Week of January 15, 2007

The entire first floor has it's interior and exterior walls framed and is now ready for the second floor deck.

A correction and omission from last week's blog and good news about a former student.

1. The company that graciously donates their resources to move our walls is the Righter Company:
http://www.rightercompany.com/
Our apologies for misspelling their name in last week's blog. They have helped move our walls for two years, donated hard hats to the entire class, and also donated a job box were we store all of our power tools. Thank you Righter Company!
2. We forgot to put "D's" picture last week. D stopped by last week and helped us a bit and even "gave it all for Home B.A.S.E." by getting getting construction adhesive on his brand new Contract Lumber coat. He has a tremendous amount of experience in construction and anytime he is with us, he makes what we do better. Below is Don "D" McClary III of Contract Lumber and Framing.



3. Two weeks ago, Mike Rigo Home B.A.S.E. 2000, was diagnosed with a tumor on his brain stem and underwent surgery on Friday the 19th. He was under ten hours of anesthesia. An after site visit to Mike on Saturday showed that he was doing better than expected after just coming out of the intensive care unit. He only took two aspirin for pain in the 24 hours after the surgery and the prognosis is encouraging. Mike, this is something duct tape can't fix so you will be in all of our thoughts and prayers :)

On Friday, some students came in on their day off and assembled and stood up the north wall (on the left). Our mentor Jim came was with us too on this day when we had to scrape snow off of our floor deck. After site, we all went out to have a bite to eat together at a local cafe that uses local and organic ingredients. Eating at locally owned restaurants keeps 43 cents of every dollar in the community as compared to 19 cents for a chain restaurant located outside of our community. More money in the local Columbus economy helps more families be able to afford their own homes.


Above left: We are framing the first floor wall with recycled sheathing.
Above right: Notice the caulk around the window and on the top and bottom plate which will help keep our house weather tight and dry. We also put constuction adhesive below on the floor deck under the walls which help stop air infiltration. Air moving through a wall or house is the same as moisture and heat moving. We used the Cold Climate Builder's Guide from our partner, the Building Science Corporation.
http://www.buildingscience.com/
Just a note though, when there is caulk or construction adhesive on site, we usually end up wearing either or both.

We have used Titebond polyurethane construction adhesive donated from Franklin International which we really like because it is much more pliable than the traditional construction adhesive. We also use Franklin polyurethane caulk. http://www.titebond.com/

Left above: Standing up the
front wall. From left to right you'll see Craig, Tom, Megan, and Phil our mentor.

Above right: the front wall is up.