Habitat for Humanity build

jimmyjames8

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Sitting here with my recently operated on leg propped up, watching the idiot box and a show was on that featured a Habitat for Humanity home build. After watching this show and having participated in 3 builds, I am convinced now more than ever that having the general public participate in these is a waste of time. When trades people show up, things get done...right the first time usually. One of my builds, my wife and i spent the day tearing off siding that some other team supposedly put up wrong and then it turned out the wall was crooked. Our work was a total waste of time. Another build, about 14 people walked around all day with paint brushes and rollers painting and repainting walls and trim because they did not have anything else for us to do. I don't need to do one of these to feel good about myself and thats all these seem to do for the unskilled volunteer groups. Your experiences?
 
My experience is that the habitat people made some BS video talking about how bad they lived. Well they rented a single wide trailer that was in good shape less than 10 years old and freaking destroyed the entire place. They then moved their grandma in without anybody knowing as well and habitat ate it up. They were talking about mold and how their son had breathing problems. Well if your 10 years old and weight 300 pounds you're gonna be breathing hard. It really turned me against any of the habitat bull crap.
 
After numerous builds with my dad doing HVAC I'll never ever help with another. Nor will I shop at their stores either. I was In a restore store about 2 months back and an elderly lady pulled in with a donation.
The manager proceeded to examine the contents of this donation and had the boy put EVERYTHING in the dumpster there were brand new cookware sets not cheap sets either. A brand new husqvarna chainsaw. In the box.
I'd be willing to say there was $2k worth of stuff.

I asked why she said she didn't have time to deal with it and thay stuff wouldn't sell in that particular store.


So nope never again will they get a penny from me
 
My team at work tries to do at least 1 volunteer activity per year and it’s typically packing meals for disaster victims, sorting food donations, or working a soup kitchen. Our business parallels food so we’re usually able to donate product as well once we see what they might need after working there for 2-3hr.
I find this kind of volunteer work much more fulfilling as you sometimes get to see the people you’re actually helping, and everyone has to eat even if it’s canned goods or rice and beans.

I tried doing a Purple Heart Homes but they politely insist on skilled labor. And by the comments above, I see why.
 
Hate to hear about the bad experience and witnessing donated goods go into the dumpster.
I recently visited a ReStore in Lexington and really liked it, picked up a few random things for very very little money.
 
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I volunteered a couple saturdays for habitat in Pittsboro. One day we put up siding which wasn’t bad. I worked with three other guys that didn’t mind working and we got a lot done. The second Saturday there were nothing but a bunch of high school kids walking around with paint brushes, pissed me off and I haven’t been back.
 
Hate to hear about the bad experience and witnessing donated goods go into the dumpster.
I recently visited a ReStore in Lexington and really liked it, picked up a few random things for very very little money.
Come towards Charlotte and ALOT of the prices are more than retail
 
I used to participate and have skills that are needed, BUT I went back to one I did last year and the GD thing was barely standing!! The "needy residents" had all but tore it back to ground level. That prompted me to go check on a couple of others and that's when I hung my Habitat hard hat on a nail at the range and shot it to little bitty pieces. Never, ever again will I do that for people like that.....
 
Come towards Charlotte and ALOT of the prices are more than retail
yikes!

For me I picked up a bunch of little things for pennies on the dollar, including a ziplock bag full of machine screws and a few other pieces of hardware for only a buck. Got to have at least 400 or so bits in there
 
yikes!

For me I picked up a bunch of little things for pennies on the dollar, including a ziplock bag full of machine screws and a few other pieces of hardware for only a buck. Got to have at least 400 or so bits in there

There was a bunch of paint brushes donated at the Mooresville location. The same one was cheaper at Walmart and lowes.
I just stopped going.
 
The Extreme Makeover Home Edition builds were the worst scam I’ve seen.

I did the Raleigh home that included the Community Center.

Just......idiotic frauds.

I think we did the furnishings. My partner delivered to them but it was my off trip. Said they were cursing enough to make him uneasy, which is tough for a truck driver.
 
I tried to "do some good" for Habitat once...
Volunteered a crane & crew to set the roof trusses of a local build a few years ago.
They were very hard to schedule, (putting priority on the 100% unskilled group that was there for a "our social club cares" feel good photo op "work day")
I juggled crane & crew schedule to work for them... we arrived on time to find a house full of kids doing crap, The coordinator requested that we reschedule.
I told the coordinator "I'll call you in a little while"
He may still be waiting on that phone to ring?
I was told volunteers set the trusses by hand, took 2 days.
We would have been in, set up, trusses set & braced and gone in under 2.5 hours.
Oh well, I tried.
 
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I volunteered a couple saturdays for habitat in Pittsboro. One day we put up siding which wasn’t bad. I worked with three other guys that didn’t mind working and we got a lot done. The second Saturday there were nothing but a bunch of high school kids walking around with paint brushes, pissed me off and I haven’t been back.
High schoolers only do it for their required "community service resume."
SJW's have destroyed the volunteer spirit in young people.

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In our neighborhood, one of the do gooders kept talking about sponsoring a habitat house in a community email list. I politely suggested that our neighborhood wasn’t appropriate due to the difference in house values. She said something about it just being a sponsor and that it wouldn’t go in our neighborhood, but I never heard mention of this bad idea again.
 
I’ve done a few habitat houses and the only ones I will work on now are a builder blitz. All skilled tradesman and professionals. Slab to finish in 5 days and it’s a fun competition with some of the other companies. Last time we did the girls in our office wanted to “help out”. We let them clean the house at completion. As they were leaving they were upset to see we had already scheduled the professional cleaning crew to come in after them to get it done right..
 
Sitting here with my recently operated on leg propped up, watching the idiot box and a show was on that featured a Habitat for Humanity home build. After watching this show and having participated in 3 builds, I am convinced now more than ever that having the general public participate in these is a waste of time. When trades people show up, things get done...right the first time usually. One of my builds, my wife and i spent the day tearing off siding that some other team supposedly put up wrong and then it turned out the wall was crooked. Our work was a total waste of time. Another build, about 14 people walked around all day with paint brushes and rollers painting and repainting walls and trim because they did not have anything else for us to do. I don't need to do one of these to feel good about myself and thats all these seem to do for the unskilled volunteer groups. Your experiences?

If you want to see REALLY good renovations, check out Baptist Men's groups. These are all tradesmen who volunteer to lose money from their businesses and go to disaster areas to help the really critical rebuilds. They are awesome. They are also not into all the glitz and "see how good we are" stuff you see with a lot of public charities. I am not a Baptist, but this is a good crowd. There are women too involved with these, as food donation and prep is a big part of disaster relief. Good people

https://www.facebook.com/ncmissionsdisasterrelief
 
I've sponsored a few build days in the past 10 yrs.

If I add the lost salary (burdened pay rate) + the donation in food, Habitat could build a home in less than a week.
 
Only one I’ve been involved with was rebuilding after some tornadoes in northern Alabama. Our entire time was spent ripping down brand new drywall that the previous “team” put up wrong.

If I had driven myself instead of riding along, I’d have put the tools down and driven home. I’ve never had a more unpleasant experience while “doing good.”
 
I’ve done some relief work here and there, but not any extensive amount. But let me toss in this slightly different view of things:

What do you recommend as an alternative? All the skilled tradesmen complaining of their methods/practices have zero standing between them and doing the same thing HFH is doing, yet doing it better.

Perhaps have the government take it over? Put some over site on it? Take it out of volunteers hands and disallow volunteer ventures?

Back when I was in the Gulf after Katrina I saw first hand how 1 skilled carpenter could take a group of unskilled office dwellers and get some work done. So I fully get the quality > quantity aspect of labor. But until a large group of skilled tradesmen are able to come up with an organization that will fill the shoes of HFH then they will continue doing what they do as best they can with what they have to work with.

So as a suggestion, how about posting links to alternative ventures that can be supported such as the Baptist men’s group above.




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I have worked on a couple Habitat builds, as well as some Christmas in April projects ( now its called Rebuilding Together, which sounds like a Clintonism :eek:) a bunch of years back through a former employer. The Christmas in April work was targeted towards an existing homeowner, narrower in scope, and designed to get completed in a couple days. Can't vouch for them now but it seemed like a more effective situation than HFH and you had contact with the actual person you were helping.

Aside from the waste and asshattery of the HFH stuff, the fact that you could never seem to own or see anything through to completion wasn't very satisfying from a pride perspective. And yes, I'm selfish that way- if I leave feeling that I have benefited the person I'm helping as well as believing I've completed a well executed project, I'm much more likely to want to do it again.
 
I’ve done some relief work here and there, but not any extensive amount. But let me toss in this slightly different view of things:

What do you recommend as an alternative? All the skilled tradesmen complaining of their methods/practices have zero standing between them and doing the same thing HFH is doing, yet doing it better.

Perhaps have the government take it over? Put some over site on it? Take it out of volunteers hands and disallow volunteer ventures?

Back when I was in the Gulf after Katrina I saw first hand how 1 skilled carpenter could take a group of unskilled office dwellers and get some work done. So I fully get the quality > quantity aspect of labor. But until a large group of skilled tradesmen are able to come up with an organization that will fill the shoes of HFH then they will continue doing what they do as best they can with what they have to work with.

So as a suggestion, how about posting links to alternative ventures that can be supported such as the Baptist men’s group above.




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Good points. I think they all center around leadership. HFH should focus on "glueing" the unskilled selfie takers to the few skilled tradesmen that show up. Put them to meaningful use, even if that's cleaning up trash--not repainting something that doesn't need it.

I'd argue there is a bunch of stuff standing between skilled tradesmen doing it themselves and actual results: now that HFH is the mainstream, many places only donate to the leader of the pack. If Joe the Carpenter walks into Home Depot and asks for donations, they'll either laugh him out the door or death-by-1,000 papercuts him to death with "you gotta go through corporate" stuff.
 
Ok go to the 3:58 mark of this video and watch the family that ruined a nice BIG single wide trailer that was NOT in a trailer park like depicted on the video but basically in front of my old house with lots of open land. These folks here only allowed to have the kids living with them and at some point moved grandma in without anyone knowing. She apparently lived with the family for 3 years but almost never came out of the house. There was never any mention of mold or toilets not working to the Landlord (wife's grandfather) these people totally lied and so did the habitat people who made that video. If they can't be honest without embelishing peoples hardships then you will never see me helping them. Oh and the so small trailer they lived in, totally destroyed holes all over the walls, roaches everywhere. Would have cost 15k to fix it up so we just gave it away.

 
While we did get some work completed with ours, a lot of it was going to require rework and we also identified items to be reworked. When you get into the guts of the house, you'll notice they're not going to be as nicely assembled as one that was planned out. Lots of half-assed fixes throughout.
 
For the skilled craftsmen, it's the first thing.
I wish that were the case on my parents house that we built. Ok, well, yes there were some. The ones we picked or hired. The yahoos hired by the GC we fired and sued, not so much. They spent more time dancing than working.

In retrospect, I wish I has gone over it with a square and a level. I would have made them redo much of the framing. It looked ok, but was very out of square which caused problems down the road, and made the finish work difficult to get right.
 
I helped with the building of two houses and I have no plans to help with a third. People were given a house and in a matter of months had destroyed the thing both times.

You can’t gift people into a better lifestyle. They have to want it and work for it.


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I’ve done some relief work here and there, but not any extensive amount. But let me toss in this slightly different view of things:

What do you recommend as an alternative? All the skilled tradesmen complaining of their methods/practices have zero standing between them and doing the same thing HFH is doing, yet doing it better.

Perhaps have the government take it over? Put some over site on it? Take it out of volunteers hands and disallow volunteer ventures?

Back when I was in the Gulf after Katrina I saw first hand how 1 skilled carpenter could take a group of unskilled office dwellers and get some work done. So I fully get the quality > quantity aspect of labor. But until a large group of skilled tradesmen are able to come up with an organization that will fill the shoes of HFH then they will continue doing what they do as best they can with what they have to work with.

So as a suggestion, how about posting links to alternative ventures that can be supported such as the Baptist men’s group above.




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Yoy could join Brad Pitt’s group that did the work down in New Orleans. Oh yeah, those houses are falling apart too! Maybe the work doesn’t get done correctly or maybe the future home owners don’t respect the gift enough to maintain it. Or maybe they just can’t afford to maintain. I’ve never seen ther things work out long term, but there must be some small successes somewhere. They probably just don’t make the news.
 
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If you want to see REALLY good renovations, check out Baptist Men's groups. These are all tradesmen who volunteer to lose money from their businesses and go to disaster areas to help the really critical rebuilds. They are awesome. They are also not into all the glitz and "see how good we are" stuff you see with a lot of public charities. I am not a Baptist, but this is a good crowd. There are women too involved with these, as food donation and prep is a big part of disaster relief. Good people

https://www.facebook.com/ncmissionsdisasterrelief

A buddy lost his trailer in a tornado. The Baptist Men built him a house for cost. He said they were wonderful to work with. The rest of the charities and FEMA, not so much.

I heard an interview a while back about these volunteerism tours to 3rd world countries. They did not allow the volunteers on site before 10-11 am. It was because they had locals coming in, tearing down what they had built, and re building it.
 
Yoy could join Brad Pitt’s group that did the work down in New Orleans. Oh yeah, those houses are falling apart too! Maybe the work doesn’t get done correctly or maybe the future home owners don’t respect the gift enough to maintain it. Or maybe they just can’t afford to maintain. I’ve never seen ther things work out long term, but there must be some small successes somewhere. They probably just don’t make the news.

Often times it is the "not able to maintain it" angle from what I have seen. I saw a lot of "repairs" in the Gulf after Katrina that weren't really storm related. They >may< have been storm exacerbated. Reminds me of my wife...I love the woman, but she >CANNOT< take care of an automobile. I always end up going in every few months and shoveling stuff out of it to try to get it tolerable. If someone surprised her with a brand new car, I would be happy on the surface, but inside I would be looking at how darn hard it is going to be to clean out.
 
Agreed. I believe that's the case for a lot of people who shouldn't be in homeowner rolls now days. Not everyone is meant to own a home, but the government pushes that lie in an attempt to get them to buy into a market that they cannot sustain and in hopes that once they "own" something, they'll change their heathen ways. They'll just keep doing hood rat stuff and default on their loan, all while dragging your property values down with their rotting house.
 
Agreed. I believe that's the case for a lot of people who shouldn't be in homeowner rolls now days. Not everyone is meant to own a home, but the government pushes that lie in an attempt to get them to buy into a market that they cannot sustain and in hopes that once they "own" something, they'll change their heathen ways. They'll just keep doing hood rat stuff and default on their loan, all while dragging your property values down with their rotting house.

It is this that drove the big crash back in the 2007-2008..."Lets make the dream of home ownership a reality for everyone!" Anyone who has owned a home knows that even though there is a sense of pride and "security" with having ones own castle, but nature is always working to destroy and recycle. Houses need constant maintenance and upkeep. So much so that even I sometimes wish I could just move my family back into a big apartment and not worry about lawns, bushes, siding, windows, paint, plumbing, flooring being work out, carpet being messed up, water pipes breaking and so on ad naseum.

So when I saw those people creating those "Extreme Home makeover" I thought they were nice...but every single "special" edition they added on was just one more thing that a family that is already distressed is going to have to maintain.
 
We found out the easy way that our pressure reducing valve was going bad. Installed a new water heater and the over pressure valve kept letting go on specific occasions, coinciding with surges in the faucet or toilet. The home owner across the street wasn't so lucky as his house was older, and less maintained. They went away for a week on holiday and returned to a flooded house.
 
It is amazing how fast a house can go downhill when no one is living in it. The faster ones were already on the edge anyway.
 
It is this that drove the big crash back in the 2007-2008..."Lets make the dream of home ownership a reality for everyone!" Anyone who has owned a home knows that even though there is a sense of pride and "security" with having ones own castle, but nature is always working to destroy and recycle. Houses need constant maintenance and upkeep. So much so that even I sometimes wish I could just move my family back into a big apartment and not worry about lawns, bushes, siding, windows, paint, plumbing, flooring being work out, carpet being messed up, water pipes breaking and so on ad naseum.

So when I saw those people creating those "Extreme Home makeover" I thought they were nice...but every single "special" edition they added on was just one more thing that a family that is already distressed is going to have to maintain.
I agree. I miss renting most days.
 
It is this that drove the big crash back in the 2007-2008..."Lets make the dream of home ownership a reality for everyone!" Anyone who has owned a home knows that even though there is a sense of pride and "security" with having ones own castle, but nature is always working to destroy and recycle. Houses need constant maintenance and upkeep. So much so that even I sometimes wish I could just move my family back into a big apartment and not worry about lawns, bushes, siding, windows, paint, plumbing, flooring being work out, carpet being messed up, water pipes breaking and so on ad naseum.

So when I saw those people creating those "Extreme Home makeover" I thought they were nice...but every single "special" edition they added on was just one more thing that a family that is already distressed is going to have to maintain.
EVERYONE should watch "The Big Short" very little leftist preachiness (except at the end) and a great expose of what a scam the entire lending industry became. I got really into all this, to the point that I took out a second mortgage on my house and bought a truckload of gold and silver back in 2007. I thought "they are going to blow this up, and then print a bunch of dollars to cover it, and then no one will want dollars, the dollar will collapse, and gold and silver will go thru the roof."

Well.... sorta. It did blow up. They did print a bunch of dollars to cover it...., and gold / silver DID take off.... for a while....., but I was wrong about the dollar collapsing. So, the really smart guys were the ones who just shorted the big banking and mortgage stocks, or, if you were a big money guy, bought CDOs on banks. I did short CITIBANK (it went from over 35 a share down to 80 cents) and COUNTRYWIDE (from about 26 down to 5 where it was bought out), but most of my capital was in precious metals. They were the smart guys. I wasn't

I underestimated the power of the financial institutions to run a scam, and the dollar recovered...... for now. I still have my gold and silver (except for the stuff my wife made me sell.... she wasn't real happy to find out what I did), and I am buying more.

When the politicians get into the mortgage markets (I could tell you stories that would curl your ears about Freddie Mac and Countrywide and the Fed.....) it is just a matter of time before they collapse.

I was wrong on timing, but it IS coming.
 
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What does gold and silver taste like? And how far out can it be deadly?

Wondering. For a friend.
 
What does gold and silver taste like? And how far out can it be deadly?

Wondering. For a friend.

Yeah. We will see.
Frankly if the major concern is fighting off zombie hordes, you and I are going to be dead anyway, so I am a bit skeptical of the "you can't eat gold and silver" crowd. Besides, if what I am saying is true, the person with substantial gold and silver can buy a ton of the folks who ran around telling you you could not eat it while fervently stroking their tricked out ARs. Instead, they hire themselves out to someone who has assets and will protect what he has, just like they always have.
 
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Metals are not for end of the world, they're for end of the dollar. I won't bet against the USD but I'll hedge.
 
Metals are not for end of the world, they're for end of the dollar. I won't bet against the USD but I'll hedge.

I've always wondered why people think gold and silver will be valuable if your in the real shtf scenario. Please this is a real question.
 
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