I did some googling, but couldn’t find an answer with substance to it.
Like, it’s hard enough to find a decent contractor for your home, and many people have stories of things being done incorrectly or discovering that some part of their professionally built home was problematic. I’m struggling to understand how good quality homes get built by volunteers who aren’t even required to have construction experience.
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Typically people only volunteer for things they’re passionate about. When people are passionate about an issue and in participate in it’s solution, they tend to do a much better job. There is also no financial incentive to go quickly and cut corners, as there is no money involved.
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I’ve worked on two habitat houses.
In my experience there were varying skill levels when it came to carpentry skills. However, most people can be very helpful with a good leader pointing which way to go.
Because it’s not for profit there is less corner cutting. Building a house is not that hard, it’s hard work but each piece is simple and teaching some one to frame a wall would take a day or two.
The reason for bad construction jobs isn’t because of the lack of skills of workers.
Its because the contractor has skills in cutting corners.
Also, people volunteering are not laying down plumbing or connecting electrical boxes alone. They are working under supervision.
My father volunteered and was a project manager for hfh. He taught at the local trade school, so he had access to students to do electrical, plumbing and drywall tasks during the week. On the weekends, the “public” volunteers came and did basic work like pre painting siding, moving materials and other “grunt” work.
Some workers just knew how to swing hammers, whereas he would measure and send the numbers to the cutting team. It helped that the houses he was working on were post and pier construction and single story. I think the houses were smaller two or three bedroom houses with standard plans, not huge 20 bedroom custom mansions.
A friend of mine has been a volunteer for years. She does it because she learns a lot about construction that she can apply to her own home. As she learns, she becomes more skilled and can then do more skilled tasks at the next Habitats for Humanity project.
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