are related to Napoleon or the guy you thought was a great great grand daddy but you’re not certain.

Here the house frame is being straightened and aligned with the aid of a couple of blocks of wood and a tight string.  The block he is holding is positioned behind the string while others move braces inside the wall to bring the wall into perfect alignment.   The technique is to put blocks at each end of the top of the wall, tightly stretch a string between them and adjust the wall to a third block that is moved between the wall and the string.    The walls are virtually complete.

  

I was asked to capture these two together and just at that moment, one tried to get away.

There are about a hundred more pictures on the slide show and I’ve sort of randomly selected a few representative shots here.  There is another slide show coming up as part of the continuing tutorial if anyone is interested in that.  You would be amazed how many people visited last year’s pictures doing searches on construction such as “Hardi Plank” or “roofing” or “siding” or “framing”.  

Job Well Done

Well, here is the last picture for the  day.   The time is 3:10 PM and everybody is gone, some 7 hours after the official start of the day.   The house is sheathed, openings cut, all the walls are up and perfectly aligned, the porch beam is installed and the house is completely ready for the roof trusses that will go up next Saturday.   Incidentally, the pole at the end of the house is a safety pole to hold the first roof truss as it goes up and prevent it from toppling over.  The pole will remain in place until all the trusses are up and the roof completely braced and stable.   There is a catwalk used for safety purposes installed over the living room that I’ve not shown.  It will be in the tutorial and will come down after the trusses are in.  Safety is much more important than finishing the house.

Click here or on any picture for the slide show and for access to the full sets of pictures for free downloads or for ordering prints.

Enjoy,

Oldtimer

  

Habitat Build July 15 – Dedication Day!

Today was Dedication Day for Joi’s new home.   Dedication day is when we dedicate the house to the Lord and turn over the keys to the homeowner.  She gets a hammer, some gifts, and a Bible as well.  Plus lots of good will.   Every body loves her.

The house is ready, and there are no known issues.  She is not quite able to move in yet, as the Certificate of Occupancy (CO) from the city has not been issued yet – but it is coming.  

As a matter of fact, it is beautiful.  One of the prettiest and blemish-free houses I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on – a reflection of the beauty of Joi’s smile.  

Partly also because of the eagle eyes of Jeff Vanderlip and Jim Miller any and all potential problems were caught early and immediately corrected.  Jeff is our official Site Project Manager (SPM) and Jim is our honorary SPM.   Together they have probably built as many Habitat houses as anyone else in the world. 

The picture above is the front cover of the program used for the dedication.  The inside and back are in the slide show.  The slide show has 44 pictures, including the complete dedication cerimony and pictures of all the guests and the President of Cobb Habitat for Humanity John Kerwood.   

You simply have to go to one of these dedication events to hear the wonderful “Amens”, “Praise the Lord”, and experience for yourself the Holy Spirit at work.  Pictures do not do the wonder of this experience justice!

Enjoy.  Simply click on any picture to see the slide show.  If you are interested in downloading or obtaining a copy of any photo, click on the link above the slide show and you will get a montage of all the pictures.  Click on any one of these and you will get a larger one.  Or click on “details” to see larger ones of all of them and you can also comment.  To get a full size photo (highest resolution), you need to click again until only one photo is shown, and then look above the photo for “All Sizes” (find it above the photo).    Downloads are free and you can print them at home. 

Copy Service 

Flickr has a copy service that allows one hour pickup at a nearby Target store at very reasonable prices if you need a print from a retail store, or you can have it mailed to you.

You can click on “Order Prints” which is located to the right of the “All Sizes” link.   There will be a number of choices and options where you can add prints to a “shopping cart”.   Eventually you will get to a page where you can select Target pickup or have them mailed to you. Or you can cancel, so if you want to know the costs, just pick one and take it to checkout, then cancel at anytime – empty your cart if you think it is unreasonable.   Habitat, the Presbyterian Coalition, and I get nothing but the pleasure  of presenting these for your photo album.

View all Habitat for Humanity Posts

There are 15 posts describing the construction of Joi’s house.  To see all the Habitat posts and all the slide shows, click here or on the link on the right, labeled “All Habitat For Humanity Articles.” and this site will pull them all together for you.  No need to skip around.

Viewing all Habitat Photos for 2007 

There are 10 sets of photos for Joi’s homebuilding (day by day) gathered into a collection.  To see a collection of all the Habitat photos for the 2007 build of Joi’s house on one page where you can select, view, download, copy or view a slide show of each day, click here – Collection of Habitat Photos .

Selected Photos

Finished house, soon to be Joi’s home. 

 

This house was sponsored and built by the Presbyterain Coalition of Cobb County (GA) with the help of numerous church and other volunteers and the constantly smiling Joi.

Jeff Vanderlip, Presenting the hammer to Joi

Mark Rittenhour presenting the key ring

Smallest Guest – Isn’t she a beauty!  Wonderful.

Joi (left ) and Guests

More Guests,  Joi’s ministers, friends and family

Sample of the plaque given to all the churches by Cobb Habitat for Humanity.This one happens to be my church.  Nice touch.  We have a bunch of them hanging on our walls.

To see the slide show and more pictures, click here or on any of the pictures above.   The ones below don’t link.

Selection of Photos from earlier slideshows 

Landscaping Challange “Grass, you’re going Down!”

Joi – try to smile once in a while!  Isn’t that a pretty smile?

Siding going up

 

First Day – Show of Progress!  That’s Joi in the pink, working.

First Wall – Photo Opportunity everyone!

Enjoy,

Oldtimer

To see all the Habitat posts and all the slide shows, click on the link on the right, labeled “All Habitat For Humanity Articles” (or here).    To see a collection of all the Habitat photos (in sets by day) for the 2007 build of Joi’s house on one page where you can select, view, download, copy or view a slide show of each, click here – Collection of Habitat Photos .  There are 408 photos.  You gotta be in there somewhere!  (Well, I did miss three photo days that I know of:  Layout day, roofing day, and cleanup day.  Sorry about that.)

Here is another important link – The Presbyterian Cobb Habitat for Humanity official web site where you will find more pictures and information, and other links.

To see all Homeless Veterans Articles

To see all Homeless Youth Articles

Enjoy!

Donations for Robbed Habitat Homeowner Roll In

A few weeks ago I reported here that our local Habitat For Humanity Homeowner, Joi had her storage bin broken into and all her household belongings cleaned out – stolen.  Hers was one of 18 units broken into over that weekend.   She had worked on her home with us not knowing that her belongings were already stolen.

Now there is some good news.  The following is an email I received from Pat  Shankle, owner of Georgia Home Staging this morning.  A link to Pat’s web site is in the blogroll to the right.

Good morning everyone.
I’m so excited!  A member of our church has donated ALL BRAND NEW furniture for Joi’s house.  We have a brand new complete living room set, dining room set, Master Bedroom, Guest Bedroom and home office set up. Other donated items we have rec’d are:  dishes, flatware, knives, washer, dryer, misc accessory items.

Mostly what we need now is money so that I can purchase towels, sheets and other misc staple items.    

In addition to that, I know that there have been some monetary donations totaling enough to finish out the home.   

A very dark hour has been turned into a bright new day, a blessing, a dream come true.   Thanks be to God.  Pat had volunteered to “stage” the house even before the robbery, then she took up the flag and began a march to find replacement furniture – not just any old thing someone wanted to get rid of.  Pat wanted to look at it and make sure it would fit in with the other donated things and would be enjoyed by Joi and her family.   Thank you Pat.   And thanks to all of our Macland Presbyterian Church members that have worked so hard to help Pat and Joi out.  And thank you, whoever in our church that donated the furniture.  What a blessing you have bestowed.   My “helping others” admonition in a recent post is hereby retrieved.  We do help others in this neck of the woods!

The house has been completely roofed and dried in last time I was there.   This Saturday is the beginning of “blitz week” for our builders, all volunteers from the 10 churches that make up our Presbyterian Coalition.   We have had a week of rest while contractors come in to do those things that either require licensing, (such as plumbing, electrical, heating and air) or specialized gifts such as installing drywall and kitchen and bath cabinets and flooring.   

Habitat is blessed with sponsors that will give up much or all of their profit to help in this great mission.  For example, Whirlpool gives the stove, dishwasher and refrigerator free for every Habitat house built in the country.   A wonderful gift that they have been doing for as many years as I can remember. 

We are blessed with a drywall supplier that installs the drywall at no cost other than the discounted cost of the drywall itself.    The architectural drawings and landscaping plans are often donated and a landscaper shows up at no charge to help with the planting.

 This coming Saturday, June 9th we will be doing siding installation (hardi-plank), interior door installation and painting, interior and exterior.  As soon as a wall is finished with siding, the joints are caulked and the paint starts going on.  Everything, inside and out gets two coats. 

Then we go all week, June 11 through June 16, every day until the house is finished.   It is more of the same – siding, interior doors – painting and trim work.  The last day, June 16 is reserved for landscaping.  Planting shrubs, trees, flowers and putting down sod.  Typically the sod is bermuda grass in big rolls, sometimes pads.   When all this is done, it will be a real house.  When the dedication is done, and Joi moves in, it becomes a home.

If you are in this neck of the woods, come on out!   Directions are on the Presbyterian Coalition Habitat link in the blogroll.

OUCH! Our Habitat Homeowner Robbed of Belongings

I found out today that Joi (photo), our future homeowner of the Habitat for Humanity house we are building for her in Mableton, Georgia, had her furniture and other belongings stored in a storage locker while waiting for her new home to be built.  

 She worked on the house with us Saturday, only to find out later that her storage locker, along with 17 others, was broken into over the weekend.   She is devastated at this bad news.   What should have been a happy occasion is now ripped to shreds by scum-of-the-earth thieves.

There is some help coming in the form of Pat of our church that owns a home staging company.  She had already planned to rally our church members and her business associates to  donate furniture to Joi and to stage her new home.   Now it looks like we need to  come up with even more.   Stay tuned.  If you would like to help with monetary donations, contact the PCCH site (also there is a link on the side bar) or Pat at pshankle@georgiahomestaging.com . 

We don’t have a procedure yet, but the PCCH is a 501 corporation through the church and it should be counted as a donation there.   Checks to them need to be made to “First Presbyterian Church, Marietta” and marked “Habitat donation for Joi” mail to: First Presbyterian Church, 189 Church Street, Marietta, GA  30060-1629, attention “Habitat Mission, Bob White”.    

Anything that comes through me or Pat would need to be made out to “Macland Presbyterian Church”, and marked “Habitat donation for Joi”, mail to: Macland Presbyterian Church, 3615 Macland Road • Powder Springs, Ga • 30127-1336 , attention: “Habitat Missions Team”,   If you live in the area and want to make furniture or other physical donations, contact Pat or the PCCH, or let me know through a comment and I’ll contact you by email.

Such thieves are trully miseable excuses for human beings.   

Click For all Habitat Articles  and more pictures of Joi and the progress being made.  

Habitat Build 2007 Slide Show and Pictures

May 6th, 2007 · No Comments

Presbyterian Coalition Habitat for Humanity Slide Show of all the pictures made by Oldtimer at the Dinner on the Slab, May 4, 2007.

Slideshow:  Dinner on the Slab

Presbyterian Coalition Habitat for Humanity Slide Show of all the pictures made by Oldtimer on the First Day of Build, May 5, 2007

Slideshow: First Day of Build 

Slideshow: Second Day of Build   May 12, 2007

PCCH Website

The morning started out just like last week.  It had rained hard overnight, but the site was not particularly muddy and very little water remained on the concrete slab.   As usual we had our pep talk, our safety talk and our introductions to the crew leaders.   These little talks are needed each time because there are always new people showing up that could not get there on previous build days.

The goal for the day was to safely put up the roof trusses, deck  and tarpaper the roof, wrap the house and install all the windows and doors.    Short summary:  Mission almost accomplished.  The deck didn’t get finished and it is not tarpapered.

First truss Someone had come in during the previous week and put up safety poles at one end of the house.  Probably Jeff, the Site Project Manager (SPM) and the “Gray Ghosts”.   That allows the first roof trust to have something to rest against and to tie to because it is the key to having all the trusses line up properly as they go up.  All the other trusses are tied back to the first one.  Thus the safety poles serve to stabilize the trusses all the way across and assure none of them fall over and start a deadly domino reaction.    The Gray Ghosts, by the way are an organized group, usually retired builders and handymen, that come in mid week and repair anything that is put up wrong and/or was not finished.  They are volunteers that work one or two days a week to make cetain that builds proceed smoothly.   Since they are usually unseen by the volunteers, they are in effect ghosts.   They usually come at the invitation of the SPM. 

The trusses were shipped stacked and nailed together.   I had the job of separating them and marking the trusses for alignment purposes.  That consists of making a mark on one end of each truss at the 14 inch mark for the purpose of setting the overhang.   Each truss also had a mark at 47 inches from each outside edge of the slope for the purpose of setting the first 4×8 row of decking boards.

“Wyze Guys” The first truss was lifted by a crew of 6 or 7 people and one end slid up onto the front wall using the forked “Ys”  poles shown next to the window.   Jeff likes to call the pole holders “Wise/Wyze Guys”.   Often the Wise Guys were women.  The truss is shoved forward and the poles moved back as the truss went over the wall.   Some Wise Guys went inside and helped lift the truss over obstacles such as interior walls until the truss spanned the entire house.   One person at the other end was positioned to align the 14 inch mark with the wall.   Men on the inside lifted the truss into position on the wall and against the safety pole and then shifted as necessary to get the proper alignment.  The truss rests outside of the blocking put in the previous week and firmly against the poles.

Finally it was nailed securely into place.   Each of the remaining trusses were hefted up in a similar fashion.  One “safety man” had the job of making sure that no one working on the top side was caught between an incoming truss and walls or trusses already in place.  Thankfully no one got hurt.    Special jigs hold the tops of the trusses exactly two feet apart and keep them from falling over.   Usually long 1×4 boards are nailed truss to truss across the top edge to ensure they do not separate or fall over.   These are removed as the decking 4×8 sheets of OSB go up.  This year we also had metal truss spacers that remain permanently.

The picture at the left shows the spacer jigs on the first two trusses and the smaller metal truss spacers on the rest.   1×4 boards were added later as the number of trusses began to worry us about safety.   If one of these trusses fall over they might all fall over and someone would definitely get badly hurt.   We don’t take chances on Habitat builds.

The last truss. The last truss was lifted entirely from the outside of the building.  I think this is the most dangerous point of any build.   The last truss is heavier than all the others due to the added OSB on the end, and it has to be raised straight up into position.  The technique is to get it positioned below the wall and then lift it to the top of waiting stepladders.   Wise Guys steady the truss against the wall and the ladder men climb the ladders to get a higher grip.  Finally the whole thing is lifted into position.  It could easily slip off the 1.5 inch ledge it sits on and it could also easily tip too far toward the other trusses and leverage itself off the ledge or with real tragic results tip backward and fall on the whole crew.   Thankfully it went smoothly. 

The truss is firmly nailed along the blocking on that end of the house and the tops joined with spacer jigs and then 1×4 boards tieing them firmly together.

Other things going on.  Even before the first truss went up, there was a crew set up to wrap the house in a waterproof wrap.  In this case Tyvek.  It seems as if it is a rule that this stuff always goes on upside down.   It actually depends on which direction you choose to wrap the house.   Right to left, right side up.  Left to right, upside down.  Guess which way everyone goes.    Once the wrap is started, another crew begins marking the studs on the edge of the slab and marking vertical lines on the wrap.  These are so the siding nailers can find the studs easily.    Also once the wrap is started, the window installers go to work.  Each window is set into place and nailed in.  Then someone comes behind them and puts on vertical and horizontal strips of tape to seal the window edges from any chance of  leaking.  There is a strict procedure on the order of installing the strips.

Decking  A deck crew is started on each end of the house.  It starts with two people working within the trusses reach down to pull up 4×8 sheets of decking.   The placement of the first sheet is critical.  It determines the angle at which the entire roof runs from one side to the other.  Get it a 1/8 of an inch too high on one end and by the time you put 8 sheets down, the roof is a full inch out of alignment on the other end.   Several attempts to use the 47 inch marks (gives 1 inch overhang) gave bad alignment due to the rafters being shifted ever so slightly from one to the next.  Finally a string was snapped from one end to the other and the first sheet was properly aligned on that.   The decking proceeds from one end of the house to the other, then by rows above that.  Soon there are 4 to 6 people on the roof working above the first row.

The porch and storage/laundry roofs use small trusses that span their length.  Once the trusses get to the edge of the main roof, the remainder of these smaller roofs are “stick built”, meaning they are constructed using hammer and nail.   Once a deck is completed a crew begins covering it with tarpaper.   We didn’t get that far today.

The porch beam got another “do-over” because one was cut a little too short and the other was cut a little too long.    A little work with a saw-all by Jim Miller fixed it all up.

This Oldtimer cut out about here (picture above), with the roof less than half decked.  The previous week I was so pooped I could hardly keep my eyes open going home.  Sorry guys I left a little early.  Boss’s orders.  You don’t keep a bride 48 years without knowing when to say OK!

There are 35 photos from build day 2 in the slide show at the link at the beginning of this piece.   Take a look. The two earlier slide shows are also linked in case you missed them.  The last (end of day) picture came from the PCCH website blog.

Our next build on May 19th, 2007.  If you are in the Cobb County, Georgia area, come on by.  We can shore put you to work.   We will teach you how to roof and side a house.  Shingles and Hardi Plank lessons here!  Go to the PCCH website for directions and map.

Click to see all Habitat Articles by Oldtimer

Slide Shows: Habitat Pictures

Presbyterian Coalition Habitat for Humanity Slide Show of all the pictures made by Oldtimer at the Dinner on the Slab, May 4, 2007.

Slideshow:  Dinner on the Slab

Presbyterian Coalition Habitat for Humanity Slide Show of all the pictures made by Oldtimer on the First Day of Build, May 5, 2007

Slideshow: First Day of Build 

Enjoy.

Good Start – Pictures

Here are a few of Saturday’s Pictures from the first day’s build.   These are 8 from a total of 52 taken that day.   The date is May 5th, 2007.  The location, Mableton, Cobb County, Georgia.   The sponsors and builders are Presbyterian Coalition Cobb Habitat for Humanity, a group of 10 Presbyterian Churches.   Our 21st house in Cobb. 

To get a full screen view or to download any of the pictures that follow, go to the post above, “Slide Show – Pictures” and click on the picture and then select the “all sizes” icon (magnifying glass – any size you want up to full page. 

 

Good Start!  I’d call this a Good Start.  This first picture was taken at 8:30 AM.   There are two plates still tacked together, and work in progress on a number of others.  Look around and you will see other Habitat houses in various stages of construction.   Cobb Habitat bought the land for a subdivision of 50 homes here in Cobb County GA.    Look carefully and you may see some of the markings on the floor and on the plates.  Volunteers split the plates apart and start nailing in studs, windows, doors and T’s where marked.   Everybody has fun.

 

 First Wall UP!  The lady in pink is our very excited homeowner – Joi.  The first wall up is a celebration and a great photo opportunity for everyone with a camera.   The time was 9:30AM

 

Moving ON!   The walls have been built.  The interior walls are in the foregroud and the exterior ones either up or behind the slab.   The time is 10:05 AM

 

 MY Walls!   Joi, our happy and always smiling homeowner.

 

First Sheet of OSB after walls are squared.   Notice all the ladies admiring the work.  They put a lot of them up after being shown how.   Time is 1:06PM just after lunch.

Ladders UP!   Joi  (pink shirt) is right up there with them, putting on blocking. Portions have been capped.  The beam pocket (front right corner) has been carved out but not re-framed.

 

 Jeff and Pretty Boy.  “Pretty Boy” Miller AKA “Nine Fingers” (in the suspenders)  talking to Jeff, our SPM.  Bob is coming up with a ball of string to help straighten a wall.   Behind them is the food tent, and a tool storage locker, behind Bob.  Further back another group is finishing up shingles on a roof. 

  

 Finishing Up.  The last piece of OSB is being prepared for over the front door.  That and cleanup will finish the first day of work.  Good Job!  Good Job Everyone!   This pictures was taken at 4:33 PM.

A Very Good Start

Today was a great day to build a house.   Our Presbyterian Coalition Habitat for Humanity build got off to a very good start – walls up, squared and covered.   The weather was just perfect.  Cool, overcast and not as humid as it should have been considering it rained during the night.   We had perhaps 35 to 40 people show up – smaller than normal, but considering the rain during the night drove a few away, it was more than enough to get the day’s job done.   We build rain or shine and many dedicated volunteers will slug through downpours and deep mud all day for the joy of helping.  Others will look out the window, see the ground wet and say “They’ve got to be kidding.”  

The day always starts with a little talk by the site project manager  (SPM).  The talk has a little of everything – a little orientation for first-timers, a little pep talk to wake us up, a good safety presentation for everyone, and a brief introduction of the various crew chiefs and an outline of what he expected to be accomplished.   A coalition member provides a prayer and then we start work.    Everyone on site today was a volunteer.  Everyone.

First order of business is to build the walls.   The wall plates have already been put together the previous weekend.   At that time, the slab was laid out with colored marking for where the walls go.   The technique is for the SPM and a few volunteers to use the house plans to mark all the walls on the floor, then cut 2×4 boards to match the plan and lay them out on the floor.    Matching top plates are placed on top and the top and bottom plates are then tacked together with nails.   Then the location of all the studs, doors and windows are marked on the bottom plates (pressure treated wood) and also on the top plates (white wood).  The plates and the floor are numbered so volunteers that come for build-day can simply begin pounding nails into studs placed on the marks.   That pounding part we did today.

The previous weekend the SPM and the volunteers also had a little extra help and time on their hands so they had also built all the door and window headers and attached the side studs.   Often that is done by the volunteers on the first build day.  Since we had fewer than normal due to the overnight sprinkle, having the window and door frames ready was a very big help.  

First Wall Photo OP.  So the walls were built on the floor, then carried off the slab and piled up haphazardly into two stacks,  exterior and interior.   Once all the exterior walls were finished, the first wall section was carried back in and the “first-wall-up celebration and photo opportunity” was announced.   The homeowner (in this case Joi) is always allowed to put in the first nail in the first wall and as many as have cameras get a good shot.   I have pictures and will share them in the next post.  Walls on a slab such as this one have a foam-like material attached to the bottom plate (pressure treated wood).  Then they are nailed down with wedge-shaped nails (called cut-nails) designed to lock into concrete.

At some point the exterior walls are nearly complete and the remaining interior walls are carried onto the slab so they don’t get fenced outside.   Today we brought too many inside and ending up carrying three or four back out and around the building because they belonged in the store room and/or the laundry room which are in a wing already outside the walls that were already up.   Volunteers are never happy unless they are either toting something or pounding nails, so this is a not a problem.

Devotional and Lunch   As noon approached, the cry was – “No food until all the walls are up!”   However it worked out that we were standing around for the devotional at 12 noon and the walls were all up.  The church that provided food today was First Presbyterian.  They usually provide the first build-day lunch because they are the biggest of our churches and the build day usually has the most people show up.   There is always a short devotional talk followed by a prayer asking blessing of the food.   Some of the more experienced volunteers bring soft fold-up chairs.  Everyone else finds a lumber pile, window sill or a cool place to sit.    Eat, chat, rest, then back to work.

Squaring the Corners.  When all the walls were up, the SPM and a few experienced volunteers squared the corners with levels and cross braces to get the corners exactly vertical in all directions.  Part of the process of squaring the corners involves putting OSB (4×8 sheets of sheathing) in the corners to keep them straight.    Then crews are sent around the entire house to finish covering the outside walls.   Two volunteers were assigned to reopen the doors and windows with a saws-all.  Essentially they go inside and cut the sheathing out of the windows and doors after others cover them up.   

Small Work Crew Activity.   Also there were a number of small crews doing specialized work – such as putting blocking on the side walls for nailing the bottoms of the roof trusses and for providing a nailing shelf for sheet rock on the ceiling around the perimeter.   There was also a crew putting on Z flashing around the bottom of the walls to set the sheathing in.   Each bottom of each piece of sheathing is set into a channel of metal that has a bed of silicone caulk to seal it from any weather leaks.  Another crew or two is moving around the house on ladders putting on a cap plate on all the walls to tie them together and to provide a strong resting place for the roof trusses to come later.  Others were simply picking things up or sweeping out anything accumulating on the floor or running the “chop saw”.  

Saw Man.  The chop saw work is always a dedicated “saw man”, in this case, “Pretty Boy” Miller, AKA “Nine Fingers” our most beloved SPM from previous builds who is helping us today by special request.  The official SPM for this site is “Be Safe – Have Fun” Jeff Vanderlip who brought along his wife and son.

Straighten the Walls  Two small crews were detailed to “straighten the walls”.   That involves placing blocks on each outside top corner of the house, tying string from block to block, then using a  ladder and a block of wood to gauge the wall spacing to the string at various points and then adjusting them with braces to get them absolutely straight.

Porch Beam Pockets.   Someone forgot to provide porch beam pockets during layout so those had to be cut out with a saws-all and re-framed.   Just a few minutes extra work.   The pockets are rectangular openings that allow the front porch beams to extend well into the frame of the house so that they are well anchored and will never be able to pull away.  The porch beams for the two sides were slid in, leveled and braced.  

End of Day  The day ended about 5 PM with all the walls up and covered and all tools put away and the site cleaned of any left over debris.  Next week will be rafter day – actually these are prebuilt engineered trusses that are made off-site and trucked in.   One of the things we did today was to install a temporary cross walk across the main family room to help the truss walkers to get back and forth somewhat safely  “up there”.   Next weekend we will put them in place, install cross bracing, deck the roof and dry it in, ready for shingles.   Maybe even shingle it. 

Always Something New.   Every build has a new feature or new challenge to overcome.  This time we were pleasantly surprised at the retainer wall.   It is beautiful –  attractive engineered blocks of stone to create a retainer wall for the house next door which sits above “ours”.   Out of the 20 homes we have built previously, we have always contended with graded slopes between houses or between yards.  The retaining wall is a nice feature.   I understand we will have some changes in the way we do the trusses (engineered steel spacers) and a different design for the trusses.   New features added in previous years include tapered round columns instead of rectangular posts for porches, Hardi-plank siding instead of vinyl, bigger floor plans, engineered trusses, engineered floor joists, Z flashing, and a number of neat improvements in design and detail to make the homes more distinct and attractive.

Stay Tuned.   Selected pictures for the first day to follow in the next post!  I have 92, but they take up more than 250MB and so you will need to be satisfied with a few reduced format samples.

Habitat House – Dinner on the Slab

Dinner on the Slab was just perfect.  Perfect weather, perfiect food, perfect slab – really best concrete work any of us had ever seen.  Almost polished looking.  Flat, square, and smooth.  Good freinds, homeowner, neighborhood kids, crew chief, site manager, Coalition members.  

Here are a few pictures. 

The Dinner Party with materials for the house stacked around.  Neighbor houses in various levels of completion.   Habitat for Humanity is building 50 homes in this neighborhood.  

 

Homeowner Joi   Just look at that smile!

A picture no one could resist.   This youngster lives next door and we invited him and his two brothers to eat with us.  All he had to say was Mmmmmmm good!

Tonight we partied – fine wine, beer, great food, great people.  Tomorrow we build!  Tomorrow a new home for Joi will begin to take shape. 

Dinner on the Slab

Tonight we have Dinner on the Slab, a tradition among our Habitat for Humanity sponsoring coalition members.    Our church is a member of the Presbyterian Coalition, Cobb Habitat for Humanity.    The Coalition has eight active Presbyterian Churches in Cobb County, Georgia that raise money to sponsor one or two houses in our county each year.  We not only raise the money, about $57,000, we also build the house(s) and fund several houses in Kenya each year.    This year it is one in Cobb and 6 in Kenya.   This year will be our 21st house for Cobb and also our 25th for Kenya.  

The future homeowner, Joi, will work on the house with our volunteers and participate with friends and family to get the house built – sweat equity.   The homeowner will actually sign a contract to buy the house at a greatly reduced price and then make interest free monthly payments until it is paid for.  Cobb Habitat for Humanity takes care of selecting the homeowners, purchasing the land and preparing the streets and lots prior to the volunteers coming in.  That includes getting either the concrete poured if it is to be built on a concrete floor, or the poured or block foundation ready if not.  In the latter case, a few people, men and women from our group go out and frame and deck the floor prior to the volunteers ariving.

That much has been done – in this case the slab has been poured, cured and ready for a house.   That means it is time to start putting up walls and the volunteers start pouring in.  That happens Saturday. 

That means today is the special celebration day – Dinner on the Slab, always on the day before the walls go up.   Each year the board members, one or two from each church, prepare a feast, set up tables and chairs on the slab (or flooring if that is the case), invite the selected homeowners along with last year’s homeowners and whom ever else wishes to come.  It is a covered dinner, each person brings a specialty-of-their-house dish.   We all will enjoy meeting and sharing a meal with the homeowners and greeting old friends.

I’ll let you know how the dinner turns out.   Tomorrow we will put up all the walls and completely frame the walls, put on the OSB and “square the house”.   If you have never been to the first day on a Habitat build, I encourage you to go.  A sight you will never forget.   See you Saturday?   We start at 8:00 AM (due to county noise restrictions) and quit at 5 PM, rain or shine.