Travels, Life in Albany, 2009

Click on any of the little pictures to see it at normal size. Click on the '=0=' after the picture to see it in giant size (about 2 minutes to download on dialup connection and larger than screen size). This could be useful if you wanted to really look at one part of the picture or to make a print.

=0=	=0=
The Albany Habitat for Humanity Affiliate does builds five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. They have multiple sites going simultaneously, but only work on one site on any given day. I presume that helps them keep busy in case one site is delayed for lack of a particular supply or for a required inspection. Anyway, above and here are pictures of the S. Pearl Street build, just a block up the hill from their offices and the Restore (and right next to a freeway). I worked with the Wednesday crew and we put up siding starting with the side shown here. First up we needed to add another level to the scaffolding. At three levels it was pretty shaky until Frank and Dick stabilized it with boards attaching it to the house, shown below. The roofs on these houses all seem to be different. This roof looks pretty ordinary, but instead of roof trusses, the roof panels have insulation sandwiched between plywood and are structural elements placed via cranes. I guess it is good experience for the guys as they get to work on every kind of roof (more than I even imagined there were).	=0=
=0=	=0=
=0=	=0=
After Dick and Frank had secured the scaffolding, I joined them ujp on the scaffolding and we continued the siding up to the peak of the roof as shown above while the other guys set up the more scaffolding on the back side. There weren't enough planks for the new scaffolding so we harvested some of the planks from the lower sections where we were done. Meanwhile Michelline, the project manager, ordered metal flashing to put over the exposed rafters at the top. Al went to pick it up and as I was leaving they were finishing off that side of the house. In the morning there is ussually coffee and donuts (yummy) for our break. This morning was Matt's birthday and Sandy made a chococlate cake (double yummy!) as shown here with Dick, Matt, and Frank. Below is a picture of Ralph and Sandy. Ralph went upstairs and cut pieces of siding and passed them out the window while we measured and nailed it in place	=0=
=0=	=0=
Frank generally cut peices of vinyl with snips (really large scissors) that were ideal for making straight cuts in vinyl while Ralph struggled with tin snips (scissors designed for cutting sheet metal) that made it harder to cut straight. He made up a template as we moved to the back side so he could quickly cut with a circular saw, but instead used a hand saw as the generator wouldn't start again after lunch.	=0=
Here is the generator as Al and Dick work on it. It was still disassembled when I left.	=0=