I stopped working while I was still young enough to do things I found interesting. Some mornings my bones disagree, but I have to say it has worked out pretty well. A couple of years after I graduated from engineering school, the owner of the company I was working for asked what I wanted to accomplish in my career. I said that I wanted to save enough to stop working for long enough to build a house. So, when I retired I rode my bikes a couple thousand kilometers in the first three weeks, played some guitar, raised some money for cancer research and then went to do some building.
My first day at Habitat for Humanity, there was a big hole in the ground. Concrete got poured and then we started putting down joists for the main floor. Summer came and walls went up. Before too long, we got above the neighbouring houses. That goop is to keep the subfloor from squeaking.
While it seemed to go pretty fast, we got windows in just before winter. Notice the hint of snow on the ground. This building was designed to have 15 homes in it. 5 single level on the ground floor and 10 two story homes half the depth of the building above. There were a couple of big multi generation families, so we split the 3 homes on one end to make a pair of large 3 story homes. This required a bit of surgery to get the proper separation on the ground floor. hmm..server error for the first time in ages.
Nice! Yeah, I got a server error yesterday with my Santanabration thread, it was supposed to be way longer.
While we were finishing that building, a bigger building was being prepped. Being short of real estate, it would have an underground garage. If you look close, you can see all of the services being routed between layers of concrete. This took about 4 months. While waiting to build on the new building, we did some landscaping. Then started raising walls on the concrete deck. Some of this was done with a nail gun triggered with explosives - like a childhood cap gun gone wild pushing 3 1/2" nails through concrete. Not without the occasional mishap.
In bad weather, we used the garage to build walls in. We gave a good view of the complexity of the services: sewer, water, electricity, glycol (for outside stairs and the garage ramp), phone and cable. With the main floor well above ground, it got high quickly so we maintained barriers around the edges while working. This is our second floor. The concrete block wall gives a fire barrier between the two halves of this 20 home building. We were pushing another winter getting the roof over one half of the building.
With the roof up, we worked to finish the inside. We left openings between houses as long as we could to make it easier to move between them. Made to measure stairs were built off site and loaded through the patio doors for us to install. Clad the outside with some nice shiny insulation. And then get the bricklayers in. These guys are incredibly efficient. While they were doing that, we were working on the interior. This is the inside of the last home. We laid up the header and foot of walls in place, then put the studs in all of them for the house and set them back in place.
Families moved into the first half of the building while we finished up the other end. and yesterday we prepped homes for pre delivery inspection, a couple of which were completed before we left for the day. The homes include appliances, air conditioning, and on demand water heaters. The last homes will be occupied over the next couple of week. The 3 buildings have 49 homes. And the kids have a safe place for their bikes.
Lots of tools, and lots of people. I have been at this site for a bit over 2 1/2 years and easily worked with over a thousand volunteers. Some arrive not knowing how to use a hammer. Some have built houses on their own.
Way to go Pete! I used to do similar things when I was young, but I did it for money, not love. Fantastic!
Amazing stuff! I love Habitat for Humanity. I've done a couple of build days with groups from work. Wish I had time and energy to do it more often.
