Buckland Construction Lessons

I'll admit, as friends have also pointed out, that most of my arctic trials and their subsequent posts have been about bathroom issues. Oh how I led such a charmed life down states*. Having an abundance of indoor plumbing at every rest stop, restaurant, house and public scene, divorces you from the need to plan your... Ok I need to get off that topic.

So Buckland.

 

Its day 18 for me here, day 35 for the project, and things are going swimmingly*

** CCHRC Lead Instructor Mike says I should point out that its not literally going swimmingly… yet. You see, where our accommodations are located is a low point in the area, which is in a village that guarantees one flood per year. During break up, ice jams up in a bend of the adjacent river, and these ice pieces - which can be as thick as 8ft and longer than 40ft (think frozen, drifting semi trucks) - effectively create a dam that leads to flood waters spilling into the adjacent lands. Enter our "work camp". As I mentioned it's low to the ground, and each day that the sun comes out more water from the neighboring yards melt and flow towards our home. Luckily for us right now it's creating a moat, but when the real flood comes… we may be swimming. Phew. Sorry that was a long detour **

At current:

The gravel foundation pad is in place. The Integrated house trusses are up. The windows have been installed. The metal siding is on and just a few short days ago we sprayed the insulation (think expanding foam in a can, but on a 55-gallon house-scale).

It was on the second and final day of my volunteered assistance to the spray foam tech that I learned a very valuable lesson about a very specific piece of clothing.

But please forgive me as I digress once more. The most important lesson I learned when I moved to Alaska is that thermal comfort is not only the key to survival it's the key to happiness.  Decide to go for a stroll on a -50 night after a few drinks and they'll find you with the other whiskey-sicles in the spring when the snow berms melt; it will have been peaceful, you just curled up in the downy white for a nap - a smile on your face and a fire in your belly. But try to go to the start of the Yukon Quest dogsled race in January in running shoes, and your friends will murder you to stop the complaining before your toes actually fall off. Wear the wrong coat on a bike-into-work-day and you'll spend the first 2 hours of your work day scouring the internet in order to assure yourself that exposing your crotch to an unbearable itching cold will not result in certain pieces falling off.  Or lately, trying to gauge what boot-liner-sock combination is appropriate for the job site? Too hot and you sweat resulting in trench foot (do a google image search of that one…), too cold and you'll spend most of you morning doing a sort or hopping, baby-steps walk to get the blood flowing.

Too much digression. The fact is: Garb is important here. Know its limitations and abilities.

Back to the learning experience.

A Tyvek Suit. Is anyone familiar with this particular article (well onesie really) of clothing? Imagine hazmat suits, ala Outbreak or Contagion. Step in, zip up. So for two days, 8-10 hours each, I wore one of these suits. The spray foam application process is a fairly caustic one. The foam is really a two-part mix, like an epoxy. The two liquids meet in the gun nozzle and compressed air sprays it against the wall. Here a chemical reaction is taking place with the atmosphere - the foam curing at temperatures in excess of 150 degrees. The fumes in addition to the stickiness of the foam result in the necessity for a Tyvek onesie, gloves, breather mask etc.

 

Because I harbor deep respect for the people doing this work, and would not wish the learning cure I went through on anyone, I will proceed to give away my lessons learned. They are as follows.

Things you CANNOT do in a full Hazmat suit:

1 Laugh. The mask will come up off your cheeks and you'll start breathing the brain-cell-killing fumes. Nothing is allowed to be funny here. Not even your stay-puft-marshmallow-man-moon-walk out to the CONEX to pickup a new pair of gloves.

2 Cry. Sprayin' foam isn't for sissies. No crying about that really tragic This American Life podcast you listened to about Harper High School in Chicago. Those tears will hit the front of your mask and freeze. Not being able to see is bad.

No crying in Hazmat

                                        

3 Use a rotogrinder with a wire wheel. Yeah I know this is specific, but those little wires want to make sweet love to the fibers of your XXL Tyvek onesie. And once they start mingling, you'll be stripped and have to spend the next hour picking your suit out of the bristles.

4 Eat Eggs. God, I cant emphasize this enough. If you eat eggs you'll break lesson 1 right away. Moving around in your suit will subsequently cause you to break lesson 2. As if the smell isn't bad enough by its lonesome, something about the methane particles LOVES the off gassing from the spray foam and the molecules combine in ecstasy to make a new scent that thankfully does not melt your suit off, as you'd expect it to. Picturing this makes you break Lesson 1, then 2 and the cycle repeats.

Enough of the negative lets look at the things you CAN do while wearing a Tyvek onesie/Hazmat suit:

0 Paint and not get stuff on your clothes. this is what the label basically says anyway…

1 Get to the front of the bathroom line at the City Office in Buckland. People see you coming from a mile away and don't want to even know why you need to go into the bathroom.

2 Get noticed. Something about the excessive fabric makes even the slightest clogging steps turn heads.

3 Do daring things. We all had our favorite childhood costumes. That special combination of elements that made us climb tall trees, jump gorges on our tricycles, or try to pull the cookies out of the high shelf; my suit happened to be a diaper, superman cape and cowboy boots - you know, the usual.

3a Be a ninja. It's not everyday that you're presented with a giant jungle gym. A jungle gym that you helped build. A jungle gym that you helped build, and that is begging to be explored.

It is in the ways of a ninja that you fully find your center of understanding, and that you realize the abilities, rather than limitations, of yourself; any 3-year old in a superman cape knows this.

*Down States is Village for L48 with is Alaskan for The first 48 states, which happen to be lower (but not necessarily lesser, as one cousin insists I point out)