Behind the Scenes on DIY SOS; The Million Pound Build for Children In Need Swansea
In September 2017 it was our great pleasure to work on the latest DIY SOS project to take place in Swansea, this time in aid of Children in Need.
As ever with DIY SOS projects, this one wasn't without its challenges! The task was to build a community centre combined with studio apartments for care leavers – the biggest single building the DIY SOS team had ever attempted. All in aid of The Roots Foundation, a Swansea-based charity led by a team of volunteers who aim to support young people in care, care leavers, children in need, and young adults leaving care who need support with a transition period of independent living.
Dial Carpentry’s Alex helped to construct the timber frame, deck the exterior walkways, helped with 1st and 2nd fix carpentry throughout the building and put the finishing touches to the main kitchen.
Read on to find out if Alex met Pudsey…
I arrived on the site behind Bungie’s Gym bright and early on the 6th September and joined in with the 40 or so other carpenters that had volunteered to help get the project off the ground. Fforest Timber had provided the timber frame for the structure along with a team of all of their fitters.
The scale of the building meant it should've taken around 3 weeks to construct, if this were any ordinary project. After a brief meeting with Pudsey and the DIY SOS crew we got underway putting up all the walls in around 4 hours. This is when we had our first lunch break and discovered that we were going to be well looked after by the catering team!
By the afternoon of day 1 we were already working on the roofing joists – an amazing achievement given the size of the building. This is when we came across our first challenge – working out the correct placement for the many different types of joists from a colour coded plan… provided to us in black and white.
The joists did have numbers on them which helped a bit, but finding a specific number from the huge pile of joists was like a massive game of pick up sticks. Making the most of the good weather we cracked on until around 7.30 when dusk fell; we had to leave the site by 8pm. Inevitably this curfew didn’t last long.
Luckily the weather held off for us on the second day and we were able to put the remainder of the roof joists in place and finish off cladding the roof! Not a bad start!
Unfortunately, that was the last of the good weather, with almost constant rain for the rest of the project, to say that waterlogging was a challenge is an understatement!
The heavens opened overnight so when I arrived on the 3rd day the site was completely flooded – including the inside of the building as the roof wasn't watertight yet.
The concrete slab was covered in at least 2 inches of water – we’d planned to lay a floating floor that day, but not one that was actually floating! So our second challenge; how to get all the water out? [The slab is the base of the structure which everything else to do with the building sits on, including the floor].
A spirited debate followed about how we were going to get the water out – there was an 8-inch upstand around the edge of the slab so we couldn’t simply brush it out of the doorways. Eventually it became clear that we had no choice but to hack into the concrete slab so that we could fit a sump pump. With power tools a no-go this was no easy task - fair play to Ed who managed it with a battery powered hammer drill. We then realised that the pump we had on site just wasn’t going to cut it so Mark Miller from DIY SOS called in a little bit of help from the friendly local fire brigade.
This photo shows the result after we’d gotten rid of most of the water. I didn’t get a chance to photograph the full extent of the flooding as I was too busy brushing the water out of the way of Ed's hammer drill so he could see what he was doing.
Day three was also the day that a lot of the other trades turned up, it was great to see so many people wanting to help. Although, with so many ‘hands on deck’ it was quite hard to move around and actually get the work done, not to mention timing a visit to the tea tent just right so that we could get a hot drink while the hot water was still available.
The rest of the day was taken up with fixing noggins in the appropriate places so that Billy and his sparks could get the 1st fix electrical wiring completed. This presented a new and interesting challenge – working out which markings to work to. With so many different electricians on site, all with different ways of working, the marks that had been placed on the studs all varied in height. Some accounted for where the finished floor height would be, some didn’t.
Not wanting to end up with socket points and switches at all different heights around the building, I went and found Billy who introduced me to James, the lead spark. We agreed which were the correct heights, and which markings were missing so that I and some of the other chippies could get the studs ready for them.
After day three I was called away to a family event so missed seeing the plaster boarding, plastering and first coats of paint go on over the weekend. It’s amazing how much progress can be made in just two days when you’ve got a large team of very motivated volunteers!
When I returned to the site on day 7 the rain was still coming down, continuing to give the gardeners and everyone working outside that extra challenge. Had the cladding arrived on day 4 when it was scheduled, the work might have progressed a bit quicker, as it was it arrived on day 7 which, combined with the terrible weather, meant that everything was starting to go a bit off plan! The notion of an 8pm finish was now becoming a thing of the past as the whole team struggled to get the project back on track.
In the second week I mostly worked on the project in the evenings when the site was that little bit quieter and it was easier to move around. But as the week drew to a close more and more people started to stay late to get the job done. Over the last few days the carpentry team finished off all of the internal 2nd fix carpentry – putting in all of the skirting boards, architraves and doors.
The final push
By day 10 it was mostly external carpentry that was needed - and still the rain came down. I don't think I've every worked in quite such terrible conditions than on the night of day 10. Steve from Compass Carpentry and I worked to build the framework for the decking in the dusk and the pouring rain late into Friday night. Lifting up 4.5m lengths of wet 6x6 into the chop saw, while also trying to protect the chop saw from the rain was…. Interesting
Day 11, the final day started early but even though it was a Saturday and some guys had been there for 11 days straight, there was still a really good turn out as we battled the elements and tried to get everything finished off ready to hand over to The Roots Foundation.
To my surprise one of the first tasks I worked on was to finish off the main kitchen. Walking through the site in the morning Mark Miller suddenly called out that it hadn’t been finished off, I’m not quite sure how this had been missed but it made a nice change to be back inside in the dry and fixing doors, handles and kick plates. Kitchen fitting is one of my favourite things to do, so it was nice that I was able to work on this aspect of the project.
The rest of the day was spent back outside building and decking pathways and steps and constructing hand rails. This work didn’t finish until the early hours of the morning, but I was spurred along by Mark Smith from MJS Roofing who’d travelled from the Rhondda each day and who helped keep morale high in the dwindling light and terrible conditions. I eventually ran out of steam at around midnight so had to call it a day.
All in all, despite the 12+ hour days, late finishes and terrible weather conditions, I would join a DIY SOS project again in a heartbeat. I met some great guys and girls from all walks of life, some had even travelled from as far away as Scotland just to be there and we had a good if not exhausting time working together for a very good cause. When we all turned up on the Sunday morning for the hand-over presentation to the volunteers and children from the Roots Foundation and saw the looks on their faces it was fantastic and made it all worthwhile and fittingly, the sun finally came out!
For more photos of the DIYS SOS Big Build for Children in Need visit our Facebook page.