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I just returned from my volunteer work week in Alabama. It was a really great experience both from a work and personal perspective. The house we worked on was really in bad shape, both from neglect and from Katrina  storm damage. The woman did not have running water even and it wasn't clear how long she had been without it. She got water from a relative next door in buckets and brought it into the house for use. The house smelled pretty bad of moldy sheet rock and water damage. It was also packed full of junk making the task of working inside very tough. Luckily for us, we were to start on the outside of the house and never actually ended up working inside. Our task was to get in and rebuild the roof so that it would be water tight for the next group that was to begin working on the inside of the house. The roof had been covered with multiple layers of tarps over the years to try and keep the water out of the numerous leaking. Once we started removing layers of tarps and old shingles, we realized that we had opened pandoras box. Each time we removed something, we would find more insect damage or water damage. It was hard to know where to stop. The big difference between a project like this and ones that we undertake as Phase 2 Homes, is that the budget for materials is so limited. The coordinating entity, in this case, Lutheran Disaster Response, basically wants you to make things better than they were and liveable. I'm used to making things top notch, so it was hard to just make the situation good enough.  It was this directive though that essentially dictated our course of action. The roof on this house was framed with wood that was undersized, but changing it to proper size would have meant redoing the entire roof structure, which was not within the time and budget. So we replaced the worst of the rafters and joists with the same undersized material (but new at least). We patched the top plates of the walls where the insect damage was worst so that we had a place to attach roof members. And then we proceed to redeck the roof and reshingle. The work took much longer than we or Lutheran Disaster Response had anticipated as none of us new how bad the state of the roof and house was. At the end of the week, 3 of us (out of 7), decide d to stay an extra day to try to finish up the main roof which we were able to do. It was dissappointing to not be able to finish the shingling on the entire roof, but another group was coming in on Monday (10/27), to finish anything we couldn't finish and start working on the inside. Not all the peope who come to help on these projects have any experience in this type of work, but they come eager to help and eager to learn. It was amazing to see how hard everyone worked to try to get this woman's house back into a livable state. I really enjoyed helping teach people how to do some of the work and did much of the coordination of the project itself while we were there. Overall, the experience was great and I plan to make this sort of thing at least an annual event. There are plenty of other place that need work in this country. It does feel good to lend a helping hand when you can.
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