NORWICH – BOCES Chenango Campus students enrolled in the Carpentry and Building Construction Program instructed by Kent Rubottom recently completed their work experience participation at the Habitat for Humanity house project on Adams Street. Junior and senior classes from last spring and this fall worked on the house. In addition, there were two all-day adult students who worked very diligently alongside their high school peers during the spring.
When the students arrived at the Habitat house site in mid-March, they found the slab already in place and the first floor wall panels up, although there was a minor problem with the panels that had been sent to the site. The students began working at the Habitat house by straightening and bracing the first floor panelized walls and changing some of the rough openings. They then began the lay out for and placing the second floor engineered floor joists, applying the sub-floor, and assisting the operator from Payne’s Cranes in moving the second floor panels onto the house. After placing, fastening, straightening and bracing the second floor panels, the students began to layout, set, and brace the roof trusses, build the ladder lookouts over the gable ends, and apply the soffit and fascia to the tails of the trusses and over the gable end lookouts. When the roof frame was complete, they squared and sheathed the roof, rolled out the ice and water shield, and applied the felt paper underlayment and drip edge. They then shingled the roof and placed the continuous roof vent at the ridge.
At this point, in mid-May, the first year students returned to BOCES to complete other projects, including the sheds they had started earlier in the year. However, the second year students returned to Habitat every day throughout the spring to work on putting on the house wrap, setting the exterior doors and windows, the corner molding, J-channel, hanging the vinyl siding on the north wall, and helping with the electrical wiring.
The students picked up this fall almost where they had left off, beginning with the installation of the fiberglass insulation the other volunteers had not yet completed. Some of the sheetrock was done, although much more remained to be completed, including most of the walls and ceilings. Students worked briefly putting up more siding, but they could complete little because the porch roofs that had yet to be built. Consequently, they tackled the two porches, framing the perimeters on the concrete footers the Habitat volunteers had already placed, and hanging the joists. They nearly finished framing and sheathing both porch roofs prior to returning to BOCES to begin a 26’ x 54’ three bedroom modular home, which they hope to complete by the end of the school year.
The students all agree the Habitat work site was, and is, an excellent opportunity to learn carpentry and building skills while giving something back to the community. The tremendous amount of work done by the Carpentry students certainly augmented the work the other Habitat volunteers have done. The lofty goals of the Habitat for Humanity organization contributes to our communities by improving the skills of the volunteers, our area neighborhoods, and providing new, inexpensive living quarters for our area families.
For more information about the BOCES Carpentry and Building Construction Program located at the Chenango or Harrold Campus, contact Steve Perrin, Director of Career and Technical Education, at 335-1234.