Week_04
Blog Post Week 4: Detail Finishing + House Dedication
Salt Lake Valley Habitat for Humanity's 96th & 97th Homes are finally built and will be delivered to the owners. Even though not finalized yet, the organization decided to move forward with the homes' dedication on Friday, 09/14/2018.
09/11/2018 - Day 4
Exterior + Interior Detail Finishing
After a week off for travel to Cuba and Seattle, we reconvened at the Field of Dreams site prepared for work. While we were away, the Habitat crew had made significant progress towards completing the first two units. Hardie Board continues to be installed on the exterior of the houses while inside, crews have been hard at work installing drywall and texturing the interior walls. Everyone appears to be working with a sense of purpose as the dedication event for these homes rapidly approaches.
While the Habitat crews continued to attack their above tasks, we were given the task of installing interior doors, baseboard and trim in the east unit while drywall crews finished in the west unit. After splitting into two groups, we set out to tackle the tasks at hand.
Those tasked with hanging doors ran into various roadblocks along the way that provided a valuable learning experience and challenged our problem-solving skills. Slightly inaccurate rough openings, slopes in the concrete floor, and a wider than expected shear wall created many challenges and slowed progress slightly. However, we were able to work through these issues and gained some valuable insight into the importance of communication between the architect, the contractor and the subcontractors to ensure everything is built and installed properly and effectively.
As for the baseboard and trim, we were able to make some decent progress before having to stop for the day. Issues with the doors slowed down progress on the door trim. Also, the cabinets throughout each unit had yet to be installed so we weren’t able to get as far as we had hoped. Despite some setbacks, we were able to get about 1/3rd of the baseboard and trim in before our day on site came to an end.
- Daniel Guthrie
09/13/2018 - Day 5
From the moment we arrived on the site we knew something was different. There were people and vehicles everywhere. The level of intensity and general feeling of accomplishment was up. We soon discovered just how much progress was being made. Not only did the sheet rock crew finish just a day ago, but the painting was nearly done and kitchen cabinets were being installed. The jobsite was crawling with people who were all working diligently toward one goal, to get ready for the Open House less than one day away.
As a team of students we began to realize how serious they were in getting to this goal when we were told to stay out of the 2nd floor areas so that the carpet layers could get the carpet installed. We all got the drift and soon were busy caulking, spackling and cleaning every joint and crevice we could see on the 1st floor. We worked steadily alongside the electricians and cabinet installers trying to make a difference. It was refreshing to see how quickly things were progressing. Habitat brought in a professional siding crew to finish the exterior façade and they were making steady progress. The bathroom tile was also going in as well as some of the finish hardware on doors and cabinets.
Andy and Joe got to show off their strength by bringing kitchen cabinets into the house and helping to position them. Scot, David, and Zach saw to the details of spackling while Mitch, Daniel, and Chris cleaned and caulked around the windows and doors. Jörg spent his time finishing door trim and resolving heating and cooling issues as well as documenting how his careful design effort and planning was coming to fruition.
- Christopher Thompson
09/14/2018 - Day 6: Home Dedication + Open House
Our dedication delivering affordable housing to Salt Lake Community finally arrived - even though this is not our own project, which we planned during the spring 2018 semester. The community gathered together and celebrated to the first and second owners. We are really excited to continue our commitment on third and forth site constructions.
