Written By: 4/C Sabrina Andrews
Today was Day 10 of our Experiential Learning trip in Black Mountain, North Carolina. We woke up at 0630, put on our boiler suits, ate breakfast, and got ready for inspections at 0800. On the way to our destination, Ms. Trout drove us to Dunkin’. Today, my group and Mr. Jache’s group were working with Hearts with Hands for the demolition and rebuilding of a porch that was destroyed by Hurricane Helene. We arrived around 0830 and started to transport the lumber from the trailer to the job site. We were working with two gentlemen who were part of Hearts with Hands, Kevin and Jim. They both guided us through the process, although they were very encouraging for us to do the work. We then completed the demolition, and we split into two groups. One group went with Greg to the Hearts with Hands warehouse to load up lumber to rebuild a house from top to bottom that also got destroyed by Hurricane Helene.
My group, which was Mr. Jache, Simmons, Hobart, and Danna, got to start building the porch. We first started by measuring the perimeter of the porch, so that we could start cutting the wood to the sizes we needed. Simmons and I installed waterproofing tape along the house for mitigation efforts to stop the water from rotting the wood beams. We then did all the footing and basing of the porch. The process that we used was a hole digger first, then we used a post hole digger to remove the dirt. After creating a cleaned-out 11-by-11-inch hole, we put a layer of cement, then dirt, and tightly compacted it until level. At around 1200, we took a break for lunch, and then we started back up around 1300. We now have a base, so we squared everything using Kevin’s method, the 345 method, which means you measure 3 feet from one side of a 90-degree angle and 4 feet from the other side, and then your hypotenuse should equal 5 feet. After all the support beams were installed, we put in the brackets that add more support to the base of the porch. We did so by hammering nails through the bracket and into the wood.
After completing a good portion of the porch, we took some time to make sure everything looked right. We realized one of the footings was lopsided, so we had to fix that. It was about 1500, so we started to organize and put all of our tools away. We had to put all the lumber that we didn’t get to yet into the garage so it wouldn’t get ruined by the weather. It was such a great experience to be able to work with Kevin and Jim on this project. We then drove to the warehouse to pick up two students and drive back to the cabin at around 1600. We had dinner at around 1900 followed by a movie night that started shortly after dinner. We watched cars and that concludes Day 10!
