Greater Columbus Habitat for Humanities: Day 2
Things went much better on Tuesday, October 10. We (the Tuesday crew) met at the office to see what was needed of us, picked up some lumber and went to the site. The house is being built near the office north of Columbus in a really poor area of town. Most of the houses are barely standing with one bedroom, a kitchen a bathroom and a basement...the neighbors have a beet up old Dodge in their front lawn that had been stripped to almost nothing. Just one of those places that makes me feel sorry for doing well.
It was just my father and I for a while because one of the other workers was having back troubles and another guy was having a mild hernia surgery... one of the funny things about working with mostly retirees. Today was mostly fixing what others had messed up. Our first chore was to nail up some OSB, or Oriented Strand Board, along the side of the house. The OSB had to go down to a certain point on the house and had to hang out a half inch for the siding to go on properly. The Saturday crew had put up a vinyl moisture barrier so we had to remove it, put up the OSB, and reattach the vinyl. The OSB thing is kind of strange... it has to be put up so the writing is on the outside and right side up just so when the inspector stops by he can read that it is OSB. It seams to be one of those things that someone threw some politics into just so they can have a job. The first thing I noticed while we were doing this is despite my father wears eighth of an inch thick bifocals, I will never be able to out hammer him... and my father still loves to make fun of my deficiencies. It is still hoped this house-building thing will return my hangy downies. After we put up the OSB we had to put up some dead wood for kitchen cabinets, toilet paper holders, and rails near the toilet for handicap access. Around noon another crewmember showed up and helped us out. It was pretty funny to watch my father and Ken practically fighting to see who got to pound the next nail in… both of them, hammers drawn, waiting for me to get the next 2x4 cut. I left around 3 to get some sleep. This Tuesday we may start panelizing.