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By Raleigh Perry
BUFORD, Ga. | Some sources list 10,000 and others say 20,000 structures have burned to the ground in the California wildfires. They will need to be rebuilt.
Perry
You are not going to find a carpenter in an Armani suit with Allen Edmonds shoes and a Rolex going to Lowes, Home Depot or Menards to buy a claw hammer to do this work. Even if someone did, he would not know what weight of hammer was needed for different jobs. Hammers come in weights and you do not want to use a 10 ounce hammer to frame a house.
I watched a neighbor build a shed with a 10 ounce hammer. He hit a ten penny nail about a zillion times to nail it down. I went to the house and got my 22 ounce hammer and knocked one in with two whacks.
You are also going to need a circular saw, but what kind (not brand) do you need to build a house? If you just want a board shortener, you can get one for $50, but if you need a framing saw, you are going to spend more. You gain some muscle to use that one, since they are heavy. You have to have the tools and the knowledge to build even a shed. To do it right, how far apart will you put the studs?
So you finally get the basic structure in and you move inside to hang the sheet rock, mud it, let that dry and then sand it. I have done that before and would rather face a firing squad than to do it again.
So there are a lot of elements that have to be in place to build a house. You are not going to get instructions from PEOPLE magazine. You need a person who knows how to do all of that and more. There are, of course, Handy Andys that can do that, but you will pay out the nose.
I called Angi’s List to put a new gate in my fence and they sent a man without enough tools or knowhow. He did not even have a level, and his saw was from Big Lots. I had to show him how to make the gates and, believe it or not, at age 80, I did most of the whole thing. But Angie wanted to charge me even though they sent an incompetent.
The truth of the matter is that there are precious few people to do the odd jobs and do it right anymore. The work is demeaning for most of the people in the U.S. When is the last time that you saw a man painting his own house? He would rather pay a substantial amount for a crew to do it and you must keep an eye on them.
My point is that we need a vast labor pool to take care of the massive amount of work that needs to be done. And that is talking about here. California needs a boatload of craftsmen to rebuild the many homes needed there. It’ll take a long time.
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