Saturday, October 14
A Day of Extreme Late and Wait
Today was my first day to volunteer on a construction team for the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house we are building. I received a call on Friday to report for the framing team at 8AM on Saturday. Apparently, there was another team coming even earlier (5AM).
I arrived at the checkin tent, filled out my waivers, received my hardhat and t-shirt, grabbed my tools and headed over to the staging area with my friend, Elaine. Elaine and I have worked in Mississippi together on three different trips. The staging area was mostly empty, to our surprise. We did run into John A (another former Mississippi team member) and he told us to head over to the house. Most of the framers were having breakfast then, as the build was already "behind schedule".
We took a walk up the street and found the canteen area. It was still full of framers, but many were already heading over to the job site. I grabbed a cup of caffeine and then we headed over ourselves. It turns out that it took longer to do the backfill, and the job was over 6.5 hours behind schedule. When the alloted timeframe is only 106 hours to begin with, this is a pretty significant delay. There were a lot of guys laying rebar in the house footprint. To me, that meant the concrete wasn't even down, but surely THAT wasn't possible. At any rate, they were no where NEAR ready for the framers, much less the 50-60+ framers we had on site at the time.
We spent a little time getting oriented and chatting with people who had been onsite for a while. At one point, one of the ABC guys asked us to remove some signage from some fencing near the visitor area. Apparently the fencing provider had not made arrangements to have his signage displayed. It was interesting to stand there, removing screws and bolts, listening to neighborhood people talk about what was going on.
There was a WHOLE lot of "hurry up and wait" today. For me, it's the most frustrating part of construction. Even more so when I knew there was so much to be done, but had a hard time finding someone who could point us in the right direction.
We did some other random things - one of the neighbors (the neighbors's yards literally become part of the work site) had left his car in a spot where we needed to bring in a fork lift. We tried moving it, but you needed the keys to put it into neutral to move it. One of the team leaders got a forklift in there and moved the car out of the way with the forklift. That same neighbor had had a palm tree very near the border of the property we were working on. The palm had been removed and we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to dig up the roots. I never realized what a mess (and how tough) palm tree roots are. (As a side note, many, if not most, of the neighbors will end up having their property relandscaped when the project is over - it is all part of what the general contractor agreed to take care of when he took on the project).
Finally, I realized something - the rebar meant exactly what I thought it meant. The concrete wasn't in yet! A good part of the morning was consumed with the laying of concrete. For this project, they use a special type of concrete - it is actually generally used for highrises, etc. It is much much stronger, rarely (if ever) used for residential builds, but the key - it is extremely quick drying. They poured the entire house foundation, and before they were even finished pouring it, we were already removing the forms from the sections they poured first.
Elaine and I hopped onto one of the concrete teams (what else are we going to do when there is no framing to be had?!) and learned how to pull the forms and tidy things up. It was hard work, but really REALLY nice to be doing something. We also got to see some professionals lay concrete - some using some tools/machinery we had never seen. We both have done concrete in Mississippi, but nothing like this. It was rather cool.
We had finished pulling the forms off the part of the house that had dried and went to grab some lunch. There was a full lunch tent and rest area set up in the back of a house being built a couple of doors down. As I got in the lunch line, someone told me Kirk was there. I was shocked to see him sitting in the lunch area! He had, apparently, arrived about 10-15 minutes before and was eating lunch before he started volunteering. We sat and chatted for a bit. He was mostly finished when I sat down, so he quickly headed off for the job site as I relaxed with Mimi, Karen, Elaine, Kathy and Edie. After a short while, Gary - the ABC Project manager - sat down. We all had a nice chat with him about our project and the show in general.
Finally, it was time to head back to the job site. When we arrived back, many of the walls had been delivered and were awaiting set-up. This is a pretty slick thing - all the walls were pre-measured and preassembled at the staging area. They were delivered, already built, WITH the plywood already attached! All we had to do was put the walls in the proper position, attach them to one another and fix them into place. I jumped in and started helping with this. There weren't enough nail guns to go around and there was an overabundance of people helping, but I did what I could when I could.
Just as we had finished putting up the exterior walls and were about to start on the interior ones, I got a phone call. It was Kirk - he was in the canteen area and feeling very poorly. He needed to go home. The trick was, he had ridden his motorcycle to the site and didn't feel up to getting home on it, so he needed me to drive him back. A bit of juggling and I got him a ride to the staging area. I collected some of his things from the job site and then walked down to meet him. From there, I went and got the car and drove back to pick him up.
He was pale, cold and clammy, weak. I took him home and he promptly went to sleep. As I write this, he's feeling better a bit. His fever has come down and he is debating whether to go back to the jobsite tonight - the team he is "officially" on is scheduled to start work around midnight or 1AM. Whether he goes tonight or not, he has to get on a plane tomorrow night, bound for Australia. I desperately hope that he is feeling much better and that this was a just a temporary bit of dehydration or heat exhaustion.
As a final note, we are apparently desperately in need of volunteers. If you live in (or near) the South Bay and are willing to spend a few hours of your time on this worthwhile and exciting project, please come down! The check-in station is at the corner of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Doolittle. At this point, they are asking for willing bodies - even if you aren't on the 'volunteer' list. Come on out! It's quite an experience!
I arrived at the checkin tent, filled out my waivers, received my hardhat and t-shirt, grabbed my tools and headed over to the staging area with my friend, Elaine. Elaine and I have worked in Mississippi together on three different trips. The staging area was mostly empty, to our surprise. We did run into John A (another former Mississippi team member) and he told us to head over to the house. Most of the framers were having breakfast then, as the build was already "behind schedule".
We took a walk up the street and found the canteen area. It was still full of framers, but many were already heading over to the job site. I grabbed a cup of caffeine and then we headed over ourselves. It turns out that it took longer to do the backfill, and the job was over 6.5 hours behind schedule. When the alloted timeframe is only 106 hours to begin with, this is a pretty significant delay. There were a lot of guys laying rebar in the house footprint. To me, that meant the concrete wasn't even down, but surely THAT wasn't possible. At any rate, they were no where NEAR ready for the framers, much less the 50-60+ framers we had on site at the time.
We spent a little time getting oriented and chatting with people who had been onsite for a while. At one point, one of the ABC guys asked us to remove some signage from some fencing near the visitor area. Apparently the fencing provider had not made arrangements to have his signage displayed. It was interesting to stand there, removing screws and bolts, listening to neighborhood people talk about what was going on.
There was a WHOLE lot of "hurry up and wait" today. For me, it's the most frustrating part of construction. Even more so when I knew there was so much to be done, but had a hard time finding someone who could point us in the right direction.
We did some other random things - one of the neighbors (the neighbors's yards literally become part of the work site) had left his car in a spot where we needed to bring in a fork lift. We tried moving it, but you needed the keys to put it into neutral to move it. One of the team leaders got a forklift in there and moved the car out of the way with the forklift. That same neighbor had had a palm tree very near the border of the property we were working on. The palm had been removed and we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to dig up the roots. I never realized what a mess (and how tough) palm tree roots are. (As a side note, many, if not most, of the neighbors will end up having their property relandscaped when the project is over - it is all part of what the general contractor agreed to take care of when he took on the project). Finally, I realized something - the rebar meant exactly what I thought it meant. The concrete wasn't in yet! A good part of the morning was consumed with the laying of concrete. For this project, they use a special type of concrete - it is actually generally used for highrises, etc. It is much much stronger, rarely (if ever) used for residential builds, but the key - it is extremely quick drying. They poured the entire house foundation, and before they were even finished pouring it, we were already removing the forms from the sections they poured first.Elaine and I hopped onto one of the concrete teams (what else are we going to do when there is no framing to be had?!) and learned how to pull the forms and tidy things up. It was hard work, but really REALLY nice to be doing something. We also got to see some professionals lay concrete - some using some tools/machinery we had never seen. We both have done concrete in Mississippi, but nothing like this. It was rather cool.
We had finished pulling the forms off the part of the house that had dried and went to grab some lunch. There was a full lunch tent and rest area set up in the back of a house being built a couple of doors down. As I got in the lunch line, someone told me Kirk was there. I was shocked to see him sitting in the lunch area! He had, apparently, arrived about 10-15 minutes before and was eating lunch before he started volunteering. We sat and chatted for a bit. He was mostly finished when I sat down, so he quickly headed off for the job site as I relaxed with Mimi, Karen, Elaine, Kathy and Edie. After a short while, Gary - the ABC Project manager - sat down. We all had a nice chat with him about our project and the show in general. Finally, it was time to head back to the job site. When we arrived back, many of the walls had been delivered and were awaiting set-up. This is a pretty slick thing - all the walls were pre-measured and preassembled at the staging area. They were delivered, already built, WITH the plywood already attached! All we had to do was put the walls in the proper position, attach them to one another and fix them into place. I jumped in and started helping with this. There weren't enough nail guns to go around and there was an overabundance of people helping, but I did what I could when I could.
Just as we had finished putting up the exterior walls and were about to start on the interior ones, I got a phone call. It was Kirk - he was in the canteen area and feeling very poorly. He needed to go home. The trick was, he had ridden his motorcycle to the site and didn't feel up to getting home on it, so he needed me to drive him back. A bit of juggling and I got him a ride to the staging area. I collected some of his things from the job site and then walked down to meet him. From there, I went and got the car and drove back to pick him up. He was pale, cold and clammy, weak. I took him home and he promptly went to sleep. As I write this, he's feeling better a bit. His fever has come down and he is debating whether to go back to the jobsite tonight - the team he is "officially" on is scheduled to start work around midnight or 1AM. Whether he goes tonight or not, he has to get on a plane tomorrow night, bound for Australia. I desperately hope that he is feeling much better and that this was a just a temporary bit of dehydration or heat exhaustion.
As a final note, we are apparently desperately in need of volunteers. If you live in (or near) the South Bay and are willing to spend a few hours of your time on this worthwhile and exciting project, please come down! The check-in station is at the corner of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and Doolittle. At this point, they are asking for willing bodies - even if you aren't on the 'volunteer' list. Come on out! It's quite an experience!
Labels: Extreme Home Makeover, Family, Friends, Health, Volunteerism
