The End if Fast Approaching

It has been over a month since our last post and much has happened, so for today’s post I’ll let you know what we have done, the current status of our house and what is planned for the upcoming weeks. The status of our house at the last post was a framed staircase and the beginning our exteriors finish work that included the installation of siding, trim, and soffit. Presently, we are a few days away from having a finished exterior and drywall installed, our roof is insulated and shingled, and our interior wall cavities have been insulated. This is good news because summer vacation is fast approaching for our students and we hope to have as much done as possible before they are finished.

Therefore, the site remains busy as usual.  Our next steps include finishing up the installation of siding, trim, and soffit. Once all the exterior materials are in place we will have to paint the exterior of our house. For the interior, after our drywall is finished and painted, we will begin installing flooring and kitchen cabinets, as well as carpet in the upstairs of our house.

The next few weeks will be quite busy and before you know it our house will be finished and ready for occupation. So if you don’t keep up you might miss it. Stay posted and thanks for your support.

A Busy Few Weeks

Welcome back and thanks for checking in loyal readers! We greatly appreciate your support. It has been nearly three weeks since my last post and much has been going on with the House-Build project. So I’ll do my best to catch everyone up with everything that we have been doing.

The last time you heard from us we had poured our concrete slab and begun attaching vinyl soffit, trim, and siding to the exterior of our house. Since then, our students and staff have framed our interior staircase, roughed-in our HVAC ventilation, finished our interior framing, traveled to Martin County, FL to volunteer with their local Habitat for Humanity Chapter, and traveled back to Juneau at the start of this week to continue installation of our siding, trim, and vinyl installation. In other words, we've been busy.

So, let us start with the stairs. Before the students did any measuring, cutting, or installing, they were introduced to stair framing in a traditional classroom setting. This introductory lesson by the Construction Manager, Justin Fantasia, gave the students a basic overview of staircase anatomy, codes and requirements for residential staircases, measuring and calculating staircase dimensions, and layout, cutting, and installation techniques.

At the conclusion of this lesson the students had the opportunity to put their new-found knowledge into practice. After calculating the dimensions for the staircase in our home using measurements taken earlier in the day, the students marked three 2x12’s stringers to ready them for cutting. But right as the first cuts were about to be made the school bell rung, signaling the end of the day’s class.

Therefore, the next day’s class was spent cutting and installing the stringers and temporary stairs for our house. For the rest of the week the students assisted with the installation of HVAC ventilation and reviewed the plumbing and electrical work that had been performed by sub-contractors earlier in the week.

The entire week was accompanied with an air of excitement because the JDHS House-Build Class was scheduled to fly to Orlando the following Saturday for the much-anticipated spring break trip to Martin County, FL to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.

Enjoying the sunshine and warm weather, 11 Juneau-Douglas High School students, 5 from the House-Build class, and 4 staff members spent 5 days assisting in the construction of two 1,600 sq. ft. single-family residences. Displaying the skills they had acquired from the House-Build class, the students helped with interior framing, and installing roof trusses and roof sheathing. 

The experience was an enjoyable and meaningful one that saw the Juneau House-Build class accomplish a great deal of work accompanied by a few afternoons at the beach that weren't too bad either. The trip would not have been possible without the support of numerous organizations, businesses, and individuals from the Juneau and Martin County Areas. For those who helped make the trip a reality, we can't thank you enough.

JDHS student, Crystal, working on interior framing

JDHS students and staff attaching plywood sheats

JDHS students, Leo and Hadi (bottom), passing up plywood sheats

Returning to Juneau at the start of this week, the students and staff seemed focused on the next task at hand: attaching our siding, vinyl, and trim. With approximately two months left in the school year and plenty of work remaining to be done, we expect to be quite busy.

Thanks again for checking in and stay posted.

Slab Poured and Finished; Moving on to Siding, Trim

The first week of March has been a busy one for the House-Build Class. Blessed with a few days of sunshine, our students and staff have been hard at work with the next major phases of our house: pouring and finishing our concrete slab; and attaching our trim, siding, and vinyl soffit.

By the end of last week the ground floor of our home had been leveled, layered with 2” of foam insulation, covered with a grid of steel re-enforcing bar, and lined with heat tubes. Leaving it prepared to have nearly four inches of concrete poured on top of it to form the slab of our first floor.

The ground floor after being levelled.

 

Ground floor covered with plastic weather-barrier, 2" foam insulation, grid of 3/8" steel re-enforcing bar, and heat tubes

 

Therefore, at 10:30 am on Monday morning we welcomed, shovels in hand and wheelbarrows ready, the mammoth concrete-mixing truck to our site. To get the concrete into our house with a minimal amount of effort we placed the chutes from the truck through our doorways, where the students from JDHS’ Basic Construction Class waited with wheelbarrows to transport and unload the concrete where needed. The process of unloading the concrete into place and smoothing the surface took approximately three hours and the finishing of the surface another few hours as well.




 

JDHS students observing as we set up for the pour

 

 

Slab after being smoothed and finished

 

By Tuesday, the only work left to be done on the concrete slab was to wait for it to cure and try to minimize traffic and activity on its surface. So, we turned our attention to the outside of our home, which was ready to have siding and trim attached to its surface.

Before attaching our siding, the students were introduced to the tools we will be using and the methods we will be practicing for the processes of emplacing siding, trim, and vinyl soffit. At the end of this introductory lesson the students used the time left in class to put the techniques they had just learned into practice.

For Wednesday’s class period, the students were split into two groups. One group began attaching fiber-cement siding on the rear wall of our home, while the other finished installing vinyl soffit at the front of our house.

JDHS student, Kyle, attaches vinyl soffit.

JDHS students, Jon (near left) and Zach, cut a piece of fiber-cement siding.

JDHS students, Sylvester (near left) and Logan, measure and cut vinyl soffit

 

JDHS House-Build teacher, Andy Bullick (kneeling), showing students how to attach fiber-cement siding

The entire siding process should occupy a few weeks our class and work, so the students and staff will be glad to take a break from that stage for our spring break field trip to Martin County, Florida where we will be working with Habitat for Humanity.

In other news, taking place this weekend is the Juneau Home Show. The Home Show will have a wine tasting event on Friday night, and other events throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday. The Home Show will be held at Centennial Hall.