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.
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| JDHS student, Crystal, working on interior framing |
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| JDHS students and staff attaching plywood sheats |
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| 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.
