Crew Daily Reports
We were exceptionally lucky with the weather, beautiful sunny days - warm enough but not too hot to work. The only rain was on the last day, happily coinciding with our coffee and lunch breaks.
The British contingent discussed the weather a lot, it is in our genes after all. Every morning diligently checking the BBC Weather website only for it to be proved totally wrong. The further away from the UK you are, the less accurate the weather forecasts are ??!!
Mobile Forms
Taking a few moments out of the busy work day, I called on colleagues (husband) back in the Slough Office to set up a Site Report for us - here are the daily reports ......
Bill of Quantities
My calculations probably totally out here, but some stats for those who are interested here are some of the (totally made up) measures for you based on the tasks I worked on - this being the team effort :
Lumber Shifted : Shed Loads (Tonnes)
Lumber Treated (Painted) : One Roof + Three Walls
Trench Dug : 4 ft deep x 1 ft wide x a long way (you can see it from space)
Rafters Hoisted : just the right amount
Health & Safety
As you can imagine Health & Safety is paramount on site. At least for the volunteers. We suspect that as we left site the hard hats were off and the scaffolding just a display item.
Each day Alex Sbircea gave us a run down of the hazards on site, and the ever present rules and Manuela always had the first aid kit and magnificent blister prevention tape on hand.
Keeping hydrated is important and every day we were quizzed on the signs of dehydration. Not entirely sure that discussing the colour of pee is something I'd normally do with my colleagues.
All in all, for the four days we had an excellent H&S record; only blisters, bites and an unfortunate case with cocktail sauce falling off the scaffold.
One last piece of health advice from Dan .... DON'T wear your steel toe cap boots on an eight hour flight. They might be heavy in your luggage, but boy are they uncomfortable on a plane!!!
Equipment
The tools and skills used on the build are very different to what I've experienced in the UK. The whole process of framing the upper storey and roof was hand-crafted. Tools consisted of saws (chop saw and chain saw), hammers, screwdrivers and in emergency a crow bar.
None of the wood work was pre-constructed, every noggin, brace, beam, joist (see how I picked up the language) was measured and cut to size before installation.
Romania standards mean that electricity and gas are the last two things to go on site, after all the building work is complete. Everything is run off generators until that point, so manual labour is essential.
The site safety, whilst paramount for the volunteers, was not always as tight as back home for the locals. Florin, one of the local contractors, known to me as 'Chainsaw Guy' was quite often seen perching atop a beam or rafter happily swinging his chainsaw around. To be fair, his accuracy cutting the angles to fit was amazing to see.
Watching guys with one foot on a very wobbly scaffold and another on a cross beam, hammering and sawing was one of my favourite pastimes. David and myself agreed that there'd be no way either of us would be up there without a harness (me - I'd add in crash mat too).
Terminology
Aside from the language differences, there were a lot of new terms to learn - and regional variations on those. Here's a sample of a few :
Noggin : apparently not the King of the Northmen , small pieces of wood, mostly cut and hammered by the COINS team to support the main wood frame and interior walls
Cats : American noggins
Joists : long bits of wood
Beams : long bits of wood
Trusses : long bits of wood
Giant Staple : yes I thought this would have a more interesting name too - that's why I asked, but it is what it is
Smidgen : used as a measure when cutting lumber to size - a small amount (Note : 3 x Larry Smidgen = 1 x Simon Smidgen = re-cut the noggin )
Facilities Management
Just a photo, I'll leave the rest to the imagination.
