And The Building Goes On

May 26, 2011

A couple of days from grandma Ritzman's diary:
May 26, 1914 Tuesday, mended, was over home in afternoon.
May 27, 1914 Wednesday, helped mother a couple of hours in the morning to clean her kitchen, cousin W.S. Goodheart was here for dinner, mended, worked in the garden.

On the Build:
I think that I mentioned in an earlier post - when we arrived on the jobsite one two family duplex was almost finished with just a lot of detail stuff to be completed. The next foundation slab was finished and awaiting the walls to be set up to begin construction. At these stages we were able to work on a little of everything and got to see a finished home plus work on the start of another.  At the beginning our team split into a couple of crews some helping with the finish work on the almost complete duplex and the other working on various things associated with the duplex just starting. 

 The picture below shows the first floor walls in place and part of the ceiling panels installed.  The exterior walls are fastened to the slab with a continuous angle along the outside of the wall.  As you can see the outside wall and interior walls are a little less than 2 inches thick.  The dimensions are critical to have everything fit together.  All of the panels are precut from the factory before delivery.  The "T-posts" hold the ceiling panels up until the second floor joists are installed and then angle clips are installed on the top of the ceiling holding it against the joists.  A side plate (about 2x12) is installed on the wall perimeter and then the floor joists are installed.  All of this supported by the walls below.

Most of the first couple days of construction myself and two others worked on installing the scaffolding around the duplex.  This was quite a project to level it all and maintain a certain distance from the building for future work.  Since then another crew has put on a second level.  It's a big project to install it right but it makes it safe for working on a two story home.

Below is the nearly complete 5 bedroom units.  There are three bedrooms on the second floor behind the brick facade and two more bedrooms above the garage.

Here is Sami a single mother of four who is receiving the left side home.  She worked hard with us for the first week that we were on site.  She bakes some excellent snacks for morning and afternoon teas.

Friday evening we left after work and went to a rugby match between the Auckland Blues and a South Africa team.  There is a three way competition between New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia going on.  It was the first rugby game I've ever been to and it turned out to be a good game.  At half time Auckland was winning 19 to 2 but in the second half South Africa came storming back and won 28 to 26 with the final score in the last 2 minutes a disputed one requiring a instant reply for the referees to make the final call.  I'd have to say that rugby is a fast moving game and rough with little or no padding worn by the players. The game clock hardly ever stops and the two 40 minute halves go by fast. 
Another cool thing was that we got to see the updated and renovated Auckland stadium where the rugby world cup will be held later this year.  It's a beautiful stadium but a little problematic in that there is no parking at the stadium and you have find a place on the neighboring streets to park.  There is a train station right outside of the stadium and public transportation is encouraged.

Saturday we had the day off and we went to the Auckland Zoo and then over to the Skytower.  At the zoo we saw a red panda which was kind of interesting. 

They had a couple of bengal tigers - very big cats.