Thursday, July 23, 2015

Build Day 1

Build Day 1 is when everything gets started.

Of course it rained last night -- so everything was wet when we arrived at the site.


The exterior walls are SIPs (Google it if you don't know what these are). The front and back center panels went up first.


Once these two sections were up, then the "party wall" goes up.  The party wall is actually two walls that separate the two halves of the duplex.  There is a one inch gap between these walls and that allows each half of he duplex to be deeded as separate properties.  The side you see here is the side in the gap.


The other party wall goes up.



Now the rest of the first floor SIPs can be installed.

While this was going on, I (Curt) was a couple of lots down assembling roof trusses. (That's me on the ladder).


We are assembling the roof trusses for this house on the ground.  We are constructing four groups consisting of four trusses each.  The middle two groups (seen in the picture above) are the same while the outer two groups are a little shorter (side to side).  Here I am building the "look outs" (the overhangs). 

All four sections will be done on Friday.  They will be set on the second floor walls on Saturday at noon. (check the Day 4 post for those pictures).


All of this has happened before lunch.

It's 1:30 in the afternoon and the crane has arrived to "fly in" some steel beams that are used to support the corners of the upper floor. Four per house.


The rest of the day was spent building first-floor interior walls and getting ready to set the floor joists.

This is the end of Build Day 1.  You can see the interior walls are in place and the steel beams at the front and back


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As for the roof trusses, this picture shows three sections almost completed.  The forth section is on the far end (you can't see it because of the sheeting on the end of the third section).


Day 1 was a long day and Day 2 is shaping up to be about the same!

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Pre-Build - Day 0

Pre-Build day is a the day before all of the volunteers arrive.  It is usually just the house and team leads.  We get things set up and ready to go for Day 1.

This is the front elevation of the house we are building.  These are two-story duplex's and we are responsible for the left half.


Here we are building the "party wall".  This is the wall that separates the two halves of the duplex. Each wall is framed and sheet-rocked.  That's me in the middle of the picture nailing the studs to the bottom plate.


 Here is a picture of Gail screwing down sheet-rock.  This is the first time she has used a screw gun!  Okay - not sure she is too happy with me taking this picture!


Here the party-walls are complete and ready to be "stood up".  That will happen tomorrow morning!


The rest of the day was spent moving trusses from the staging area (one block over) to the build site.

Tomorrow all of the first floor walls go up!



BlitzBuilt 2015

Hi All

Habitat for Humanity and Blitz Home Builders are building four homes in eight days in Gypsum, CO.  This blog will be updated nightly with pictures and comments from the build that day.

Please leave comments and ask questions.  I will try to get to them each evening.

Curt and Gail Law