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.