Church Work Week 10/4-9

Team,

Like every week we start our work week morning with an opening prayer and then we place bets on the accuracy of the weather forecast for the day.  Fortunately the weather apps are usually wrong! 

This week so much work went into finishing the last 6 trusses on the fellowship hall roof.   With the area surrounding the church blocked off with the silt fence it made it very difficult to extend the telehandler to reach the roof.  The last truss install took several disconnects of the lifting straps and reattaching them to bump the truss forward inch by inch.   Then it was time to start putting down the plywood sheet by sheet and nail by nail.   The tops of the trusses had to be planed to make them even.   All of the trusses had to be secured with some type of hurricane strap which is a lot of nailing.   This took most of the week to complete.   The constant use of the air nailers is great for arm strength and hearing loss! 

We rebuilt the header support with cinder blocks per the Architects direction and added more threaded rods through the block wall for support.

We spent time sorting out the remaining roof trusses in preparation to the Saturday work day.

Sunday Dennis Kiser and his wife Donna returned to their home in Williamsburg, VA.  Dennis will be surely missed for his great attitude, carpentry skills and his awesome sense of humor.  We thank God for both of them.  If you want to send them a thank you note, please contact JT at Rejoicefellowship@gmail.com for their address.

Saturday work day was a big success.  It was time for the fun of putting down the waterproof paper on the plywood.   Again thousands of staples and then the fun of adding the heavy duty clips and staples with countless jams of the new fangled stapler! Many hours crawling on your knees.  A well oiled machine working together to finish the roof.  Great job guys!

The team attacked the much need cleanup aspect of the project.  Lots of wood debris, plastic sheeting, drywall scapes, stones, electric debris, rocks etc… were hauled away.   Floors were swept and the wood scrapes were hauled to our burn pit area.

We built temporary headers and support legs to hold the trusses located at the front of the church.  Steve Schenk spent countless hours reading the plans, running string lines, measuring, measuring and more measuring to determine where the trusses would land on the headers.  If you have visited the Church recently you will know that access to the front of the building is cut off due to the footers and the trenches.   This made installing the front trusses a real challenge as the truss had to be lifted high in the air over the power line and blindly lowered in place with the help of our spotter Bonnie Stoner.  We managed to put 6 trusses in place with the help of our ground crew lifting the truss off the ground, attaching tag line ropes and securing the lifting strap.

I am so proud of each of you,  your efforts and of course your dedication to building our Church. 

Thanks
Steve