Category: 2019 Sullivan IL Team 1

It’s hard to believe that today is the last day of building with this amazing team in  Sullivan.    We had a surprise visit from Pastor Paul who is the previous pastor from Faith Lutheran Church where we are staying.   Even though Pastor Paul has moved out of Sullivan, he still coordinates all of the lodging and food details for the Care a Vanners.   Since he is not able to walk on the uneven ground at the build site, we decided to make our prayer circle with joined hands through his car.   It was a very special way to start our day.

As our first priority, I wanted to get a picture of Joe and I in an unfinished window.   It was one of my favorite pictures from our last build, and it’s now one of my favorites for this build now.

All hands were ‘on deck’ to get the house dried in today.   Bob had so many things on our punch list today, that we got an entire sheet of tasks (rather than the typical half sheet).

The team knew we had a lot to accomplish today, and we were all committed to getting this house ‘dried in’ before we left for the day.     Joe got right to work on the front and back door.   He had to rebuild both doors to extend them from a standard 2×4 framing to 2×6 framing.   Since the door had a dead bolt and a standard locking mechanism, there were two mortises that needed to be cut into the door.  The good news was that Mel had an extremely sharp 1/2″ chisel for the job.   He also had to cut out all of the door thresholds for all of the interior doors.

Debbie and Ty worked to finish the installation of the Duravents.   These are installed to allow air circulation once the foam insulation is blown into the attic.

We then had the job of sealing all of the top seams on all of the exterior walls.

You have to love it when a plan comes together.  By 3PM, all the windows and doors were in, and all of the items on that entire list were completed.   This crew rocks!

We had a few opportunities to meet the family that will be moving into the house.  Everyone took the opportunity to write the family some notes on the wall studs.

Time for some Team 1 photos!

The Habitat Affiliate hosted a Team 1 farewell dinner at a local Amish restaurant.    It was an awesome evening with good food, great friends and some touching speeches from both our team and Jennifer (the future homeowner).

It was an amazing build.   We get so many thanks for our work, but we feel that we are the ones that are so thankful to have this opportunity to help others by giving them ‘A hand up … not a hand out’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We woke up to a crisp 56 degree morning.    Yeah, we tested out the heat in Breezy, and it works great :-).   It was a great cool morning for working.   We had a short, but inspirational devotion and prayer to start our day.    The team got right to work, since we had a lot to accomplish today.

As part of the roofing team, Joe’s job was to finish the roof decking and apply tar paper to the roof.    The roofing team picked up an experienced local volunteer, so the decking went like clock work.

My job for most of the day was to complete a systematic walkdown verifying nailing of all the interior and exterior walls.   We had to make sure that there were at least 3 nails in every exterior wall bay, 1 nail in every interior wall bay and at least 6 nails where there were intersecting walls.  It’s an important step, because it’s the last opportunity to make sure everything is locked down before the drywall is installed.  Ty and I must have put in a few hundred nails!   I’ve heard stories that Habitat Houses have been the only houses standing in a neighborhood after a hurricane.   They say it’s because of the all of the nails used in the house, along with the extra work done in locking down all the trusses and installing hurricane clips.

We got a surprise visit from Jennifer’s mom (Jennifer is the woman who was selected by Habitat to purchase the house and will be moving in along with her two daughters).   She brought us warm homemade apple pie.  Of course, we also had some left over brownies and cookies from the past few lunches.  I’m really going to have to get back to healthy eating when we get back to Florida!

After the nailing was complete, we started to install duravents in the ceiling.  They act as a barrier for the foam blow in insulation, allowing airflow into the attic.

After work today, we were treated to an amazing dinner at AMBUCS.  They are an amazing organization that support a variety of projects including the distribution of tricycles to children with disabilities and building wheelchair ramps for those who need them.

AMBUCS has a reputation for providing the Care -A -Vanners with amazing dinners.   Tonight’s menu was ham, potatoes, salad, cowboy baked beans and bread.  We heard that they have been smoking 5 hams for three days!   I ate so much today … but all the food is so delicious!

At the meeting, the AMBUCS gave a little disabled girl her custom tricycle.   It was wonderful to see her so happy!   It is an amazing organization.   Organizations like this are what makes America such a great country!

It was a good day.  We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

It was a beautiful day in Sullivan – bright blue sky, slight wind and a high around 75 degrees.   At today’s devotional, the local minister shared a poem with us.    We were all touched by it, and asked him to give us a copy.

We then got our plan for the day.   Today’s goal was to get started on decking the roof, and make progress on getting the house wrapped.

The first step was to install the south gable.   Since it’s really heavy, the volunteer builder brought his fork lift at 8:15 this morning to lift it into place.   Since our crew was experienced at installing them, it only took a few minutes to lock into place.

   

Joe was on the roof crew, so he was crawling around roof rafters for a good part of the day.  He was installing hurricane reinforcements between the first two trusses and the gable.

  

I was working on installing the safety rail system on both ends of the house.   The purpose is to provide a handrail for the roofers.   The platform was very high off the ground, so it took some maneuvering to get all the pieces locked in.

The roof decking crew got the first half of the roof done.   It’s really coming together!

   

It was a good day.  We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

 

 

The forecast for today was 10 degrees hotter than yesterday with a high around 85.   Joe knew that today was the day we were going to set the roof trusses, so he decided to rock the shorts outfit.  We started the day with our stylish boot covers, but the ground really dried up so we did not need them for long.

As always, our morning devotional was very inspiring.  The minister talked about how Jesus taught us to be humble and preaching that the last shall be first.    He compared that teaching to our work here to build a house and how we are sacrificing our time to lift others up.   After the daily team saying, “Habitat is not a hand-out, but a hand-up”, we got our daily task list.

To start the day, it was basically ‘all hands on deck’ to finish the double top plating.    It is a layer of 2X6’s and 2X4’s to lock in all of the exterior and interior walls together.

    

Once the top plating was completed, we began to prep for the roof trusses.   The first step was to build some interior and exterior scaffolding.

      

Once everything was set, the fun started.   A volunteer builder from Sullivan donated his time and his equipment to lift the trusses on the roof.

Once the first one was set, they got into a rhythm.   By the end of the day, all the roof trusses were set except for the end gable.

     

It’s really coming together!

    

Tomorrow should be a much cooler day to work.  It’ll be a good thing, since Joe will most likely be on roofing duty.

It was a good day.  We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

We woke up to a dense fog. cool morning.  The ground was still very soggy from the severe thunderstorm we had on Sunday.  Part of the build site was in a huge puddle.   We did get to try out our shoe covers from Amazon.  They seemed to work well, and were very light.   

After another inspirational devotion this morning, we got right to work.    Joe and I were on the interior wall crew.  Our goal was to install all the interior walls and begin double plating in preparation for the roof trusses tomorrow.

I worked with Chuck on getting the ladders installed – they are cross pieces that are installed between the studs where a wall was to be placed.   I got the job of screwing them in.

        

Joe had the other screw gun, so he was helping to brace the interior walls as they were being put into place and leveled.

         

The wall team was crusin’ …. we placed, leveled and braced all of the interior walls.   We also moved the bathtubs to the correct locations before the walls were installed.

     

  

We did get a nice surprise this morning.    A young 5 year old boy and his mom baked cookies for our break today.  They live in a Habitat built house across the street.    Yeah, they were delicious!

As the day progressed, the fog lifted, the sun came out and it got really hot by the afternoon.    The Habitat affiliate always makes sure we have enough water and Gatorade for the crew.    The temperature was only around 76 degrees, but it felt much hotter than that.   Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be 85 degrees, so it will be a hot one!

While the wall crew was busy with the interior walls, the wall sheeting crew completed the house.   The front porch beam crew also accomplished their goals for the day.   The house is really coming together.

It was a good day.  We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

Instead of our traditional morning devotional, one of the care-a-vanners shared his personal story about how Habitat for Humanity changed his life.   While people in the communities thank us, it is really the care-a-vanners that should be thanking them for the opportunity to serve.   It was a touching story, and it rings true with the entire team.

We made headlines in the local newspaper!  I can’t believe it’s been a week since the groundbreaking.   The days are so busy and rewarding, that it doesn’t seem like it could be Friday already.

Today’s task list was a repeat of yesterday.   Our goal was to get all of the exterior walls built and secured by the end of the day.   As part of that goal, we needed to move all the pre-built interior walls and the pre-cast fiberglass bathtub  into the house before the exterior walls were complete.

As our first task, Joe and I were on bathtub pickup duty with two others from the team.   The tubs are not heavy, but they are very awkward to carry.  These tubs can crack easily if they are twisted or bumped.  With four people, we were able to easily maneuver them onto the trailer.

The tubs were in Gene’s workshop, about 30 minutes away.   Gene is on the Board of Directors at Habitat and is one of the most patient and knowledgeable people I’ve met at Sullivan.   He’s mayor of his town, and captain of his local fire company.   I also just heard over dinner yesterday that he completed a triathlon.   Gene has plans for his workshop that is right next door to the fire station.  He wants to have half as his workshop, and half as a community room for seniors.  He is truly inspirational!  I’ve heard a lot about his workshop, and was looking forward to seeing it first hand.     Most of the workshop is taken up by the creation of large sunflowers made by hand from plastic barrels.   There must have been around 50 sunflowers in various stages of completion.  I understand that they are cut from the barrels, heated and formed, painted and then assembled.   Some custom orders have even had sports teams painted on them.   Certainly seems like there is a lot of demand for them!

      

There were also a few other creative pieces of art made out of tools!   It reminded me a bit of Santa’s workshop :-).

After safe delivery of the tubs, we carefully lifted them into the house.   It was then time for our team of 4 to move all the interior walls inside the house.  Some of the walls were quite long and heavy, while some were very short and light.

After having another delicious lunch at a local church, we got back to work helping to erect and secure the remaining walls.   It’s a fun team effort to lift the walls, but as they say, “many hands make light work” (we are the ones in the grey shirts).

Yeah!  All the exterior walls are up!

We then secured all the walls to the deck with 16 penny nails.   Joe helped with adding interior braces and cutting out some of the openings for the doors.

Well, mission accomplished for the week!   Looking forward to sleeping in a little late on Saturday :-).

It was a cool, sunny morning.  The build site has finally dried up … whoo hoo.  It is amazing how much easier the workday is when you are not weighed down with all that mud on your feet.    As always, we had a local minister lead our devotional.  Today’s message was about foundations.  In places (like Sullivan) that get cold, the foundations are very deep to get below the frost line.   In some places, the foundations are very shallow because the water table is very high.   His point was house foundations vary depending on location.   But, our foundation should rest on Jesus.  He is our rock, and everything is built on that solid foundation.   Certainly a beautiful message to reflect upon.

Now that the floor decking is complete, we are ready to start building some walls!     The interior walls are all pre-built, and ready to go.   Our task today was to begin to build and erect the exterior walls.   I was on the team to build the main exterior wall that spanned the entire length of the house.

The first step was to follow the blueprint carefully to mark the locations of the studs and windows.

There were three wall crews all working on the deck.   There was a lot of planning to  figure out where we would have enough room to get them assembled.

Each stud was carefully placed.  The window headers were pre-built by the interior wall assembly team, so we were able to drop them in at the right locations.

Before lifting up the wall, we added a row of plywood.  Installing it on the ground is certainly much easier than trying to get it assembled on the top of the wall once the wall is erected.

Once all the walls were assembled, the entire team lined up along the top of the wall and lifted the wall vertical.   Once it was upright, we worked as a team to get it moved into place.   It was an amazing, well orchestrated, team effort!

We did the same with the two smaller walls.   It’s definitely starting to look like a house!

It is amazing how much progress we’ve made in only 4 days!

It was a good day.  We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

 

We woke up to an absolutely perfect weather day in Sullivan.  It was cool in the morning, with a blue sky and no humidity.    As we always do, we started the day with a devotional prayer and a safety talk.   Bob did give us our ‘punch list’, but for everyone on the team, it was a continuation of the work that we had started yesterday.  The goal of the flooring team was to have the subflooring complete, while the goal of the wall team was to have all of the interior walls assembled and brought over to the build site.   It was a big task, so we all jumped right into working.

Joe and I jumped right into the ‘pit’ to complete the pre-wiring of the crawl space.  We knew we had to run the wire quickly in areas where the subflooring was being assembled.    Joe’s electrical experience (from his Dad) came in very helpful as we ran wires for additional two lights and power for the sump pump.  Bob sketched out the wiring diagram on a piece of lumber.

It was quite the challenge negotiating all of the floor joists to run the wire.  But, it was certainly better than trying to do the wiring in a 3 foot tall crawl space with flooring installed above your head.          

After we were done, Bob said the wiring looked like we were wiring for the space shuttle.  Yeah, Joe’s dad would be proud!

After we completed the wiring, we helped with hand nailing of the subflooring.  Bob prefers hand nailing over using a nail gun because you can get immediate feedback if you miss a subfloor joist.    When you are hand nailing, you definitely know if you ‘miss’.     We hammered nails every 4″ on the seams, and every 8″ for the other joists.   Yeah, there was a ton of hammerin’ goin’ on today.

The entire team worked really hard to get the decking finished today, and at 2:45 (15 minutes before quitting time) we were done!    Then, amazingly enough, the wall team pulls up with their trailer with all of the interior walls completed.    Wow, now that’s when a plan comes together!

After work, we had our traditional happy hour.   For dinner tonight, the Faith Lutheran church purchased burgers and sausages for us to cook on their grill.   Joe was elected to be the grill master, and did a great job!

      

It was a good day.   We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

Today was a very busy, and productive day at the build site.   Our morning devotional from a local minister was about build site ‘punch lists’.   Every job (just like the list below) has a daily ‘punch list’.   We reflected on how God has a ‘punch list’ for every one of us and how we need to trust God by being his hands to do work for others.  After our morning devotion, we were split into two teams:  The Wall Crew and the Floor Crew (which Joe and I were on).

The wall crew came back to the Faith Lutheran Church pavilion to build all the walls.   The level concrete flooring and the covered roof make it an ideal place for assembly.  Bob’s hand drawn plans had detailed instructions with specific dimensions for each wall.    The wall team finished assembly of 11 out of the 22 walls for the house.  Their goal is to finish all wall assemblies tomorrow.

The Floor Crew stayed at the muddy site.  It rained again last night, so the mud was thick and slippery.   Our first task was to spread some mulch in the very wet areas to help dry them out.

We were able to borrow some boots from some of the Wall Crew volunteers since they were not going to use them today (our Amazon order for boot covers came today, so I’m sure we won’t have any more rain … hehe).   While it was nice to wear rubber boots, they got very hot and very heavy with the thick mud.  The morning was nice and cool to work, but by afternoon the sun had come out along with the humidity.   It did get hot to work, but the good news was that the mud began to dry up by the end of the day.  We hear that the weather should be fair for the rest of the week (of course it will, since we now have boots!)

Joe and I worked on finishing up the Front Wall RimBox, and then got to work helping to install the floor joists.  We had quite a system going.   There were some people in the ‘pit’ aligning the joists.  Joe and I were the drilling team, one of us on each side of the house.   Our job was to screw in each joist to the RimBox.

     By the end of the afternoon, we had all the floor joists installed.   Our next task was to pre-wire the crawl space with lights and switches.   We got started with the wiring, and will pick this job up first thing in the morning.  We need to finish the pre-wiring while the floor is still open.   The team will be installing the plywood tomorrow, so we will be on this job first thing in the morning.

After a successful workday, the team gathered for happy hour in the pavillion.  It had cooled down, so it was a nice relaxing afternoon.   A few of us decided to visit a local Mexican restaurant for dinner.

It was a good day.   We accomplished a lot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂

 

 

This morning started at 8AM sharp at the build site.   The forecast was for rain all day, but we decided to start working and see if we could work in between the raindrops.   We had our rain gear on, called ‘Frog Togs’, so we were ready for the rain!

The team is ready to get started!

Every morning, a minister from the church that is sponsoring lunch will lead us in a devotional prayer.  This morning, she talked about how the rain is such a blessing and how we as Care-A-Vanners are fulfilling God’s will to provide secure housing for everyone.   We then  join hands as a group and say our motto:  “Habitat is not a hand-out (hands towards center of the circle), but a hand-up (raising hands together)”.  It is such a wonderful way to start the day!

Bob, our team lead, has been involved with all 13 Habitat houses in this Sullivan neighborhood.   We affectionately call him “Bob the Builder”.   He puts in hours and hours of prep time before the build to design the house plans (by hand), calculate all the materials needed, and arranges the daily schedules.   Every morning, Bob hands out our ‘to do’ list for the day.   It’s very helpful because everyone knows exactly what task they will be doing that day.    Today, we worked with Sherry on the Mudsill/Rim Joists Crew 2.

Bob gave the Mudsill/Rim Joists Crews a great tutorial of what needed to be done.   Our goal was to place pressure treated wood on the top of the cinder blocks.   The steps:

1. Cut holes where the foundation bolts came up through the concrete
2. Lay down a thin aluminum sheet that is used as a termite barrier
3. Staple a moisture barrier to the lumber
4. Staple an 18″ wide piece of house wrapping that provides a tighter seal along the foundation

It did rain ‘on’ and ‘off’ today, which made the build site really muddy.   Unfortunately, we forgot our work boots!   The mud stuck to our shoes, which made them feel like bricks.  We are looking forward to our Amazon shipment tomorrow of some boots :-).

At around 11:45, we left for lunch at a local church.  This church has a reputation with the Care-A-Vanners for providing some amazing lunches.  They did not disappoint.    They served salad, fruit, garlic bread and three types of Lasagna (traditional, vegetable, seafood).   I tasted a little piece of each – they were amazing!   And, of course, we had to sample the many pies, cookies and ice cream that they had for dessert!

It was tough to get back to work after such a large meal, but we persevered.   Our Mudsill teams were able to complete the entire perimeter of the house by quitting time at 3PM!

After cleaning up some of the mud from our shoes and a nice shower, the team gathered in the pavilion for happy hour.   There was a nice breeze, so we enjoyed sharing stories of family, travel and past Habitat build experiences.   We then went into the church meeting room to enjoy some great left overs.  Each of the churches send food back with us, so there is certainly plenty of food to have for dinner.

It was a good day.   We accomplished alot.   As we said at the groundbreaking ceremony:  “O God, let us rise up (tomorrow) and build!”  🙂