Road Report – UIE building with Habitat for Humanity
Yesterday nine employees from UIEvolution descended upon the Habitat for Humanity East King County project in Issaquah Highlands. Both the house and UIE survived
Road report from UIE Engineer – John Dance:
We were given a brief introduction to Habitat for Humanity in East King County. They are building 6 duplex homes. We worked on 2 duplexes. The developer donates the land as part of their agreement for affordable housing. Then Habitat sells the homes at cost, which is way below what they would normally cost. (I think he mentioned around 120k for these homes.) Families who buy them must be within an income range. There is a minimum because they have to afford the home.
We were then given some safety instruction (where we all made mental notes of “do not fall off the ladder”, and “where did they say the first aid box was”), and then broken up into teams to assist some Americorps volunteers who have been working there for 6 months.
Satoshi & Jeremy did an expert job on siding the front of the house. Satoshi always had an insightful comparison between house building and software building. 
Kati & Jennifer did siding and trim. …on scaffolding that was three stories up!
Greg & Lance worked up on the roof and siding around a front window. Lance was an expert with the chop saw, and Greg didn’t fall off the roof once.
Jeff H. & Patty counter sunk about 2,000 nails and caulked them over. The palm nailer is now Jeff’s favorite toy, and Patty probably has about 1,999 splinters in her thumb.
My job was to nail the wrong decorative cornice piece up under the peak of the roof so that someone would have to come tear it out. I also become very good at the measure twice AND cut twice rule.
Here is the construction leader inspecting our work:
Here is a picture of the house when we got done.
(We had trouble with getting our walls plumb.)
Actually, in all seriousness… It was a great day. It felt good to help Habitat for Humanity. It was fun to be out on a beautiful day, with our coworkers, and get to know everyone a little better.
I enjoyed the entire day, except when everyone made fun of my boots.
Kati, thanks for organizing it. UIE, thanks for supporting us in a great cause.
John
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