Rebuilding Rushford

Posted by Kevin.....

In August of this year, several south-east Minnesota towns were devistated by flooding caused by a weekend of record breaking rain fall. This hilly area also was struck by small landslides that blocked tributaries with mud and trees. This led to flooding in places that had never seen flooding in all of known history.

None of the homes had flood insurance.

Steve Schmidt owns a successful constuction company in Northfield. He also happens to be a biking friend of mine. He rounded up a few us Northfield Bike Club members and drove us down to Rushford for a weekend of volunteer work.

Any and all skills were need, from framing walls and roofing, to clearing debris and clean up.

I signed on for Saturday, and met Steve at the end of my driveway at 6:00am. I had every tool Stace and I owned.....from power tools to framing squares, no less than THREE types of hammers, and even safty glasses. Steve said, "Just grab your tool belt, a tape measure and a hammer."

After a brief check-in at the Lutheran Church's volunteer center, we went right to work finishing the roof on a rambler that had a partial basement calapse.

It took me a while to realize this house wasn't a new construction. It was gutted, and all the plumbing and electric were being replaced. Oddly, the drywall in some rooms remained, but started at about the 4 ft. level. (This was the height of the water in the home.)

Since most of the structure was sound, the home owner decided to have the basement wall repaired and a new outside wall for the living room built. The roof was re-shingled so the whole house would match. Then new windows would go into the house.

While most of our 8 man team worked on cutting and installing fascia and soffit (covers the eaves), Steve and I finished up the roofing with lots of help from Amos, a 15 year old Amish boy. It was a humbling moment when I ran out of nails and had to ask Amos to show me how to reload the nail gun. After the third time I ran out, I just handed it over to him and he reloaded it and continued the nailing. (The Amish can use air powered tools under some strict loophole about charity.)

We were suppose to install the new windows, but they didn't show up. So Amos and I got down into a hole and finished digging out around the foundation for egress window wells.

I cut some treated 2x8 to line the cinder block openings in the foundation, and Steve and I began installing the window wells. However, the new wells were too narrow for the openings cut in the foundation (someone else had measured the inside of the opening and the outside of the window wells). The wells fit nicely THROUGH our opening. So this too would have to wait another day.

We actually hit a stopping point with this house and decide that we would call it a day.

We had been working a total of 9 hours, and headed back to Northfield in time for dinner.