Greg’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition Blog

Minnesota Exteriors Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Blog Oct 2009

By: Greg Bennis – Site Supervisor / Owner

Oct 6 2:31am Everyone is excited about the project and ready to get going. It is 41 degrees with a light rain. Let’s hope it dries up soon!

3:01am St. Paul police deputies are taking us from the staging area to the job site. I am glad I have not seen the view from the back of a police van before!

3:37am TJB Homes, the builder for this house, has done a nice job of bringing in some sand to lessen the effects of the rain. We had all of our materials delivered. They were staged into six piles for specific parts of the house. Boy, I hope the rain let’s up as it is muddy already.

6:59am It is just starting to get light, sunrise will happen soon. We are off to a good start although it has not quit raining for even 10 minutes since we started. The crews are in good spirits!

8:06am Our first glitch. The food tents have run out of coffee. It still has not stopped raining, although the temperature has risen to 45 degrees. We need to get some coffee to the crews as it is COLD!!!!

9:32am Thank goodness the coffee has arrived. We are still progressing well for the conditions. We lost our first two tools, a compound saw and a jigsaw, to the rain. The sawdust and rain are clogging the tools.

11:41am We are well past half done at this point. It still has not stopped raining. In spite of the rain the crew’s spirits remain high. There is a lot of good energy / adrenaline on this job site. It helps that we are helping a family keep their home and business. The rain has not let up all night and morning. We now have lost a cell phone and several tools to the rain. We will keep plugging away.

2:08pm We just lost the main compressor to the rain. We are having our smaller individual compressors sent up from the staging area so we do not get shut down. Good thing we brought them with even though we were told we did not need them.

3:41pm We held one piece of special cut siding off of the front of the house so that Ty can put it on for the camera’s when he shows up. It has been a couple of hours now and he is not here. Who can blame him as it still has not stopped raining for even 10 minutes since we started. I hope he shows up soon as this piece requires special flashing and we need to make sure it goes on correctly and does not leak.

5:15pm We just got permission to put the last piece of siding up on the house from the builder. We can not leave this one for Ty as there is too great a chance that there could be a leak if it is not flashed correctly.

6:10pm The house is completely finished. We would have been able to do this job in 1/3 less time if it had ever stopped raining. There is standing water a foot deep on the left side of the house, in spite of the builder’s best efforts to keep the site dry. We have about 45 minutes of clean up to get our unused materials off the site and prep it for the next crew. Another Extreme Makeover house done by MEI! It will look great outside by the time ‘Move that bus!’ happens.

Oct 7 3:00pm It was a very long day yesterday with the non-stop rain and temperatures that never reached 50 degrees! In spite of the weather, all of the crews were happy and felt good about helping the Morris family achieve their dream. The rain took a toll as we lost 4 compound saws, 2 drills, 2 compressors and 4 cell phones during the build. We will be able to clean up and fix the tools, but the phones are history. It was a small price to pay in comparison to the feeling of joy over what we had accomplished. Good job to the 42 people on our crews plus the people in the office that made this happen!

Oct 9 5:00pm It was a great finish to the week to see the looks on the Morris family faces when the bus moved and they saw their new home! MEI had a great time working on this job and helping another family in need. Go Extreme Makeover: Home Edition!