First Dunedin Build Day

5May06

This morning we all packed into the two vans and chugged off to the building site.  We didn’t think we would ever find the site since it entails a trip up and around some hills, a couple of round-a-bouts and a number of turns which we did in the dark Thursday evening following David Brown.  But due to the excellent map that David Brown (HFHNZ) put together we found our way with no trouble.  The one van is a <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Toyota with a small engine and we thought that someone was going to have to get out and push up the hills with eight of us in it but it did make it in low gear.

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When we arrived on the site this morning the sub floor was complete and the partitions and exterior wall sections all framed and waiting on a stack.  We began with devotions by David who talked about how we are diverse group we and while working together to pay attention and rejoice in the differences in thought, personality, skills, etc. between us. 

 

The site is up on a hill in a suburb of Dunedin called Brockville.  There is a beautiful view looking down over Dunedin.  The local affiliate had bought a piece of property that had had a house but had burned down.  By buying a little additional piece from a neighboring property they were able to have enough space to build two houses.  The total price was a little over $NZ30,000 so they got a real bargain for the land.  Land properties here from what we’ve seen advertised are much higher than back in Portage County. 

 

The house is a four bedroom ranch style with the floor built up on stilts to make it level on the hillside.  As a safety issue we are required to have scaffolding around the sides and back of the house and it must be installed by a licensed installed.  Then it is inspected and tagged as being safe before we can work on the house.  It took most of the day to get the walls up and plumb.  The roof trusses were delivered late in the day in a stack and put on top of the walls.  The scaffolding had to be made higher and then inspected again before we can work on setting up the trusses.  Hopefully the scaffolding will be taken care of and trusses started by the local volunteers on Saturday.